The Boys kills off a beloved main character in episode 7

The Boys just lost one of their own, and the hit Prime Video series will never quite look the same heading into its final hour.

In episode 7 of the show’s fifth and final season, titled The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man They Call Mother’s Milk, Frenchie (Tomer Capone) gave his life to protect his closest companion. Facing down a weakened Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), Homelander (Antony Starr) was poised to deliver a devastating blow until Frenchie stepped in, drew Homelander’s attention and opened a hatch that released a lethal burst of radiation.

Homelander, predictably, walked away without a scratch. Frenchie did not.

Even in his final moments, the character stayed true to himself. Before the radiation overtook him, he turned to Homelander a being of near limitless power and zero emotional depth and observed that he doubted the supe had ever danced a day in his life. It was a small, defiant, deeply human observation, and it landed exactly the way the show intended.

Kimiko rushed to his side and held him as he faded, thanking him for saving her. His response, in keeping with the tenderness that has always defined their bond, was that she was the one who had saved him. The episode closed with Kimiko cradling his lifeless body while Dream a Little Dream of Me played over the credits a deliberate callback to a fan favorite moment from season 3 that the two characters shared.

Why the showrunner says the death had to happen

Showrunner Eric Kripke, 52, addressed the decision in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday, May 13, and his reasoning was direct: a story without real cost isn’t a credible one.

Kripke explained that the creative team had determined early on that one of the core Boys members had to die before the finale not for shock value, but because meaningful victory requires meaningful sacrifice. When they worked through each character to determine who that would be, Frenchie emerged as the answer relatively quickly.

Kripke pointed to the unique emotional role Frenchie and Kimiko occupy within the ensemble. Despite the violence that defines both characters histories, there has always been a gentleness between them that sets them apart from the rest of the group. Their relationship, he argued, represents something close to the show’s moral and emotional center, which is precisely why losing Frenchie would hit hardest and why the team felt the remaining characters needed that weight behind them heading into the finale.

Without that sacrifice, he said, any sense of triumph in the final episode would ring hollow.

Samuel L. Jackson crashes the penultimate episode

Even amid the grief, the episode stayed true to the show’s anarchic sensibility with one of its more entertaining cameos to date. Samuel L. Jackson, 77, lends his voice to Xander, a hammerhead shark who serves as something of an unlikely foil to the Deep (Chace Crawford). In the scene, Xander delivers a blunt and colorful verdict on the Deep’s recent actions including alleged involvement in what the shark refers to as a pipeline genocide and makes clear that the Deep is no longer welcome anywhere near any body of water, large or small.

For Jackson, voicing an aggressive shark carries a certain poetic irony. His character in the 1999 horror film Deep Blue Sea was memorably killed by one. Kripke told Entertainment Weekly that Jackson was his first and only choice for the role, and that the actor’s availability on a single morning in New York City made it possible. Kripke joined remotely from Los Angeles to watch the recording session in real time something he described as a genuine career highlight.

Jackson joins Tilda Swinton and Charlize Theron among the notable names to have made guest appearances on the series.

One episode left

With Frenchie gone and Homelander still very much on a path toward unchecked global power, the surviving members of the Boys head into the series finale carrying more than they ever have. The final episode of The Boys premieres Wednesday, May 20, on Prime Video.