Entertainment
The Boys Finale Fizzles, Revealing The Limits Of Superhero Satire
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
After five seasons of ups and downs, The Boys came to an appropriately brutal and bloody series finale. It delivers on certain fan expectations, including the inevitable final showdown between Homelander and Butcher. However, the whole thing feels like the writers are just going through the motions and speeding to a conclusion that feels way too rushed. It’s a paradox, really. Given the not-so-shocking (at least, if you’ve read the comics) third-act twist, it seems like the final season would have benefited from another episode. At the same time, it’s fair to say that another episode, like the episodes before it, would have been mostly wasted setting up the next spinoff.
It’s the final irony for The Boys, which has always been at its best taking the piss out of Marvel and DC’s superhero movies. While showrunner Eric Kripke and his team achieved success by deconstructing these more famous heroes, they eventually ran into the same problem that is plaguing Marvel and ultimately ruined the DCEU. Namely, the need to rush in and create as much spinoff material as possible. In focusing so much on the future, they botched the here and now, giving us a final Boys episode that fails to leap fan expectations in a single bound. Instead, it simply crawls limply across the finish line.
A Bloody Bad Time
The plot of this series finale is largely rote and predictable. After a funeral for Frenchie, it’s revealed that Butcher’s plan B worked. Kimiko can now shoot a blast that removes someone’s superpowers, something she does to a grateful Sage. After that, the team races to the White House to fight Homelander, who is scheduled to address the nation on live television. The bad guys are waiting, though, forcing our heroes to run a gauntlet to reach their final target. The ultimate goal is for Butcher to have one last go at Homelander, and an audience of millions will watch their final confrontation.
Without spoiling the very end (at least, not yet), that’s the gist of the final episode, and some of it is fun. For example, I found the final fight between Starlight and the Deep very satisfying, thanks largely to its horror movie-like ending. Also, the fight between Butcher and Homelander is engaging, thanks largely to its absolutely bonkers ending. Unfortunately, these fights are held back by an unfortunate reality that has plagued the entire final season of The Boys: a serious lack of onscreen budget. The Season 5 premiere had a very exciting set in the form of Camp Liberty. After that, each episode (including, shockingly, the finale) has looked as cheap as a bottle episode.
Nobody’s Really Having A Blast
Whether it’s bad writing, bad budgeting, or a bit of both, Homelander also seemed weirdly restrained this season. Sure, we see him casually kill civilians, including the president and, in this episode, a stand-in for Elon Musk. But he has seemed weirdly inept in his ability to kill the Boys, and never really matches his powers to his godlike ambitions. This season included marketing where Homelander watched a nuclear apocalypse from space, but that never happens, and everything ends with a grimy fight in a cramped White House set. Nerfing their Big Bad like this is just embarrassing, and it makes the Boys’ victories against Homelander that much less impressive.
The result of all of this is an episode that’s just, well, okay. It’s not the worst episode of The Boys, and it’s hardly the worst series finale ever made. But it fails to deliver on many of its promises (seriously, not a single scene of Homelander going crazy and lasering people en masse?), and this last episode will leave you screaming at your TV. You’ll mostly scream at Homelander: “Why did you not laser off Kimiko’s head as soon as she walked in? Why are you having trouble fighting Butcher’s hentai tentacles? Why do you seem weaker with the V1 than without it?” Don’t worry, though. You’ll keep screaming long after the fight is over.
Oy! Here Come The Spoilers!
Now, spoilers from here on, mates, so you’ve been warned. After Kimiko successfully de-powers Homelander, Butcher, and Ryan, we see Butcher abuse and ultimately kill Homelander. It’s pretty pathetic to watch, with Homelander begging to do anything to save his life. It doesn’t work, though, and Butcher opens his brain up on live television. Happy ending, right? Wrong. After his dog dies and Ryan refuses to reconcile with him, Butcher returns to his original plan: unleashing a virus that will kill every supe. That includes Starlight, so Hughie predictably shows up to stop his mentor. Butcher fights back and dies after Hughie repeatedly shoots him.
On paper, this is meant to be a very moving scene of The Boys. Butcher is so driven by rage that he can’t even enjoy his victory over Homelander and must move on to the next atrocity. Hughie, meanwhile, is forced to confront the mentor he respects in order to save the woman he loves. Sadly, none of this really feels earned. We haven’t really gotten much of “far beyond redemption” Butcher this season, so his heel turn feels more like a 180 than a natural payoff. We also haven’t gotten much substantial Butcher/Hughie bonding in a long time, effectively robbing this scene of its possible emotional weight.
The Writers Never Saw The Light
In a nutshell, that’s the problem with The Boys’ last couple of seasons: there is no weight to pretty much anything. The show still has the over-the-top fights and gross-out moments the franchise is famous for, but every character has become a Flanderized parody of themselves. Meanwhile, while The Boys achieved success early on as a parody of superhero franchises like the MCU, it eventually succumbed to the need to chase money through endless spinoffs. One of those spinoffs already failed, and the setup for the next one arguably ruined this past season.
Gen V was canceled after two seasons, effectively nullifying the plots and characters that it tried to set up. Some of those characters popped up in The Boys and were given so little to do that it was downright insulting to fans of that plucky spinoff. Meanwhile, Soldier Boy was brought back and dominated most of this last season before being frozen again to set up the upcoming spinoff, Vought Rising. Endless spinoffs? Storylines that never pay off? Screwing over a current project just to set up the next one? Congrats, The Boys, you’re not making fun of Marvel anymore. Instead, you’ve become Marvel in all the worst possible ways.
Ironically, that will be the real lasting failure of this final episode. As an episode unto itself, the series finale is merely average. But as the payoff to five seasons of storytelling, it’s a massive disappointment. Meanwhile, nobody is as disappointed as Gen V fans who watched their favorite show turn into nothing more than a commercial for The Boys, which itself is now just a commercial for Vought Rising. Unfortunately, Eric Kripke doesn’t seem to realize that you can only poison the well so often before people stop drinking. If this is the best ending he can give to his only successful show, then why the hell would anyone watch anything he makes, ever again?
THE BOYS SERIES FINALE SCORE
All five seasons of The Boys are streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.