Five seasons of political satire, graphic violence, chaotic Supes, and a fanbase with high hopes, yet the climax is indecisive. If you’ve watched The Boys season 5 finale, you know what we are talking about! Did fans get what they were promised in the marketing campaigns and on the posters? It’s hard to tell.
But there’s certainly a lot to unpack about the last episode, which the show spent years building toward. So, here are the major reasons why The Boys season 5 ending turned out to be one of the saga’s most divisive chapters yet!
TitleThe BoysShowrunnerEric KripkeSeasons5IMDb score (overall)8.6/10 (as of May 20, 2026)Rotten Tomatoes score (Season 5)(Tomatometer | Popcornmeter)97% | 66% (as of May 20, 2026)Streaming PlatformPrime Video
1. The Butcher vs. Homelander Fight
The Boys has been building up to Butcher vs. Homelander since season 1. Butcher wants revenge on Homelander for what he did to Becca and assembles a group called the Boys to avenge his wife, whom he presumes to be dead.
From the promotional materials, most fans expected this would be a big showdown, with buildings falling, cities burning, and people being lasered left, right, and center with loads of casualties. But it all unfolded in a small room in the White House, which felt lackluster and simply not climactic.
Viewers felt cheated, and obviously wanted more in terms of scale. Plus, the fight was short-lived, and the main villain was defeated within minutes. Homelander is insane, no doubt, and he seemed one step away from causing a mass public massacre, which reveals to the world who he truly is.
But no such moment occurred in The Boys Season 5. Homelander played it safe, and while some argue that it fits the character’s motivations better, it almost felt like the show was hyping up that particular breakdown but never delivered it.
Also, look at who is involved in the fight? What is Kimiko doing there, out of all people? Her and Homelander have barely interacted. Frenchie is forced into the scene to help her power up, and she then strips Homelander of all his abilities.
Soldier Boy being there would have made a lot more sense because imagine Butcher, Homelander’s son (Ryan), and his father all teaming up on him. That would be such an emotional blow! The Herogasm fight was so much better than this one, but a lot of people loved seeing Homelander’s brain getting splashed out.
2. Butcher’s Villain Arc in The Boys Season 5
A still from The Boys | Credits: Kripke Enterprises
Butcher was morally gray at first, and yes, he slowly started to seem a bit evil, but one would still say that he had some heart and humanity left in him. Killing Homelander was his goal throughout the show; he accomplished that, but they didn’t handle his closing arc well.
Ryan does not want to be with him, and Terror (his dog) passes away. Butcher has indeed lost almost everyone in his life, and one can see how this could be the final straw for him. One might also say that killing his father was a sign that he might go rogue this season, or the fact that he didn’t care, Annie and Kimiko were going to die when they were plotting about the virus earlier.
But it needed an episode or half of build-up to show how things were getting to him. It would have seemed a bit more seasoned choice if he had headed to the Vought tower to release the supe-killing virus after that. However, this sudden change of heart, right after Terror’s death, felt like we were watching the Mad Queen plot line all over again (Game of Thrones fans, are you having war flashbacks?).
3. Building Up and Sidelining Important Characters
A still from The Boys | Credits: Kripke Enterprises
Sister Sage, as a character, had a lot of potential. She could manipulate Homelander, the world, whoever she wished! But to see that she cannot make the simple calculation of not relying on Soldier Boy, who is unpredictable, despite being warned by Bashley, and handing him the V1 makes no sense!
Plus, she doesn’t mind mass genocide, and in the end, gets to lose all her IQ points to go and live happily? Make it make sense! Queen Maeve, who did a heroic act by saving everyone from Soldier Boy’s radiation blast, is nowhere to be seen. We get it, she’s living her happy lesbian life somewhere, away from all this mess.
But she was such an integral part of the show before, an original member of The Seven, and now she is nowhere to be seen! Soldier Boy, for the 100th time, gets locked up inside the cryo freeze, and you would think he would learn his lesson by now. We don’t know what happens to him after that, and The Boys never addresses it.
Plus, he doesn’t do much for the whole season except make s*xual remarks, reunite with people he knew before, kill a bunch of celebrities, and hand Homelander the V1, only to abandon him again. Oh, and the Gen V supes were just hanging around with nothing to do, like no real involvement at all after two whole seasons of a spin-off show.
4. Treating The Boys Finale as a Set-up For Spin-offs
A still from The Boys | Credits: Kripke Enterprises
Speaking of spin-offs, this entire season was treated like a setup for Vought Rising. Imagine investing in a show for years, and they dedicate the finale to milk money from some other project. The pacing was all wrong because nothing substantial happened in several episodes.
It was the same old storyline of creating the virus, going after V1, and so on. They kept running in circles over it, and it did not even matter in the end. Homelander seemed weaker in the finale than he was before taking V1, and the virus was never released. But thank god, we now know about Bombsight and his love story!
The creators rushed the final two episodes and did not make much development with the time they had in the beginning. There was no room for any cinematic storytelling, epic moments elevated by music, just a rushed finale!
5. Unnatural Dialogues and Forced Humor
A still from The Boys | Credits: Kripke Enterprises
Now this seems to be a problem that fans might have noticed throughout the season. There really is no need for writing a whole page about a**holes as a person’s funeral speech. We also do not want to see two people sniffing each other’s butts while all storylines are hanging in the air.
Kimiko suddenly begins to speak and says the weirdest things, and it’s supposed to be a clever joke about TikTok somehow. Soldier Boy is hell-bent on saying anything that is overtly s*xual. The Boys we remember was effortlessly funny, and yes, there were a lot of s*xual references, but it wasn’t just about that.
The Boys season 5 finale might not be universally hated, but it is clear that it struggled to meet our expectations. But to end this on a positive note, you can tell us one thing that you enjoyed or loved the most about the last episode!
The Boys is currently streaming on Prime Video (USA).
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
