{"id":546619,"date":"2026-04-23T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546619\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:23:09","slug":"why-the-boys-season-5-episode-4-annoyed-fans-raised-concerns-about-the-shows-ending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546619\/","title":{"rendered":"Why The Boys Season 5, Episode 4 Annoyed Fans & Raised Concerns About the Show’s Ending"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Boys<\/a> Season 5, Episode 4, \u201cKing of Hell,\u201d has proved to be the most divisive episode of the final season so far. We\u2019re now at the halfway point of the Prime Video show\u2019s final run, but it rather than racing towards the finish line, it\u2019s very much slowing things down this week. The installment\u2019s plot is largely driven by a visit to the Vought medical facility Fort Harmony, where Homelander, Soldier Boy, and most members of the Boys converge, while Annie pays a visit to her father. Warning: This article contains SPOILERS.<\/p>\n

There are a couple of dramatic twists and turns in the episode. The Boys turn on each other, under the influence of something strange at Fort Harmony. That turns out to be Quinn, a mutated human-plant Supe with ties to Soldier Boy\u2019s past<\/a>, who is then killed by him. And Homelander gets briefly locked up by his father and blasted with radiation, but emerges and ends up declared a prophet. At the same time, most of the characters ended up where they started: looking for V-One.<\/p>\n

The nature of the episode has led to a lot of complaints on social media, with hundreds of comments on The Boys subreddit<\/a> complaining about it being \u201cfiller,\u201d and a similar case on X. For example, u\/Helpful_Teach_7102 wrote \u201cwaited a week for this stupid filler episode man,\u201d while u\/Good_Strength6099 complained about the prequel setup, posting, \u201cDefinitely a back door pilot for Vought rising in someway. Weird filler vibes.\u201d On X, @twigzza<\/a> said that \u201chaving a filler episode in a final season is crazy.\u201d These are just a few examples, but the sentiment is echoed pretty loudly, especially with there only being four episodes remaining and plenty of story to get through.<\/p>\n

Was The Boys Season 5, Episode 4 That Bad?<\/p>\n

\"Frenchie,Image via Prime Video<\/p>\n

Personally, I thought \u201cKing of Hell\u201d was fine. Nothing spectacular by any means, but not a terrible episode either. It was just solid, with some fun character moments as the Boys fought each other, and I actually quite liked Annie getting to reconcile things with her father and learn about (and try to bond with) her brother. At the same time, I understand the complaints, given this is the final season and it didn\u2019t really progress the plot, nor did it really service enough of the main character arcs: you could take it out, and we probably wouldn\u2019t miss much.<\/p>\n

It should also be noted that not everyone is down on the episode, and it currently has a pretty good 8.1\/10 rating on IMDb \u2013 the lowest of the season so far, but by no means a disaster, nor the lowest of the show by a long shot (that would be Season 4, Episode 2, \u201cLife Among the Septics,\u201d with a rating of 7.2).<\/p>\n

Still, it did have its problems, and the \u201cfiller\u201d aspect might have been better if it hadn\u2019t felt like such clear setup for the Vought Rising prequel<\/a>: with the mystery of Quinn, the mentions of Bombsight and Stormfront, and the emotional response from Soldier Boy that we don\u2019t yet fully understand, it means that the episode will only full work and we\u2019ll get the character development and catharsis from the spinoff, which shouldn\u2019t really be happening in a final season.<\/p>\n

There does have to be a careful balance, and those complaining about the season being too slow need to be a little careful for what they wish for: as Game of Thrones Season 8 showed, pacing of a final season can go too far in the other direction, as well. Slowing things down works if there\u2019s strong character development, which is what this episode didn\u2019t quite nail enough of, but there\u2019s plenty to be excited about moving forward, especially after that ending with Homelander.<\/p>\n

New episodes of The Boys release on Wednesdays on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boys Season 5, Episode 4, \u201cKing of Hell,\u201d has proved to be the most divisive episode of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,1092,16635,188142,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-546619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-regular-news","10":"tag-the-boys","11":"tag-the-boys-tvshow","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}