‘The Boys’ Season 5 Review: A Heavy, Blood-Soaked Finale

If you thought “The Boys” was dark before, just remember that the penultimate season of the pitch-black superhero satire aired prior to the reelection of President Donald J. Trump. That chapter, you may recall, concluded with archvillain Homelander (Antony Starr) assuming control not just of fictional conglomerate Vought, but of the United States itself. In the Amazon Prime Video drama’s fifth and final season, Homelander has set up inhumane detention camps for undesirables, installed a bootlicking lackey as vice president and jeopardized the domestic oil supply with his hubristic actions abroad. Just the kind of escapist entertainment we all crave!

“The Boys” is, in many ways, ending right on time. Not only has the world caught up with the show’s bleakly funny vision of an unholy alliance among big business, cultural conservatism and soulless entertainment, in which Vought produces anti-immigrant agitprop penned by a Taylor Sheridan AI; “The Boys” has also spent its last couple seasons flirting with the line between enjoying its deserved success and becoming what it’s always mocked. 

That tension has been in the DNA of an Amazon-backed anti-corporate spoof from the start, of course. But since the series’ launch in 2019, the flagship has given rise to an animated anthology, a college spinoff and an upcoming prequel — not too far off from the Marvel-style, stage-managed universe of which Vought is a direct parody. Creatively, the results of this expansion have been mixed: Season 1 of the Godolkin University-set “Gen V” differentiated itself with a collegiate focus and more earnest, less jaded set of protagonists, but its integration with the main show has been clunky at best. (Season 2 also had to contend with the tragic, unexpected loss of core cast member Chance Perdomo.) That issue continues to manifest in Season 5, where “Gen V” characters like Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) pop in at random, and a key bit of backstory for the hyperintelligent Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) has to be rehashed via expository dialogue. Best to streamline the narrative before the sprawl gets too unwieldy.

More than plot mechanics, however, the ever-darkening tone of “The Boys” would be difficult to sustain indefinitely. With a conclusion in sight, “The Boys” mastermind Eric Kripke and his collaborators can both raise the stakes — major character deaths are very much on the table — and contemplate the possibility of a brighter offscreen future for those who survive. In its final hours, “The Boys” is free to be the most uninhibited version of itself, spewing profanity, vitriol and bodily fluids with abandon. Rather than overstay its welcome, the show has wisely opted to go out with a bang.

Homelander’s victory means the deck has never been more stacked against anti-“supe” zealot Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), his more kindhearted recruit Hughie (Jack Quaid) and Vought apostate Annie (Erin Moriarty), now the Emmanuel Goldstein to Homelander’s all-American Big Brother under her superhero moniker Starlight. To give their struggle against the authoritarian regime direction and an alternative to wallowing in despair, “The Boys” deploys a shameless MacGuffin: V1, the original formula for Vought’s proprietary Compound V that gives supes their powers. (Including Butcher, who’s overcome V poisoning and now sports tentacles in a very literal version of becoming what one hates in the name of a moral crusade.) V1 would make Homelander immune to the supe-killing virus initially introduced on “Gen V,” so both sides of the central conflict enter a race to find the last surviving sample that gives the season’s story its shape.

A less utilitarian, more intriguing development concerns the isolated Homelander’s increasing messianic delusions. “The Boys” has its roots in the Garth Ennis comic of the same name, which began publishing in 2006. A Bush-era contempt for evangelical hypocrisy and interference with the state has always been part of the show’s blueprint. Emphasizing the religious element allows “The Boys” to dabble in “The Righteous Gemstones” territory, introducing a televangelist supe played with pompous bravado by Daveed Diggs. His inevitable musical number stands out among steep competition for silliest setpiece, though I’m still partial to The Deep (Chace Crawford) committing murder by sending an eel up a toilet and into his target’s ass.

But Homelander’s increasing belief in his own divinity, reinforced by an army of terrified yes-men, also allows “The Boys” to update its social commentary for the modern era. It’s not that his accomplices, like Diggs’ character or the Alex Jones-ish Firecracker (Valorie Curry), are imposing their genuine beliefs on the populace; it’s that they start to sell out their own faith to curry favor with a blasphemous figure who happens to hold power. “The Boys” impressively cultivates both bite and pathos in depicting these futile acts of sycophancy. Even more than The Deep hosting a Nick Fuentes-style incel podcast, the motif captures the spirit of a time when politicians like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi are rewarded for relinquishing their dignity with public defenestration. 

“The Boys” began as a sideswipe at the cultural omnipotence of centrally planned superhero media, and strains of those origins still remain. (Firecracker features in a note-perfect sendup of Nicole Kidman’s pro-moviegoing PSA for “VMC Theaters.”) But it’s progressively broadened into a take on the entire American project, a mission creep that’s sometimes been a strain yet allows the home stretch — minus the series finale, which was withheld from critics prior to review — to wield some heft. Plenty of last-hurrah cameos bring back ghosts (some literal) of “The Boys” past, and quieter moments reckon with the long-term toll of the accumulated trauma on heroes super and non, particularly those in romantic relationships starting to show signs of strain. In its last days, “The Boys” nonetheless confronts bigger problems than one humble action comedy is able to solve. Every geyser of blood and squelch of spilled guts is a tiny bit of catharsis that’s sorely needed, even if the odds of good triumphing over evil have never seemed longer on or off the screen. 

The first two episodes of “The Boys” Season 5 will premiere on Amazon Prime Video on April 8, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Wednesdays.