The season and series finale of The Boys has just arrived on the Prime Video streaming platform, and in this article we’ll walk you through in detail how the fifth and final season of Eric Kripke’s popular TV series—based on the comic book by Garth Ennis—comes to a close.
The fifth season of The Boys devoted a great deal of time to Billy Butcher and his crew’s search for the Godolkin virus, only to see Soldier Boy grant Homelander immortality by administering a dose of V1. With the final season straying far from right-wing political themes to arrive at a vision where Homelander believes he must be worshipped as a god, the stakes were higher than ever ahead of today’s season finale.
Fortunately, thanks to Frenchie granting Kimiko powers similar to Soldier Boy’s, the heroes have a plan to put an end to Homelander once and for all. As Billy and the team head toward the White House, the episode shows us none of Homelander’s destructive fury, no pitched battles against the military or between superheroes, and none of the post-apocalyptic scenes teased by The Boys’ posters… however, things get pretty violent in the Oval Office when Butcher and Ryan team up to fight Homelander.
They keep him at bay long enough for Kimiko to neutralize him, though in doing so, Billy loses his powers. This means that, in the end, Billy Butcher and Homelander face off as two ordinary men… which allows Butcher to finally get his revenge on Patriot, beating him to death to avenge Frenchie and, above all, Becca. The Boys wraps up Homelander’s story arc in the best possible way, showing him for the first time as desperate, “naked” without his powers to shield his insecurities, and above all as the caricature he’s always been… all while his humiliation is broadcast live around the world.
Oh Father and The Deep are also killed in the final episode, while the big dog Terror dies of old age. At this point, when even Ryan tells him he won’t stay with him because he’s decided to move on, the triumphant Butcher doesn’t savor his victory over Homelander but instead decides to continue on his path toward self-destruction. With the virus that kills superheroes in hand, he heads toward Vought Tower with the intention of committing genocide. Hughie arrives to stop him and ultimately shoots Billy, killing him: the protagonist, repentant of his actions and proud of his best friend—whose moral integrity remained unchanged despite all the terrible things he’d seen—dies in Hughie’s arms.
All the other characters in The Boys get their happy endings: Stan Edgar returns as CEO of Vought, Breast Milk marries his partner, Kimiko finds peace, and Hughie and Starlight decide to get married, with the series revealing that she is pregnant with a child they plan to name Robin (a reference to Hughie’s late girlfriend, the reason he joined this fight, and a nod to the series’ first episode).
For more content, please read our review of the finale of ‘The Boys’.
