On Wednesday, May 20, 2026—roughly five years and ten months after the first episode—the eighth and final episode of the fifth and final season of The Boys, the TV series created by Eric Kripke and based on the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, was released. And, inevitably, the time has come to take stock of The Boys and its finale.
The conclusion of the final showdown between Homelander/Patriot’s faction and that of Butcher and Hughie, it’s true, doesn’t definitively close the door on the Vought Universe, but the highly anticipated and much-hyped prequel Vought Rising won’t be able to change the ending that viewers of the main series have been waiting for—perhaps for too long.
Here at Today, in fact, we’ve been arguing for quite some time that The Boys has had a tendency from the start to go around in circles without ever moving forward, like a blood-spattered carousel, but this latest season has also annoyed even many of the show’s most loyal fans, precisely because it seemed to drag on somewhat haphazardly—and a bit too much in fueling expectations for Vought Rising — right up to the epilogue, on the one hand cramming in conclusions deemed rushed (above all A-Train and Firecracker), and on the other leaving too many narrative arcs open until the end of the story. Before passing judgment, then, it’s worth providing a summary with an explanation of the finale of The Boys Season 5.
What Happens in the Final Episode of The Boys Season 5
The season finale begins with the farewell to one of the most beloved Boys, Frenchie, killed by Homelander/Patriot, who arrived at the hideout where Frenchie and Sister Sage were experimenting with a uranium radiation-based enhancement for Kimiko—the last hope of defeating Patriot after the super-hero-of-super-heroes injected himself with V1, which made him immortal, and put his father, Soldier Boy, back in the freezer.
Everything is therefore set for the live-TV celebration of the “second coming”—or rather, the “first coming”—of the true Messiah-who-is-also-God, an event taking place at the White House and which, of course, will also be attended by the uninvited Boys, while the Gen V kids head to the battlefield to save the survivors of the massacre of the not-quite-faithful at the Vought studios.
The Boys arrive as Oh Father introduces the new God; Starlight takes the utterly humiliated Abyss/Deep for a walk on the beach and feeds him to the fish, who, as promised, kill him to avenge the oceanic disaster caused (by the vengeful Black Noir, later killed by The Deep) to the oil pipeline that the cowardly Kevin, former king of the deep, had personally guaranteed.
With Ashley’s help—and her mind-reading nape—the kids make their way to Oh Father, who is killed by Latte Materno. She shoves an indestructible “gag ball”—a gift from Ashley to her husband—into his mouth just as the reverend of the Democratic Church of America lets out one of his devastating screams, which gets stuck in his throat and causes his head to explode. And finally, the final showdown arrives between an increasingly sad and lonely (Ryan dixit) Homelander and Butcher, supported by Kimiko, who has already tested her new power on Sage, making her “as stupid as all of you.”
Homelander realizes the situation is hopeless and tries to flee, but Ryan comes to Butcher’s aid. After rejecting his father’s offer to return to Vought Tower, he actively joins in to hold him down while Kimiko charges herself with rage. But when she falters, it is the spirit of Frenchie who appears to her in a vision, explaining that her power is not like Soldier Boy’s, which feeds on anger (as when he had stripped Queen Maeve of her powers), but derives from her cœur—her heart. Kimiko realizes this and uses it to fire her power-erasing beam at Homelander, also hitting Butcher and Ryan.
All three are left without superpowers. Patriot clumsily tries to fly away or escape somehow, but Butcher tracks him down; the man who had proclaimed himself God just minutes earlier begs his arch-enemy for mercy, but William doesn’t hesitate for a second. After beating him senseless with his fists, he finishes him off by driving a crowbar into his head, splitting it open. Farewell, Homelander—that was the best scene of the finale.
But there’s still over half an hour left before the credits roll. Butcher therefore has time to slip away from his friends’ party after Ryan refuses his offer to start over with him and Terror, and after the old mutt has also breathed his last. Hughie notices his absence and quickly figures out where he’s headed with the vial of super-killer virus that vanished from the drawer, and catches up with him at Vought Tower.
Butcher isn’t wrong when he says that even though Homelander is dead, sooner or later another crazy super will pop up wanting to conquer the world, which is why it’s necessary to exterminate them all anyway. But Hughie objects and engages in a rather uneven fight with his deranged mentor. But when he has his hand on the trigger to release the virus, William sees his poor little brother Lenny in Hughie and hesitates just long enough—like De André’s Piero—to allow Hughie to grab a gun and shoot him.
Butcher dies in Hughie’s arms, finally accepting his fate and hoping to be reunited with his beloved Becca, beside whom he is buried at his funeral—the last gathering of the surviving Boys before they part ways forever. Kimiko moves to Marseille and gets a dog; Ryan follows Mother’s Milk, who reverts to being just Marvin and remarries his ex-wife Monique in front of their daughter Janine.
In the corridors of power, everything returns to the way it was, with Stan Edgar once again CEO of Vought, Ashley ousted from the White House, and Robert Singer (who, no, wasn’t dead—he’d been arrested on false charges of killing Victoria Neuman, who was actually murdered by Butcher, and replaced by Calhoun, who was indeed crushed by Homelander) re-elected president.
It is none other than the good Singer who contacts Hughie some time later, offering him the chance to run the reopened FBI office to keep an eye on the restless supers, but our hero refuses as he enters the “Campbell Audio Visual” store, which is his new business. Waiting for him is Annie Starlight: the two haven’t married yet, but Annie is visibly pregnant.
In the back of the store, they have monitors and radios that pick up on police communications, and when they spot a dangerous situation, they decide to intervene. Hughie says goodbye to Annie and their unborn daughter Robin (named after his girlfriend who was blown up by A Train at the start of the series, with a parallel in the death of the redeemed A Train at the start of season five), and the former Starlight flies off, slippers on her feet, to once again save the good guys from the bad guys. The end of The Boys.
What Was Missing from The Boys Finale
With every series finale, a touch of disappointment is inevitable, usually more for what wasn’t shown than for what actually was. And The Boys Season 5 is no exception. Among the loose ends left by the epilogue, Queen Maeve stands out first and foremost: it was reasonable to expect her to appear, or at least to see more than just a brief mention in the recap at the start of the episode and a reference by Starlight in her farewell speech to Marie Moureau.
One could argue about the disappointing ending given to Soldier Boy, who was left in a freezer perhaps to ensure the protagonist of the upcoming prequel series doesn’t die. A fate quite different from that of his old comrades over the course of this season. And, by the way, at this point we can say that Stormfront is undoubtedly dead, even though her old lover’s disbelief had led us to suspect last-minute surprises.
Unless she appeared in a frame we missed while blinking, Zoe Neuman hasn’t been seen since, so we assume she’s safe and sound with her father and grandfather. But the worst flaw in The Boys’ finale surely lies in the terrible treatment of the Gen V kids. Because, especially after Gen V’s cancellation, it was reasonable to expect a far more significant role for them than that of babysitters to people who, as Emma explicitly stated, would have done anything to please Homelander just the day before—including killing Starlight and her followers.
Above all, Marie Moureau deserved a more glorious fate. We were told that Gen V was a must-watch to understand The Boys and its finale. Gen V Season 2 ended with the revelation that Marie could not only take out anyone, but also resurrect the dead, starting with her sister. In short, she seemed like the number one candidate to take out Homelander, yet The Boys chose to nuke Kimiko instead, reducing the Godolkin University favorites’ presence to fleeting appearances that reminded us of those pointless crossover episodes between Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place.
What We Liked About the Finale of The Boys
Yet, despite its flaws, the finale of The Boys is the best we could have even hoped for, especially after a season filled with episodes deemed “filler” by so many viewers that Eric Kripke responded indignantly, saying that “first of all, I didn’t have the budget for an all-out battle in every episode” and then that “there were many characters who deserved a conclusion and some personal development.”
Because in fact, we did have concluded story arcs and characters reaching their destination, one way or another. From A Train to Firecracker, from Frenchie to Sister Sage (who exited the scene with an enviable goofy smile), from Black Noir to Abyss, from Homelander to Butcher and the other Boys, there was a finale for many, if not all. And it feels strange to say it, but the most moving of all was that of the detestable Patriot: the punches Butcher landed on him were probably the most satisfying moment of the entire series.
After defeating his enemy, William no longer had a place in the world, so even his arrival at the finish line was marked by the right mix of blood, sweat, and tears. If anyone deserved a “happily ever after,” it was Marvin Mother’s Milk on one side and Hughie-Annie on the other. The decision to name the baby after the girl who died at the beginning is, ultimately, the perfect cherry on top for this series which, for better or worse, has given us a collection of memorable moments in TV history.
