April 8, 2026  ·  First 7 episodes reviewed  ·  Premieres today on Prime Video

It’s genuinely rare for a TV show to leave on its own terms — let alone a show this chaotic, this loud, and this unapologetically deranged. But that’s exactly what The Boys appears to be doing. After six years and a franchise that now spans animated anthologies, spin-offs, and more on the way, Eric Kripke’s superhero satire is finally drawing the curtain. And based on the first seven episodes of Season 5, it’s doing so with real conviction.

A world turned upside down — where are our heroes now?

Season 5 picks up a year after Homelander’s forces captured the Boys, and everyone is worse off for it. Billy Butcher — now sporting tentacle powers thanks to Compound V — is living as a fugitive. Starlight’s resistance movement is barely holding together. Kimiko escaped one of Homelander’s Freedom Camps and is laying low in the Philippines. A-Train is in hiding with his family in the south of France. And Hughie, Mother’s Milk, and Frenchie are sitting in a prison cell, plotting their way out.

Meanwhile, Homelander has never been more terrifying — backed by Sister Sage, Vought’s calculating new CEO, and a supporting cast that includes a manosphere podcast host (yes, that’s The Deep), a corrupt clergy Supe named Oh Father played by a perfectly cast Daveed Diggs, and a returning Soldier Boy whose presence rattles everyone around him. Even Black Noir II and Firecracker seem nervous — and when those two start looking over their shoulders, things are clearly escalating.

Still shocking — but now it actually means something

If you’ve been watching since 2019, you already know that The Boys has never been shy about pushing the envelope. Superpowered orgies, exploding bodies, scenes that make you genuinely question your own taste — it’s all part of the deal. Season 5 hasn’t abandoned any of that. But this time, Kripke and his writers have made a conscious decision to let story do the heavy lifting, and it pays off.

Major characters die. When they do, it hurts — because their arcs are actually finished, not just cut short. The show digs into timely territory around weaponised religion and the mechanics of fascism without feeling like it’s screaming the point at you. And in a welcome shift, the emotional centre of the season moves from Hughie and Annie’s relationship to Frenchie and Kimiko’s — a pairing surrounded by tragedy, but one that gives the show something surprisingly tender to hold onto.

Do you need to watch Gen V first? Thankfully, no

One of the biggest questions heading into Season 5 was whether it would demand familiarity with Gen V Season 2 as a prerequisite. Franchises that make spin-offs required viewing before the main event rarely get away with it, and fans were rightfully worried. The answer here is a relief: you don’t need to have watched it. Some of the catch-up dialogue feels a touch mechanical, and Gen V fans might wish those characters had more to do in these first seven episodes — but it never derails the season. There’s also a brief tease of what Vought Rising has in store, and it lands more naturally than expected.

Standout performances that remind you why you stayed

Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy gets far more room to breathe this season, and his dynamic with Antony Starr’s Homelander is the show at its most compulsively watchable — two massive egos circling each other in what the season wisely leans into as a twisted father-son story. Karen Fukuhara’s Kimiko, a series regular since day one, operates in entirely new territory this time around. She’s still the same tragic force of nature, but she now has a voice — literally — and it reshapes her relationship with Frenchie in ways that feel both funny and genuinely moving.

Verdict: bloody diabolical, in the best way

Ending a beloved, divisive, massively popular TV show is a nearly impossible task. Season 4 showed some strain — the plotting stretched, the pace sagged — and reasonable people worried the finale might fumble. Based on what’s here, those fears look misplaced. The Boys Season 5 is pacing itself well, swinging hard when it needs to, and resisting the urge to turn every episode into a runway show for the final battle. One episode in particular breaks from the show’s usual format entirely and tells its story through an anthology structure — it’s the best episode of the season so far, and maybe one of the best the show has ever done.

Prime Video is holding the series finale back for now — smart move. But if the last episode can match the quality of the seven before it, The Boys Season 5 may well be remembered as the show’s finest hour. All the gore, the dark comedy, the action, the sheer reckless audacity is still here. It’s just finally pointed somewhere worth going. In Butcher’s words: bloody diabolical.