The Boys is officially over, and we still aren’t okay after the season five finale. It came with some righteous moments, conflicting losses, and even a couple of questions that still need answers. The universe will continue on with The Boys: Mexico and the prequel series Vought Rising. However, for now, fans are taking time to marinate on the flagship show’s ending. The final season caused a stir among some people who thought that there were too many filler episodes/moments (which we don’t agree with). Others thought the show once again did a great job with building up to the final fight between Homelander and Butcher. So, did The Boys deliver a satisfying finale or not?
That question is very subjective, of course. I’d vote “ mostly yes” in this case, especially from an emotional and character arc standpoint. In many ways, The Boys series finale gave fans the payoffs that they’d been waiting for after five seasons. Homelander not only met his demise, but it came in a very brutal and publicly humiliating fashion at the hands of Butcher. Sure, they could have allowed Homelander to live and suffer for the rest of his life as a sniveling idiot (and perhaps a prisoner). But, after all the blood and pain he caused every single member of the Boys along with so many innocent people, death was truly the only way to go.
And, to be fair, the same went for Butcher, too. While not as vile as Homelander by any means, Butcher was certainly not morally upright. And, at this point in his life, he had very little to live nor hope for. His entire purpose was built around stopping Homelander, and he did that. But, for some people, the thirst of vengeance can never be fully satisfied. Butcher wasn’t going to stop until he killed every supe, including good ones like Annie who still had her powers. Even if he had succeeded, he still would not have found peace. He’d destroyed his relationship with Ryan and lost his dog Terror.
And, with Homelander dead, the Boys mission was complete. The remaining members wanted to just return to a normal life. In many senses, it felt like a world where Butcher no longer belonged. Were things perfect? No. To his credit, there are still bad supes in the world and Vought is still active. But, even if you could kill every supe, terrible forces and people will always exist to exploit the masses. It felt fitting that Butcher and Homelander would both have to die for the world to find some semblance of balance.
We also get rather satisfying endings for the remainder of the Boys crew, with MM returning to his family and taking a now powerless Ryan under his wing. (Do they…actually have an emotional connection? I guess MM is just the most stable option to adopt a teenager.) Kimiko gets to live her life in peace with her dog in France, and Hughie and Annie are ready to welcome a baby. Yes, they are bizarrely naming the child Robin after Hughie’s dead girlfriend, but whatever. It’s the joy and quiet that they deserve after so much blood. Likewise, the Seven and Vought supes/employees mostly get what they deserve, particularly the Deep. His death, which was spurred by Annie, was well-deserved after his mental and sexual abuse of her years prior.
To me, a satisfying ending is one that reflects what would realistically happen in a given universe, even if it doesn’t feel good. The Boys finale delivers that through characters like Stan Edgar, who is able to weasel his way back into leadership at Vought. Comeuppance will not happen for everyone in any world, whether fictional or our reality. Sometimes, bad people get away with s**t. The same can be said for Sage, who helped Homelander rise up to basically control America simply so she could destroy the world.
She does have a chance at redemption this season and predictably chooses to save herself versus face Homelander with the Boys. The questions that are left unturned, like Soldier Boy’s ultimate fate, where Queen Maeve is in the world, and the status of the Gen V characters, leave some delicious threads to parse in future spinoffs. That connective tissue and potential answers is what will keep people invested in a universe without Homelander and Butcher’s rivalry.
The Boys finale didn’t leave us with a buttoned up world. There are still V-powered supes running rampant. There are probably still people who somehow support Homelander and hate Annie/Starlight. That’s totally cool. It shows that we can find our pocket of solace, even if there’s still madness around us. The head of the snake is cut off, Ashley is rightfully rotting in prison, and millions of people are enlightened by the truth. It’s a world that’s in a much better place than we saw it in the very first episode. It had to be completely broken down first, perhaps not as bad as Sage envisioned, but pretty darn close. That’s what it took to shift the dynamics of this America, unfortunately.
But that’s not to say that the series finale didn’t have its puzzling moments. Taking Annie out of the fight with Homelander was a baffling choice considering she was literally once a part of the Seven. Sure, we liked that she got to see the Deep die, but how would she possibly know that the sea creatures would kill him?
The same goes for Oh-Father’s death at the hands of MM, which would have made more sense coming from Ashley directly. And, although the fight with Homelander and Butcher (with assists from Ryan and Kimiko) was intense, it felt a little too contained. Sure, The Boys doesn’t have MCU level monies, but it would have been great to see the fight extend past the Oval Office, even if Homelander dying in there felt fitting.
For all the talk about V1 and how powerful it would make Homelander, he seemed weaker than ever before. Speaking of chemicals, the supe-killing virus played pretty much zero role in anything except to be a catalyst for Hughie to kill Butcher. Knowing how Butcher was about it and how much chaos he caused to have it, you’d think they would have found somewhere to hide it…
Overall, The Boys hit the emotional beats and payoffs that fans wanted. There were a few missteps along the way but it is ultimately a satisfying ending after nearly seven years of supe chaos.