While The Boys has already been a bit wobbly for the past couple seasons, here in season 5, it does not feel like the series is about to stick the landing with just a single hour left to resolve all its conflicts. Namely, everyone versus Homelander. It’s the end of an uneven season that seems unlikely to satisfy fans, based on what’s unfolded in the previous seven episodes now.
What’s gone wrong? Despite a few standout moments (honestly, the best one of the season was the conversation between The Legend and Homelander), there have been so, so many storyline misses in The Boys season 5. Among them:
The Virus Storyline – Practically this entire season, not to mention most of the entire series of Gen V, was devoted to the idea that there could be a supe-killing virus strong enough to kill Homelander, though risking genocide across all supes. That seems to have all been for nothing now that Homelander got his hands on V1 in episode 6, inoculating him, and now The Boys have had to pivot at the last minute to an alternate plan, and it seems like the virus won’t factor into the finale at all after all that.
The V1 and Vought Rising – Again, most of this season was a race between the virus being finished and Homelander getting the V1, but this storyline focused heavily on characters that will be appearing in the upcoming Vought Rising prequel spinoff, including de-icing Soldier Boy for most of the season, have him outshine everyone else, then put him back in the fridge, literally, this past episode. It’s been a combination of “well that was an annoying ad” and “what was the point of that anyway?” This past week it didn’t seem like the V1 had even made Homelander stronger, it just seems to be a virus vaccine.
The Boys Sidelined – The actual Boys have taken a backseat to almost everyone else this season, especially now that the virus storyline was seemingly pointless. This has been especially true for Hughie, who has become one of the least important or interesting characters in the show, despite previously leading it. Starlight, too, has been done dirty, waiting for five years for her moment in the sun (no pun intended) that has never come, and this past week, given a much-hated sequence where she dismissed Gen V’s Marie Moreau and her powers, powers that are roughly 1000x more powerful and useful than hers. If Marie had joined up with the gang she quite literally could have saved Frenchie this past episode.
Sister Sage – Man, this character has been awful. No reflection on her actress, Susan Heyward, but The Boys attempting to write the smartest woman in the world has been an exercise in botched plans and futility. Then, at the last second, she goes “oh yeah sure,” and seemingly gives Kimiko Soldier Boys’ power-erasing blast in a few minutes, an idea she should have thought of herself in the first place. With the way she’s been used, she didn’t need to exist at all.
Kimiko – God, she was butchered. Her storyline of recovery, love, and regaining the ability to speak has been compelling across seasons now, and then they suddenly make her comedic relief and have her talk like a TikTok influencer, a total personality change. Mercifully, that was not the case this past episode as she played a great role and had a very emotional sequence with a dying Frenchie. And it appears she could now be the key to defeating Homelander. But man, what did they do to her this season?
Homelander as God – I am not opposed to the idea of the final form of Homelander delusion being the idea that he thinks he’s god. The problem is how this is executed with Righteous Gemstones megachurch performances, focus groups for promo videos and a messiah-branded theme park. This was the season where Homelander was supposed to at his most scary and dangerous, and he’s walking around in total delusion, looking like a huge loser, discovering everyone else also thinks he’s a huge loser through mind-reading. Is he a pathetic loser? Sure. But I do not want the final season to about pathetic loser. I want a very scary mad god. The point of this storyline shouldn’t be him trying to convince America he’s god in the first place. Because of how goofy this has been, and an actual terrifying moment like him exploding the president’s head, doesn’t even land.
The Stakes – This is one of the biggest issues with the entire season, and as a result, the entire show. This season was promoted with a poster of Homelander in space, watching over a nuclear-devastated Earth. There’s absolutely nothing like that here in the actual show. The stakes feel impossibly low with most of the impact of this storyline shown through TV news clips, and in the final season of a superhero show, perilously few actual superhero fight scenes (see Deep “versus” Black Noir). I suppose we can assume there will actually be one in the finale, but this season has just felt so…small.
I don’t know how they wrap this up well in an hour.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.