The Boys – Season 5 continues the journey of Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), Annie (Erin Moriarty), also known as Starlight, Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), and Frenchie (Tomer Capone), collectively known as The Boys, as they find ways to defeat a stronger and more demented Homelander (Anthony Starr).
Let’s do a quick recap of Season 4.
In the world of The Boys, everything is politically tense. The people in America are separated by two factions: the Hometeamers (Homelander loyalists) and the Starlighters (Starlight loyalists). Homelander then enlists Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) for her super-intelligent powers to get the upper hand. Her plan is to strategically portray Starlighters as uncivilized and savage. But because of Homelander’s impatience and constant intervening, what should just be suppression turns into oppression.
As for The Boys, they are concocting a supe-killing virus. The problem is that the virus could easily become a pandemic, so that means they might cause genocide by simply using it. There’s debate over whether this is right or wrong because Annie and Kimiko are superpowered. It wasn’t very long before everything went haywire for them; they were all caught by Homelander and put in an internment camp, except for Butcher, who escaped with a finished version of the virus.
In Season 5, The Boys are rounded up by Butcher again with the help of some friends. They get back to where they left off and must now enact their original plan to end Homelander’s reign once and for all. If they wait even a minute longer, he might get a hold of a chemical substance called V1, an antidote to the toxin they have right now.
As for Homelander, he’s having problems building a relationship with his “father,” Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). Their situation is kind of messed up in a lot of ways, but Soldier Boy ends up lending Homelander a hand to find the V1 that will make him both immune to the virus and immortal.
Also, it is worth mentioning that Homelander is basically the president of the United States of America now. A cruel fascist, if I may add. But guess what? His ambition as a tyrant is not enough; he now wants to be a god to be praised and worshipped by the people.
So Homelander appoints the media personality Firecracker (Valorie Curry) and the evangelical superhero Oh Father (Daveed Diggs) to help him spread the word of his newfound calling. The now vice president of the USA, Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), must also influence the political side of things to make Homelander’s vision work.
To put it in a nutshell, time is of the essence for everyone. Failure is not an option — because right now, it’s kill or be killed. This is no longer just a battle; it’s a war. The final and diabolical chess match between superheroes and anti-heroes begins.
First of all, there will be spoilers in this review.
Underwhelming. If you are looking for a word to describe Eric Kripke’s big series finale on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s very subversive comic book of the same name, it’s underwhelming.
Honestly, it is puzzling how it stumbled so badly at the finish line. It had every advantage imaginable: a revered source material that already laid out everything up to the endgame, an almost flawless cast headlined by Anthony Starr, Karl Urban, and Jack Quaid, and the virtually limitless resources of Amazon. I will admit that it’s a grueling crawl getting to Season 4 because the story starts to rinse and repeat plots, but there are a lot of hints of betrayal, mayhem, and everything in between, and we are excited to see it all happen. Alas, all we got in the end was a bland, uninspired, and frustratingly mediocre 8-episode season.
At the very least, a series finale should feel like a spectacle. We all knew it would be the Earth-scorching face-off between Homelander and Butcher. Both have very valid reasons to kill each other. But even with that and the fact that they both have superpowers and are already devoid of any soul or heart that would make them hold back, what we got was akin to two drunk guys fighting in a bar. Yeah, the decisive fight is a bar brawl.
Simply put, it’s anticlimactic. It’s just them throwing each other on the floor, on the table, and on the couch. It’s as if the showrunners instantly ran out of budget or the writers suddenly forgot to write an epic conclusion after all the buildup surrounding the rivalry between the two unhinged lunatics. For a show that owes its characters’ journey a fiery end, this looks like them throwing in the towel.
In addition to all these were plots and subplots that headed nowhere. One example is Homelander’s search for Gen V1 was meaningless after all. If you are reading this review then you know that the series quickly forgot about it after the huge plot twist in Episode 6. In my opinion, they should’ve immediately closed that storyline around episodes 2 or 3 so they could focus more on Butcher and the gang’s plan B. There are plenty more worth mentioning here such as Soldier Boy’s revival then immediate removal, Gen V’s Guardians of Godolkin appearance then immediate removal, and Sister Sage’s misuse then immediate removal.
I still haven’t mentioned the character arcs that are wrapped up in a discourteous way. After all the blood, sweat, tears, and trauma, the series decided that the big conclusion to Hughie, Annie, Kimiko, and MM’s bloodsoaked journey is a montage. It’s a happy montage, but the point of summarizing everything in ten minutes undermines the five seasons all of these characters went through and dilutes the impact they had on the show. I wish I could say that I got closure, but what all this means to me is just poor planning, lazy storytelling, and a complete failure to deliver on its promises.
With all this said, it is kind of very fitting that the last thing The Boys will show you are the images of the cast and crew with their middle finger. It’s probably a homage to Butcher and his anti-authority personality, but I like to think that it is also about three things: (1) It’s for the Homelander of the real world, Amazon. (2) They know this series finale will suck, but screw us anyway. And (3) It’s the creative team’s one last ‘fuck you’ before they walked away from a show that deserved better.
1.5/5
Now streaming on Amazon Prime.