The Boys Season 5 finally landed on Prime Video. To rejoice or, on the contrary, to be disappointed, if not exactly black hollowed out, the way a TV series ends is part of the package. It’s almost a kind of tacit agreement put in place the very moment we decide to sit in front of the TV – or tablet or whatever you like – watching episode 1×01 of any serial production. And it’s not hard to understand why the epilogue of a TV series, of whatever kind, gives rise to such conflicting feelings. Unlike a film, even aside from those many epics divided into a thousand chapters and spin-offs that Hollywood has now accustomed us to, stories conceived for the small screen presuppose an implicit pact between the parties, between broadcaster and receiver: the investment of a significant amount of time. Which can be divided into the years, even decades of fidelity required by particularly long-lasting productions, at the 4- to 8-week mark of a limited series.
The Boys Season 5 finale has already been released, and with it, the series says goodbye forever as it closes its fifth and final season permanently. The great success of Amazon Prime Video has been broadcast for many years, becoming the undisputed leader of the genre thanks to its extreme violence and parody tone. Now, after so much time, the project has come to an end. In this fifth installment, we find ourselves in a world dominated by Homelander, completely subject to his erratic and egotistical whims, to the point of believing himself to be a god. Butcher, Hughie, Annie, Breast milk, Frenchie, and Kimiko have tried everything to stop him, from a virus that will kill all the Supers to even more confrontations. But now, in the final episode of The Boys Season 5, is the moment of truth. One last confrontation that will forever change the world and all its inhabitants. For this, the experiment in which Frenchie gave his life had to turn out well. Kimiko, he had to have obtained new nuclear powers that were capable of taking away any Super’s abilities. Very soon, we will find out if the boys’ latest plan works or not.
The Boys Season 5 Ending Explained: The Strength of a Series Finale?
Since two gentlemen called David Lynch and Mark Frost unleashed Twin Peaks The Big Bang of peak TV, the series finals have imposed themselves with an impetuosity unparalleled in the collective imagination. Think of the image of a group of friends who place a handful of keys of an apartment on a coffee table with a camera that, initially, focuses on the kisses and hugs these people exchange, following them until they leave the house. Then, with a cross fade, the gaze returns to that living room kitchen with a pan that ends with a fade to black on a lilac door whose peephole is decorated with a yellow frame.
Or reflect on the times over time you’ve had heated discussions about the ending of a series that has gone so far as to search for all kinds of information and explanations online to get answers to questions that have almost become universal. But then Tony Soprano dies? But how did the doppelgänger get out of the Black Lodge? So, all the survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 had died since the first episode? Or maybe you still find yourself wondering like a series that, 90%, it was GREAT TELEVISION – yes, written all in caps lock – she managed to give us a final 10% that sent everything sensational that had been done previously to the nettle. Every reference to a thing called The Throne of Swords is completely random.
Then we get to the present here, The Boys, which is a story in itself. Which, with its ending, confirmed what many had already begun to suspect since the second season, namely that we would find ourselves regretting having dedicated 40 hours (or so) of our lives to the series of Eric Kripke, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg. That with stuff like The Interview or The Studio, they gave us pearls, while here instead…
The Last Battle Against Homelander?
Fortunately for everyone, Kimiko, yes, he is capable of taking away the powers of other Supers. Something that they demonstrate very quickly by angering her and using a Wise Sister as bait. The most intelligent woman in the world, upon receiving the impact of energy, becomes totally common. Stupid even. With the test satisfactorily performed, it’s time to go for it, Homelander, taking advantage of the fact that the villain is going to give a speech to the nation from the White House to celebrate Easter.
The boys manage to infiltrate the place, something that was more or less foreseen by Homelandera and his henchmen. But with the help of Ashley, they manage to get into the kitchen. At the end of The Boys, the battle is divided into three. Annie, it takes Deep even a beach for their own personal fight between the two. Breast milk and Hughie distract Oh Father. And so, Butcher and Kimiko, with the unexpected help of Ryan, are left alone against the Homelander.
Who Dies in the Final Battle of The Boys?
On the beach, the fight between Annie and Deep doesn’t take long to resolve. After a few exchanges of punches, and as the sea man does not see reason, Starlight sends him flying into the sea from an impact of light. A priori, it would be in its surroundings, but as we discovered in the previous episode, the marine fauna has declared war on it Deep for his actions against those who considered themselves its friends. In the end, a huge tentacle suffocates him and ends up passing through him, turning the villain into simple food for the sharks. Finally, Annie, he has consummated his personal revenge.
As for Oh Father, he means, this fight is even faster. Hughie and MM manage to take him to a room so that he does not get in the way of the main mission. There, they prepare for the worst, as the reverend is about to make them mush with his ultrasounds. But, at the last moment, she finds the special gag that Ashley had given to her husband. The hero manages to put it on Oh Father just before he lets out his scream. As he does so, the sound waves fail to leave his mouth and end up causing his head to explode into a thousand pieces. All that’s left is Homelander.
The Death of Homelander in The Boys?
In the Oval Office, the battle at the end of The Boys, yes, it is much longer and more complicated. The villain can get rid of everyone again and again and beat them to the point of almost killing them. To top it all off, Kimiko at first fails to fire his nuclear energy beam at it. It is not until the last moment, when all seems lost, that she sees a vision of her beloved Frenchie. He convinces her once again that he is capable of doing it; he just has to believe in her. So Kimiko shot once and for all, Homelander.
The nuclear explosion leaves them all on the ground. But Butcher is the first to get up. Without hesitation, he goes for it, Homelander, with the entire country watching it live on television from the camera that is still on. Of course, the villain soon tries to kill him with his laser beams. But, to his surprise, he can’t shoot them. He also can’t fly away to escape. And when he tries to punch him, Butcher stops it without problems. Homelander has lost his powers permanently. It’s the turn of Butcher.
First, he starts hitting him in the face again and again as revenge for the murder of Frenchie. Faced with this extreme situation, Homelander becomes the real joke it always was. From the ground, kneeling, he prays for his life and promises to denigrate himself to the absurd. A pathetic image that reveals how pitiful and sad it really is. Of course, Butcher is unimpressed and, as final revenge for “his Becca“, he pierces his head with the metal lever and bursts his skull. Once and for all, Homelander has died at the end of The Boys.
The Death of Butcher?
With the evil dictator dead, the country, little by little, begins its reconstruction. Ashley refuses to resign as president, but the House unanimously dismisses her. Meanwhile, the protagonists celebrate by smoking cigars and looking, for the first time, to the future with optimism. Everyone except Butcher. The man tries to talk to Ryan, and he offers her to start a new life together from scratch, like Becca, I would have liked to. But the teenager refuses. “I know what my father was”, he tells her, accepting that Homelander had to die. “But you’re not a good person either”, she adds, ruling out going with him.
Butcher, saddened by the decision of Ryan, is going to see his dog Terror, the only thing he has left in life. But, upon reaching him, he discovers that his beloved pet has died of old age. Butcher is absolutely alone in the world. And therefore, make a final decision. He grabs the anti-Supers virus and takes it to Vought’s tower with the firm intention of committing genocide and wiping out all the Supers forever.
But before I get it, Hughie arrives to stop him. A fight breaks out between the two that ends with Butcher mortally wounded by a gunshot wound to the gut. Repent of all your sins, Billy finally dies in the arms of his friend, becoming the last victim of the series. In this way, the death counter of the final chapter of The Boys is the following: Homelander, Butcher, Deep, Oh Father, and Terror.
What About Vought and the Survivors?
After the funeral of Butcher, the end of The Boys includes a short time jump. Everything is much calmer, and we soon discover what happened. Vought is still standing, and Stan Edgar has regained his position as CEO, promising to be stricter in the future. For this reason, the president of the United States. The USA calls Hughie, and he offers him a job in the government to keep a close eye on the organization. But the protagonist kindly rejects it.
We also discovered that Breast milk, he finally gets married and can have a happy family life. The same thing happens with Annie and Hughie, although they are not getting married, they are going to start a new life together. Because, in fact, she is pregnant with a baby, Robin, a reference to the girlfriend of Hughie, whom A-Train killed by accident in the first episode of the series, and caused the young man to join the fight. With a daughter on the way and their own business, the two enjoy a normal life. And with this last scene, The Boys puts an end to it forever.