After five seasons, Prime’s controversial and popular superhero series, The Boys, has come to an end. It’s no real secret that fans and critics went a bit sour on the fourth season of the show, so much so that one of the show’s actors promised that this season would serve as a course correction and would make the previous season make more sense. Now that the show has concluded, have those promises been fulfilled? Spoilers ahead. sc
To answer the previous question, I would say that the fifth season is overall an improvement over the fourth season. That said, it’s still a far cry from the first three seasons of the show. The biggest issue that plagued the fifth season of The Boys was that it felt meandering and lacked any sort of urgency in the first half. Most of the season revolves around the looming threat of Homelander trying to become invincible via V1, the original superhero serum that was supposedly all destroyed. Homelander is already pretty unhinged, so when you combine that desire for immortality with him convinced he’s now a god incarnate, the stakes should have felt very urgent. It kind of reminded me of Game of Thrones’ final season, in that we should have had a lot more time with Daenerys on the throne, but the season rushed through that arc. We should have had the rule of Homelander for much more of this season, I feel, had the regular people really gotten impacted by this one person, but it just didn’t. The image at the top of this article shows Homelander looking down at a scorched earth, but nothing like this ever happens in the show. The show trotted along at a glacial pace and without a great sense of urgency for most of its runtime. There were also weird jumps in the edit, such as when Homelander gets V1 at the end of one episode, only to open the following week in the Oval Office. Very jarring. Speaking of the edits, too, I noticed during action scenes, particularly during the final showdown between Butcher and Homelander, there was an egregious amount of cutting. Every hit resulted in a cut, and it felt very messy. The introduction of characters from Gen V also felt a bit unceremonious.
The fifth season, much like the previous, wasn’t exactly subtle with its politics, to the point where sometimes it did feel like it was going out of its way to be a political satire instead of focusing on its own story. There’s a difference between satire and caricature, and I feel The Boys leaned a bit too much into caricature, such as a billionaire space bro who gets tossed into space that ultimately added nothing to the story apart from wanting to toss an Elon stand-in thrown into the statosphere. It ultimately felt like a cheap laugh, instead of having anything meaningful to say about present-day politics. Make no mistake, I have no problem with criticizing and satirizing in general, I just want a bit more than a cheap laugh, and I feel it went for that more. Ditto can be said for the dialogue, which often felt like it was trying too hard to be edgy, but felt like a twelve-year-old learning new ways to swear. But when the satire does work, it works well and feels topical, and the dialogue in general helped make the characters fleshed out and worth caring about.
The finale was also a satisfying ending to the show. Many finales drop the ball in terms of not delivering on expected promises, but The Boys gave us what we wanted. Homelander was finally defeated after losing his powers, left to become a snivelling weasel begging not to be killed. Of course, Butcher isn’t exactly a Saint and his death was also expected, but despite all his ‘orrible antics, we still feel a sense of sadness at being Billy go. The Deep getting fed to the creatures of the ocean was also wildly amusing and cathartic, and him getting threatened by a hammerhead shark voiced by Samuel L. Jackson earlier in the season was a highlight. I even felt some regret at seeing A-Train get it in the season opener, thanks to his slow redemption arc over the years. There were also genuine stakes, with heroes and villains both getting killed off throughout the show. Tragically, Frenchie didn’t make it to the finale, but his sacrifice did help in the end of Homelander. Most of the remaining Seven got killed off, too, except for Sage, who, after losing her powers, walks off to enjoy a normal civilian life. I liked that, despite being a self-proclaimed dumbass now, she’s happy. Soldier Boy remains frozen in statis, making me wonder how, if at all, it will tie into the Vaught Rising prequel show coming next year. Maybe the show will be his cryo dream/memories?
Overall, The Boys season five was a fine sendoff for this ultraviolent superhero satire. It didn’t quite deliver on some of its promises of a scorched earth, and it did feel meandering for most of its runtime, but it was nonetheless an entertaining eight episodes that stuck a good landing. The final few episodes definitely are carrying the season, but fans should be satisfied with this conclusion. Cue the Billy Joel, roll credits.
