The Boys Series Finale – How to Not Stick the Landing

It’s been a couple of weeks since The Boys season five finale dropped, wrapping up a season that ranged from mediocre to questionable right up until the very end. It’s now the third most recognisable instance in which a show that dominated television failed to live up to any expectations that the fans held it to (its predecessors being Game of Thrones and most recently, Stranger Things). While The Boys may not be held in the pop culture zeitgeist for years to come like the former, it still provides an interesting lesson; the more the producer talks, the less there is to show.

I’m not going to rehash all the issues the final season had, though if you wrote for Nerdy Nook, you would know all my thoughts. While I have no fault with the actors trying to make the best of otherwise bad writing and pacing, it still wasn’t enough to erase the sour taste left in the mouths of the audience who had spent four seasons watching the story build up to the ultimate confrontation – Homelander versus Butcher. From the beginning; from the moment Hughie’s girlfriend had A-Train run through her and explode before his very eyes, from the moment we knew Butcher’s reason to hate Homelander with every fibre, from the moment we knew Homelander was not as he was presented, it has been leading to this.

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Image by Amazon Prime Video

And what a whimper of a showdown it was.

After spending six episodes setting up the prequel series, it was like the writers finally remembered that the ending needed to happen, not just have characters randomly amble from location to location. Scorched Earth was promised, and all we had was a sizzle on the White House carpet.

It was as if Eric Kripke, producer of The Boys, had become bored of the show and instead started looking ahead to the next project, Vought Rising. The producers of Game of Thrones had the same issue, rushing its final season out so they could leave to make a Star Wars film. How did that go again?

Image by Amazon Prime Video

The creative decisions that have been made for this last season, have done nothing but create a poor season with barely any fans having faith in the next venture. So many other choices could have been made, should have been made. Every decision was done with the prequel in mind. Kripke has mentioned a few times how inspired he’s been by the prequel series Better Call Saul. Vince Gilligan, producer of both Saul and its sister programme Breaking Bad, managed to create an intricate prequel to an otherwise secondary, comedic character, bringing to a close Saul’s story in a (what I personally think) satisfying way. You know how he did it? It wasn’t by spending six of the last sixteen episodes of Breaking Bad setting it up, that’s for sure. 

For the build up to the season release date, the audience were fed nuggets of information, just like The Duffer Brothers before the final season of Stranger Things dropped. ‘Darkest season ever, no one is safe, don’t expect the expected’ etc., or talking points to that extent, only to have the weakest series by far drop onto our laps. At least Kripke had the guts to kill off more than one person, he outshines the Duffers in that regard.

Ultimately, this is just another example of a TV show having trouble sticking the landing. The audiences have to deal with the showmanship of anticipation, leaving us all with bated breath, wanting more; only for everything to crumple at the last minute, the last episode landing awkwardly on its feet. Much like Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother had a finale so infamously bad, many fans have said they don’t want to ever rewatch it. I wouldn’t be surprised if The Boys followed suit.

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It’s a shame too, because for a while, the medium was becoming prestigious, filling a hole left behind when superheroes took over the cinema. The Sopranos, the aforementioned Breaking Bad and The Wire were the topics of water cooler conversation, all pulling in critical acclaim and awards, with them all still holding influence today. While The Sopranos may have had a controversial finale, I haven’t heard many people say they’d never rewatch because of it.

This isn’t to say the series started bad right out of the gate. The Boys worked for a while, satirising the superhero genre as a whole, a genre that had dominated so much of the box office, while pointing out that even though they’re super, the heroes are still human and so still have the ability to cause more harm than good. This is why people get so disappointed by the end; investing so much time into these characters, into a compelling story, just to have all of that swept away, leaving behind a mess in its place that everyone is just trying to stumble through.

So what is the problem with TV finales?  Maybe everyone is more interested in the style rather than the substance – taking whatever aesthetic audiences loved, and amplifying it tenfold as each series progressed. For The Boys, the style included so many butt jokes. I feel like every episode in the new season, a butt was somehow involved. A room of writers no doubt giggling to themselves every time the word is mentioned. Homelander may become an impervious god, but yeah, show a worm man shooting dirt out of him as he burrows underground. Yeah, everything is falling apart for our anti-heroes, but oh my god did you see the Supernatural reunion!! What fun!!

Image by Amazon Prime Video

Another issue could be that people just aren’t storyboarding the overall plot or their character’s development, or even linking the seasons together in a way that makes the journey to the end worthwhile, instead taking each series as it comes. Plot holes leave us with a bumpy road, a road that will supposedly be paved with yet another show in that universe, or a comic, or film. A secondary piece of media audiences will ultimately have to pay for to get any closure on the story.

This isn’t to say that the medium is lost as a whole – Succession made continuous clean sweeps of both acclaim and awards, right up until the end. Severance may head the same way, once they start writing the final legs. It just seems like TV no longer holds the power it once did, streaming services diluting the water by churning out as much as it possibly can. 
In the end, The Boys Season 5 is just another disappointing finale in an industry full of them.

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Where to Watch The Boys?

Image by Amazon Prime Video

You can now stream all five seasons of The Boys on Amazon Prime Video. Though the main story has come to a close, there’s plenty of side content to explore in this universe, starting with Gen V, which already has two seasons to watch on Amazon Prime Video. Spin-offs are also on the way, including The Boys: Mexico and Vought Rising, which you can watch the first trailer for here.

See also: Batman #163 Hush 2 Review

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