The Boys Season 5 has only one episode left as the penultimate episode dropped on Prime Video this Wednesday. For weeks fans have been complaining about the “filler episodes” in this season of The Boys, something Eric Kripke countered last week. Now, with only one episode, fans are still complaining about the filler nature, making the fandom divisive.
Showrunner Eric Kripke famously fought back on those criticisms in last week’s TV Guide interview. Justifying the character-driven episodes of this season, The Boys Season 5 showrunner said:
“None of the things that happen in the last few episodes will matter if you don’t flesh out the characters. I’m getting a lot of online dissatisfaction, to put it politely. And I’m like, ‘What are you expecting? Are you expecting a huge battle scene every episode?'”
Needless to say, next Wednesday’s season 5 finale has an uphill task to win back the fans. However, there are a few things that the show can do to win back the fans.
Here are the five things that The Boys Season 5 Finale can do to make the fans happy:
The five things that the season 5 finale can do to win back fans include:
Since the fourth episode, “King of Hell“, fans have complained that The Boys Season 5 is setting up the prequel Vought Rising. For those who don’t know, Rising is the prequel series set in the 1950s. Soldier Boy and Stormfront woud be headlining Vought Rising. It might also feature the origin of Soldier Boy as “King of Hell” was set in a location called Fort Harmony, which might be featured in Rising.
Then, last week’s episode also included a cameo from Bombsight, another Rising character. This has many fans complaining about this season setting up Vought Rising. Therefore, the one of the things that finale needs to do is avoid setting up the future shows, or set them up subtly.
One of the noticeable aspects of The Boys Season 5 is Kripke is giving interviews every week after a new episode dropped on Prime Video. This has alienated some fans who see this as Kripke hand holding them through the series. Kripke had already stated that he was feeling anxious about the season 5 finale in The Hollywood Reporter interview after the season 5 premiere. When asked whether he was excited, Kripke responded:
“Excites is the wrong word. What makes me most … anxious about the final season is really hoping we land the plane. It’s super hard to do a finale. Fans will retroactively judge the show based on how they feel about the finale. If we stiff it, they will definitely say, “Well, that show wasn’t as good as we thought it was.”
This has fans already a bit anxious because the showrunner himself doesn’t feel assured about the upcoming finale.
One of the frequent complaints about Sister Sage in the fifth season is that despite being described as one of the smartest characters, she isn’t that smart. What made fans turn on her is in the closing minutes of the episode as Soldier Boy hands over V1 to Homelander. She had manipulated a wedge between father and son earlier in the episode, only for Soldier Boy to help Homelander.
Sister Sage did not calculate Soldier Boy’s love for Stormfront, which is why the latter helped Homelander. It seems that she redeemed herself in the seventh episode by helping Frenchie in upgrading Kimiko’s power. Thus, the finale needs to stick to her characterization as the smartest supe.
One character that’s hated by all fans is The Deep. Mind you, its not the actor Chace Crawford that’s at the recieving end, its more the characters. Over five seasons, the writers have crafted a pathetic character, who is hateable. Thus, The Boys Season 5 finale could finally make fans happy by featuring a brutal end of this hateable, pathetic character.
The cast and crew of the show have been open about the finale being bittersweet, rather than being a happy one. Erin Moriarty who plays Starlight in the series, described The Boys Season 5 finale as her favorite episode this season:
“It’s a heartbreaking episode. It’s not overtly cynical. But it’s still an episode that really drives home the finality of the show and the characters that we’ve all become emotionally invested in, whether they’re good or bad. The point of the show is that these characters are nuanced. They aren’t black and white. So the losses of characters that you thought you weren’t rooting for can all of a sudden be emotional because no one is all bad and no one is all good on this show.”
Are you excited for The Boys Season 5 finale? Let us know.
Edited by Ravikumar N