This article contains major spoilers for The Boys.
After a seven-year run, The Boys has finally come to an end, and unfortunately, it was not, in fact, the epic scorched earth conclusion fans might have been hoping for. On the contrary, the finale ended up being more of a whimper than a bang, with Seasons 4 and 5 feeling more like filler than anything else, and built-up promises that ultimately amounted to nothing. All problems which, in my view, could’ve maybe been circumvented had the showrunners been more daring with Homelander’s character arc. With how brilliant Antony Starr’s performance is, though, I understand it’s hard to resist the temptation to keep letting him do his thing.
Putting aside the fact that most of Season 5 was spent setting up Vought Rising and its main players, there’s no getting around the fact that the finale we got here was essentially the same as Season 3’s finale, had Soldier Boy actually chest lasered Homelander to depower him. Season 3 had a fantastic season-long buildup with Soldier Boy working against Homelander, priming him to take away his powers by the end. Season 3, on the other hand, essentially retreads the same ground except instead of Soldier Boy doing the deed, he inexplicably gets choked out by Homelander while Kimiko inherits his chest laser to do the exact same thing.
The problem, of course, is that we’ve essentially spent the entire season (and two seasons of Gen V, let’s not forget that) working on the supe-killing virus, only for it to not matter in the end. The finale ends up feeling incredibly rushed, mashing Ashley’s mutiny, the deaths of Oh Father and The Deep, and Homelander’s takedown all within the span of 15 minutes. I can’t help but wonder if the show would’ve gone on a more interesting trajectory had Homelander gotten depowered back in Season 3 instead. What would the rest of the story look like? Perhaps The Boys could’ve explored a post-Homelander world and the realization that Homelander himself was never the root problem; Vought would always be able to find some sort of superpowered evil replacement for him.
The show couldn’t possibly have gone down this road, though. Not if Amazon still wanted Starr to continue his iconic performance as Homelander. The result is a villain who no longer feels threatening or terrifying. Instead, in letting Homelander’s arc drag on like this, the show is forced to examine his descent into madness more closely, resulting in more than just a few cringe-worthy scenes involving breasts, milk, Jesus hallucinations, and a combination of all those things.
Starr has continued to be excellent in this role of course, as a deft expert at micro-expressions and facial acting. We even see hints of the original terrifying Homelander in Frenchie’s death scene, where he’s able to react instantaneously to the quietest sounds. The best acting in the world can’t save The Boys from its inherently flawed script, however, as he’s doomed to become a joke of a character the more we see his insane and deranged obsessions. It certainly doesn’t help that, for whatever reason, the final showdown takes place solely in the Oval Office and the main players never even leave the room. The whole affair is over within minutes, and even if it was satisfying to see Starr play a powerless and pathetic Homelander, it’s not quite enough to make viewers forget the wheel spinning of Seasons 4 and 5.
Look, I get it. If I got to work with an actor as great as Starr, and in a role that’s become synonymous with the entire show, I’d have a pretty hard time letting go of him too. Still, if you look back at Season 1, you’ll quickly realize that Hughie, Butcher, and the Boys themselves were always meant to be the real stars of the show, no pun intended. The gang’s ingenuity in coming up with a plan to kill Translucent still feels more weighty and satisfying than Homelander’s death, and it’s a great demonstration of how entertaining the show can be when it’s not just focused on a single character.
Since the end of Season 3, the show has been content to let Homelander (with Butcher as a close second) take center stage because that’s what sells it to audiences. But at what cost? Every other character becomes a caricature of themselves, with character arcs stalling or making no sense by the end, resulting in a finale that feels deeply unsatisfying and hollow.
Just as Homelander’s only weakness is his emotional attachment to other people and the need for their validation, The Boys‘ true weakness was its attachment to Starr himself and the inability to let his character arc go where it needed to logically go. Sometimes, the things we love really are the ones that hurt the most, too.
The Boys is now available for streaming on Prime.
