{"id":7993188,"date":"2026-04-06T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=7993188"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:35:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T22:35:55","slug":"the-boys-season-5-review-prime-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/creative-content\/reviews\/the-boys-season-5-review-prime-video\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Boys\u2019 Season 5 Review: Superhero Series Thrives Through Its Grotesque Finale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

As you set about watching the fifth and final season of \u201cThe Boys\u201d<\/a> you may think, yeah, it\u2019s time to call it quits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Make no mistake: Eric Kripke\u2019s adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson\u2019s comic books remains the smartest and most relevant superhero TV show ever made. It\u2019s just that there\u2019s d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu all over the place as Season 5\u2019s initial episodes repeat such series staples as grotesque graphic violence, often ickier eroticism, scorched-earth media satire and more up-to-the-minute references to Trumpian fascism than a week of Stephen Miller appearances on \u201cThe Ingraham Angle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a tendency for characters to repeat plot information, which sets off alarms that this flagship of boundary-busting TV may be turning into the kind of programmer Netflix denies it keeps making. Much of the writing here remains clever and topnotch, but there\u2019s an inescapable sense of wheel-spinning in the first several episodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Karl Urban in “The Boys.” (Prime Video) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) still calls everyone wanker or worse as he ruthlessly leads the remnants of the titular insurgent group against the increasingly powerful megalomaniac Homelander (Antony Starr). The chemically modified superman now controls the nation as well as the culture-dominating Vought corporation that created him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack Quaid\u2019s Hughie still struggles, often futilely, to operate The Boys and himself with a semblance of conscience. Dozens of secondary characters \u2014 mostly frightened (with good reason) Homelander sycophants, some well-meaning rebels, others more-or-less innocent bystanders \u2014 scheme, betray and switch sides with a regularity that can feel more plot-dictated than character-driven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, so familiar. But around midpoint in the season (Prime Video showed critics the first seven of eight chapters), things get interesting in new, borderline genius ways.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\t'The Boys' Universe: All the Current and Upcoming Series and Spinoffs<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a kind of horror episode that\u2019s both a homage to the greatest \u201cStar Trek\u201d hour of all, \u201cThe Tholian Web,\u201d and Kripke\u2019s take on \u201cThe Last of Us.\u201d Hughie even mentions the latter, one of endless ways the show\u2019s pop culture savvy lends persuasive detail to \u201cThe Boys\u2019\u201d lunatic world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another episode gives backstory and richer insights into secondary, now more intriguing characters such as Firecracker (Valorie Curry), the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the Homelander\/Vought Axis; Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), Earth\u2019s smartest supe who somehow is outsmarted by human nature; and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), Homelander\u2019s vulgar father and one of Vought\u2019s first powered people, preserved cryogenically and by the corporation\u2019s first super serum V1, long since discontinued in favor of the less side-effecty Compound V.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s even a visit to Hollywood, featuring celebrities we\u2019ve been asked not to reveal playing themselves and a reunion of sorts from a beloved cult show. It\u2019s sharp and generally hilarious \u2014 \u201cThe Boys\u201d and \u201cThe Studio\u201d are produced by the same company, after all \u2014 until supes start suping, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Karl Urban, Erin Moriarty and Jack Quaid in “The Boys.” (Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most fascinating of all, Homelander has a new vision that leads to all kinds of personal, societal and (in his own addled head if no one else\u2019s) theological consequences. Unsatisfied with being the most marketed hero ever worshipped, the flag-caped psychopath is now convinced that he\u2019s God and will stop at nothing to force everyone else to believe it, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This leads to some marvelous, dark night soul-searching, especially among characters like Firecracker and Annie\/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) with Christian backgrounds. It\u2019s also an excuse for bottomless mockery of coercive and commodified religion, personified to a hypocritical tee in Daveed Diggs\u2019 super-screamer megachurch pastor Oh Father. He\u2019s blissfully happy to dump Jesus for Homelander\u2019s new and more profitable Democratic Church of America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith\u2019s not the only big, existential theme this season. The Boys\u2019 umpteenth desperate plan to stop Homelander still involves a supes-killing virus. But it would also end all Compound V-enhanced lives, including those of good Boys gals Starlight and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), as well as the now tentacle-spewing Butcher himself. He\u2019s always been a kamikaze for the greater goal; what\u2019s interesting is how the women view, with profound ambivalence, their survival and the immortality that may be part of the equation if remaining V1 doses can be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chace Crawford, Antony Starr and Nathan Mitchell in “The Boys.” (Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This may be high-falutin\u2019 philosophical discourse in easy-to-understand comic book form, but the value-of-life questions \u201cThe Boys\u201d poses are part of what makes it such a superior science fiction product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychologically, everyone remains a mess, some hotter than others. Starlight, who\u2019s led the ineffective resistance while half the Boys were imprisoned in an ICE detention center \u2026 er, that is, a Vought subsidiary\u2019s Freedom Camp (complete with an Auschwitzy \u201cFreedom sets you free\u201d sign over the entrance gate) \u2026 fears for her followers and has an enlightening heart-to-heart with her long-absent father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a more humorous note, Homelander has installed former Vought publicist Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) as vice president of the United States. And thanks to her own Compound V exposure, Ashley\u2019s become quite the headcase (we\u2019re barred from telling you more, but man, what a multi-pronged, vanity decimating performance Minifie registers).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Valorie Curry and Colby Minifie in “The Boys.” (Prime Video)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While in hiding Kimiko finally trained herself to speak \u2014 like a TikTok influencer, with an unexpectedly dirty mouth and imagination to match. Yet Fukuhara infuses a new sweetness into the character once known only as the feral, deadly Female. In addition, the body part regenerating heroine\u2019s reunion makeout scene with Frenchie (Tomer Capone) has to be seen to be believed \u2014 and you still may not believe what you\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main psychosis, as always, belongs to Homelander, and it\u2019s not just a God complex. Unfrozen Soldier Boy hates his more powerful progeny, who inspires his penchant for gay-coded slurs more than anybody. Starr\u2019s patented slow-twist facial expressions are made for processing daddy issues; those grimaces are more fun to watch at this point than the predictable accommodating-to-homicidal turns we\u2019ve all grown to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gruff unpredictability Ackles brings to Soldier Boy sometimes feels like emotional incoherence. He\u2019ll be leading the spinoff prequel series \u201cVought Rising,\u201d where hopefully the deeper motivations behind his swinging dick persona will become clearer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for \u201cThe Boys\u2019 \u201d final chapter, the preceding seven certainly leave us eager to see how it all ends. This season was formulaic, sure, but possessed enough brilliance to confirm the show\u2019s outstanding place in television history. Kripke and company display a crucial understanding of what their story means, what can be done with it and why it was so necessary to tell it in our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Boys\u201d premieres Wednesday on Prime Video.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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