!!Obviously, spoiler warning!!
After five bloody, violent and hilarious seasons — The Boys is over.
The hit Prime Video TV series, based on the Garth Ennis comic series of the same name, wrapped up this week with a series finale that …. wasn’t perfect, but stayed true to the messy, bonkers story this superhero-skewering saga has been telling since the beginning.
The series finale went against the grain when compared to a whole lot of other big genre shows, opting for a “regular-sized” episode clocking in at a little over an hour, with a plot that paid homage to its massive stakes but still kept the action pretty tight and close around the core crew of The Boys. There wasn’t some all-out war with anti-Homelander freedom fighters, or anything like that. It was The Boys vs. Homelander and what was left of his crew, in a no-holds-barred brawl live on camera from the White House.
There’s a whole lot of death, a whole lot of destruction and… a pretty clear, finite ending for a lot of our heroes (and villains) by the time the screen fades to black.
What happens to Homelander? Yes, Homelander finally gets his comeuppance. Butcher and the gang bust into Homeland’s insane address to the nation where he declares himself as the new God for humanity. We learn that Frenchie didn’t die in vain earlier in the season, as his experiments on Kimiko really did work. She’s developed the same Compound V-blasting power as Soldier Boy, meaning if they get her close enough to Homelander and line her up, she can blast the V-1 out of his system and render him as powerless as a mere mortal.
After a brawl that wrecks the Oval Office, Butcher and Ryan (who shows up at the last minute in an effort to help stop Homelander) manage to pin him down to get blasted by Kimiko’s powers. She drains the V from all of them in the process, which finally gives Butcher the chance at a fair fight with Homelander. That goes… about how anyone would expect. Butcher beats him to a pulp, leaving Homelander sniveling and begging for mercy, until Butcher drives a crowbar through his head and splits his skull wide open — spilling brain matter all over the floor in a gory mess truly fitting The Boys’ series finale.
With Homelander dead, his efforts for world-domination pretty much unravel, since no one going along with that plan were very excited about it in the first place.
What happens to The Deep? Starlight finally gets her face-off with The Deep, a fight fans have wanted to see going all the way back to their first meeting in the first season. They look pretty evenly matched, with The Deep still in denial thinking he can win Homeland’s favor — even after Homelander utterly humiliated him and called him a pathetic excuse. The fight ends with Starlight blasting The Deep into the ocean, which is exactly what the ocean creatures had been wanting. They immediately swarm him and rip him to shreds. The final shot of The Deep is of his face bursting open as an octopus blasts its tentacle through his body. Thus ends The Deep.
What happens to The Boys? Once the fight ends, the surviving members of The Boys celebrate their victory, until Butcher takes the supe-killing virus (remember that plot point?) with plans to still release it and kill every super-powered person anyway, even after Homelander is dead. Hughie chases after him, which ends with the two brawling in Vought Tower. Butcher refuses to back down, leaving Hughie with no option but to shoot Butcher to halt the release of the virus (which would kill Annie, Kimiko and every other supe in the world).
Butcher forgives him and thanks him with his last moments, and he’s laid to rest beside Becca as The Boys say goodbye. From there, the rest of the gang go their own separate ways. Ryan goes off with M.M. because he doesn’t trust Butcher is a good person to raise him, Kimiko heads to France to feel closer to Frenchie, and Hughie and Annie open up an A/V store — finally taking Hughie back to his roots and first passion. We flash forward a bit to see that Annie is now pregnant, and superheroing, as the pair can finally start a life together.
Hughie gets a call from the new president (as President Ashley was immediately impeached after Homelander’s death) and is offered the role of heading up the government’s superhero monitoring, which he declines to instead settle down with Annie. We also learn from TV news coverage that Stan Edgar returns from exile to take over Vought once again. Because of course he played this all to his advantage.
The TV series finale kept some elements from the comic’s final arc — but abandoned and remixed several plot points to make it all fit with the different kind of story they were telling on the TV version.
In the comics, Homelander still dies, but it’s all connected to a big surprise twist reveal surrounding Black Noir (who is a Homelander clone in the comics) where Black Noir actually kills him. Then, Butcher splits Black Noir/Homelander Clone’s head open with a crowbar. So, same elements, just different story getting there.
In the comic version, Butcher also tries to release a supe-killing virus and is eventually killed by Hughie as a last resort to stop him and save Annie. But in the comic version, Butcher also kills M.M. and Kimiko (and Frenchie) as he goes on a rampage to get there.
The comic ends with Hughie being offered the same job overseeing the government’s supe oversight efforts. But in the comics? He accepts the gig instead of turning it down, and vows to do things differently from how Butcher ran things. In the comics, pretty much the only survivors were Hughie and Annie, who look to go on with their lives in the wake of all that trauma and chaos.
So… the TV ending was a bit of a happier take compared to the comic, while still hitting a lot of the same beats (just without killing so many of the main characters along the way).
Both stories were about the corruption of great powers, be it corporate power, government power, and (yes) superpowers. The comic version went with a more grim ending, while the TV story wraps with a bit more hope. Here’s hoping Hughie’s A/V business goes well. Maybe he can franchise, eventually.