The Boys Season 5 TV Review: An epic final run sends the series out on a high note

Plot: In the fifth and final season, it’s Homelander’s world, completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims. Hughie, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie are imprisoned in a “Freedom Camp.” Annie struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it. It’s the climax, people. Big stuff’s gonna happen.

Review: When The Boys debuted in 2018, it was a massive hit with fans thanks to its over-the-top gore and satirical bite, which critiqued the superhero genre and the divisive political climate of the time. Seven years later, the fifth and final season of The Boys comes during an even more tumultuous era with the added triggers of war, AI slop, and intolerance across multiple fronts. Picking up from the fourth season finale that found Homelander (Antony Starr) taking over both Vought and the United States of America, The Boys returns to the biting immediacy that made the first season so beloved. As it finally delivers on the long-awaited showdown between Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Homelander, the payoff fans have been waiting for lives up to the hype. Whether you are a reader of the comic book or have just been watching since the series premiere, The Boys ends with what may be its best season.

Season five opens with the country in a very different place. Homelander has installed a puppet President and cabinet, and has conquered most of his lifelong ambitions, with one remaining: to become a god. Hughie (Jack Quaid), M.M. (Laz Alonso), and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) are stuck in a Vought internment camp while the public who ally with Starlight (Erin Moriarty) are rounded up by patriotic supporters of Homelander. Billy Butcher reassembles those he can trust, including A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), to rescue his friends in a final push to take down the supes running the country into the ground. Across the first seven episodes (the series finale was not included for review), the last season of The Boys pulls no punches in dispatching characters, major and supporting, with abandon. Each episode is chock full of bloody revelations, with no one in the cast safe from one chapter to the next. After three seasons of The Boys keeping major deaths limited to one or two per season, this last run holds nothing back, raising the intensity of where the season goes and making every scene with every character all the more impactful and meaningful.

This series has never shied away from the parallels with the extreme fringes of modern politics, and the parallels to the current administration are thinly veiled. The universe of The Boys started out as a mocking of the current state of superhero cinematic universes and evolved over the seasons into something much larger and darker. This season still takes swipes at Hollywood and genre filmmaking with a decided focus on the challenge of making satisfying finales. The Boys has always had solid season premieres and finales, but this fifth season makes each and every episode hit as hard as those openers and closers from prior years. Every single episode this season boasts multiple memorable moments that will rank among the best the series has seen, including callbacks and connections to prior seasons, the college-set spin-off Gen V, and the upcoming prequel series Vought Rising. The consistency of this season is impressive, with each episode maxing out at close to a full hour and including connections to prior episodes that made me want to go back and rewatch the prior seasons to figure out if the fifth season was in the cards from the outset, as this feels like it was all planned from the start.

Every member of the ensemble gets their due this season, notably Frenchie and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), who get to enjoy shared dialogue rather than sign language. Antony Starr is more terrifying than ever as Homelander’s psychotic master plan becomes even more disturbing as it comes to fruition. Karl Urban’s darker side comes out as Billy Butcher further embraces his deadly abilities, while Jensen Ackles makes Soldier Boy an even more fascinating character, an important development that will factor into fans tuning into Vought Rising. The trailer also teases the anticipated Supernatural reunion between Ackles and Jared Padalecki. I won’t spoil how it fits into the story, but the fifth episode of this season is an all-timer for The Boys, boasting a hilarious, memorable sequence that will rank alongside the infamous Herogasm episode. There are a ton of cameos that have not even been hinted at yet, bringing this season back to the tone and humor that the first season set the stage for.

While developed before the 2024 presidential election, showrunner Eric Kripke and his writing team blend classic dystopian politics from novels like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, modernizing them in a way that feels ripped from the headlines. Watching this season, it felt like these episodes could have been written over the last year, making the fact that they were devised far earlier even scarier. Returning to direct this season are Phil Sgriccia, Karen Gaviola, Shana Stein, Catriona McKenzie, and more, with scripting falling to Paul Grellong, Jessica Chou, Ellie Monahan, Geoff Aull, Judalina Neira, David Reed, and Anslem Richardson. While Eric Kripke did not write any episodes, his overarching plan for The Boys brings this series to a point that many have been waiting years to see. There is a lot to laugh at in these episodes, which abruptly shift into terrifying, shocking moments full of horror and drama, making this season of The Boys the most intense run the series has had yet.

I applaud Eric Kripke and the entire cast and crew of The Boys for wrapping up the series on their terms, as this fifth season is the best we have seen since the show started, going out on a high note. Every episode I have seen keeps viewers in the gut and doesn’t give them time to recover before the next chapter does it again. The Boys won’t win over anyone who aligns with the politics being satirized in this story, while the rest of the viewers will be even more frustrated by how close this season is to reality. The Boys is one of the few shows that can be both entertaining and deliver an important commentary without losing the potency of either. The Boys coming to an end will make some fans sad, but everyone should be excited to see one of the best runs of long-form storytelling in a long time.

The Boys‘ final season premieres with the first two episodes on April 8th, on Prime Video.