Cat Smith
The following review contains spoilers for The Boys series finale, S5E8, “Blood and Bone” (written by Judalina Neira & David Reed and directed by Philip Sgriccia)
“OH MY GOD MY HEART I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY DID THAT AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH”.
That’s what we’re used to doing after an episode of The Boys, right? Which is one of the reasons we love the show, right? It’s this wild ride that goes too far, walks the line between questionable taste and Oh My God How Did They Get That Past Standards And Practices (which apparently Amazon Prime didn’t even HAVE before The Boys came along), and especially this final season, we knew to expect, well, scorched earth.
Leading up to this last season, everywhere you looked online, you almost had to feel sorry for the writers, because reality kept trying to out-do the show in terms of fucked-uppery. On Instagram, showrunner Eric Kripke said something to the tune of “we’re trying to make satire over here, not a documentary!” I’m sure he thought Homelander deciding he was God was something safe from the actual news headlines…and then the White House and the Vatican became the Jets and the Sharks. Gee Officer Kripke, we’re very upset. So yeah, I don’t know about you, but every episode of the final season left me screaming and appropriately shocked, heart pounding, worried about next week, the whole thing, and then the finale…didn’t. And I’m not actually saying that’s a bad thing, because how do you wrap up something like that?
As a devotee of the comics as well as the show, I had been wondering how they were going to write themselves out of the situation they had written themselves into, which was pretty far away from the climax according to the comics (I shan’t be too spoilery for those of you who haven’t read them if I can help it—you really should do). I thought they did pretty well, considering what they had left themselves to work with, which wasn’t much. The Hughie/Butcher showdown over the virus came from the comic, details notwithstanding. Anytime anyone called him “Wee Hughie,” comics fans rejoiced. Frenchie’s last words to Kimiko…there was no way their ending was going to be book-accurate anyway. He had a big target on his back from the beginning in the name of wrapping up his redemption arc (same as A-Train, of blessed memory), but show-Kimiko is a way more fleshed out character than book-Kimiko, so it’s right that she get a different ending.
Allow me one small gripe—come on, show, did you HAVE to bring back Terror just so you could take him away from us? Yes, okay, he’s Butcher’s last tie to being a decent person—without Terror, he could go commit genocide if Hughie wasn’t there to stop him. And I suppose we can be grateful that show-Terror at least got to die peacefully of honourable old age, as opposed to book-Terror (I take comfort in that book-Terror is VERY well avenged). We hadn’t seen Terror in a while, so I thought, well, maybe they’re not bothering, he’s living peacefully with Aunt Judy, and I don’t have to worry about him…especially after reading that Bentley, the doggo who played Terror, passed away from cancer last November. But no, they had to bring him back just so they could twist that knife. And like a true pro, Bentley hung in there til he wrapped his last scenes. Go browse his Instagram @bentleyalexanderthebulldog among other things there is a photo of him dressed as Billy Butcher for Halloween and it will make your day, I promise.
As I write this, I’m looking other places online and seeing what other people thought of the finale, and it seems like, as with so much else these days, the fandom is kind of divided on it. Here’s my question—if it wasn’t going to end this way, what did you want to have had happen, given where we were? The final season didn’t stick every landing, certainly. A glaring disappointment was everything connected to Gen V, and how that show’s cancellation meant that almost everything that had been built up to tie in there got scrapped. Marie Moreau is established as this uber-Supe who is the same level as Homelander…but then even she has nothing to do with the final battle, and buggers off to Canada with everyone else. Who knows, maybe Kripke wants to hang on to Gen V storylines for potential use in Vought Rising, or other future spinoffs. It could happen.
Season 5 DID give us the completed redemption arcs of Frenchie, A-Train, Ashley (you go girl), and even Firecracker, whose loyalty to Homelander was unswerving until you brought actual Jesus into it. I’m so glad it occurred to someone that when you have Daveed Diggs playing someone like Oh Father, of COURSE you give him a musical number. We got resolution with Ryan, “justice for Ambrosius!” brought me great joy, and I was kinda happy this season bothered to give us an origin story behind MM’s nickname, albeit one different from the comic. We also got the return of The Legend (his last moment with Homelander was just glorious—you could see Homie thinking “will you be my new dad?” for a hot second), and I really hope that Jensen Ackles had as much fun being Soldier Boy as I had watching him. Supernatural lost me somewhere after the 11th season, but I swear, every time Soldier Boy says something disgusting, I’m like OH BLESS, YOU ARE LIVING YOUR BEST LIFE BEING THE ANTI-DEAN, AREN’T YOU. Like I said, I hope.
I would even go so far as to say that as far as Homelander was concerned, this was probably the most satisfying ending we were going to get. We couldn’t have the ending from the comics, so yeah, what we got worked just fine. If Billy Butcher hadn’t been the guy he is, I almost thought a “to the pain” situation might have been called for…after losing his powers and grovelling on national television, Homelander getting to live out his days in a basement cell in Vought Tower, and every evening Stan Edgar gets to channel his inner Gus Fring by coming down and doing The Dance of Neener Neener Neener in front of him. But no, that’s a bit nuanced for the nemesis of William Butcher.
So yeah, if I’m going to say something negative about the finale, the only word I’m going to use is “predictable.” Which, again, in this case isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It ended the way it needed to end, and we got the closure we needed to get. Now we get to move on to Vought Rising (which tbh is another wee gripe I have—we know you’ve got a spinoff coming up, you could stop shoving that at us so hard and let this show finish on its own terms please). I suppose in a prequel series they still won’t be able to make up for the missed opportunity to diss on Stormfront for associatively ruining a really good Billy Joel song (it’s always bothered me—like, HOW did they not have Hughie pick up on that, come ON writers). Oh, and I’m still not sure how I feel about Hughie and Annie’s impending kiddo bearing the name of Robin. That’s sweet and all, and certainly big of Annie, but don’t you think that’s a little weird? I think that’s a little weird—every time I say the name of my child, I’m thinking about my exploded girlfriend.
So, I dunno. I suppose that’s the big disappointment with a show like The Boys…when you are so used to everything being an extreme, to have anything, especially the finale, be “well, that did the job” means that it’s a bigger disappointment than it would have been with any other show. I’m not mad. But I’m not screaming with rage or excitement either…and that’s what this show has always given me. I think I’ll go ease my pain with a reread of Preacher (and then maybe rewatch The Boys: Diabolical, while I’m waiting for the spinoff). Yeah, scorched earth. But it was a wild ride, and it had to end some time.
Thanks, Boys.
