With its distinctive approach to the superhero genre — for starters, most of the superpowered characters aren’t heroes — the satirical Amazon series “The Boys,” which returned to Prime Video on Wednesday for its fifth and final season, has provided a fantastical look at themes and events that many times felt eerily real.
Its chief antagonist, Homelander (Antony Starr), who wears a stars-and-stripes cape, is all-powerful but craves adoration, becoming an authoritarian leader who surrounds himself with yes-men. A police-themed hero, Blue Hawk, kills an unarmed Black man. A villain named Stormfront is a Nazi who grows her base by appealing to online extremists.
Adapted by Eric Kripke from the comic book series by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, “The Boys” quickly won fans across a broad spectrum with its unapologetic approach, soaked in profanity, sex and gore. It was also timely. The show debuted in 2019, just as the culture was about to show signs of “superhero fatigue.” And it grappled with live-wire issues of the time, like the #MeToo movement — and soon after, the divisive events of 2020, including the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, the Covid-19 pandemic and a presidential election.
“The Boys” used it all as material. It also seemed to profit from an early sense among some fans that the writers were embracing, rather than critiquing, some of its characters’ worst behaviors. On that point, Kripke has been forthright: Homelander has “always been a Trump analogue for me,” he told Rolling Stone in 2022, amid the rollout of Season 3. “I’ll admit to being a little more bald this season than I have in past seasons.”
As the satire of President Trump became more overt, some fans soured, flooding sites like Rotten Tomatoes with bad reviews. Still, the show’s popularity grew for Season 4, according to Amazon, rising to about 55 million viewers by around season’s end. It has already generated one spinoff series, “Gen V.” Another, the prequel “Vought Rising,” is forthcoming.
It seemed like a great time to end “The Boys,” Kripke said a recent video call — better than waiting until the series was “on life support.”
In a wide-ranging conversation, Kripke talked more about the decision to end the show, the expansion of its universe and the political timeliness of the final season. These are edited excerpts.
Why end “The Boys” now?
I really just wanted to go out on top. I think five seasons is about the length we can get away with withholding their final battle before the audience starts to feel like, You know, this is being a little artificially manipulated. So I think it’s the right time creatively, too. I’m not sure the show would sustain much longer.
Do you think you’ll have any regrets?
Amazon does. I’m not sure they totally believed me when I said I only wanted to do five seasons, up until we got to the fifth season and they’re like, “Wait, you’re serious?” There’s a lot I’m going to miss. I’m really going to miss how when I read some insane thing in the news, I have a place to put it and process it. Now when I read horrific headlines, I just now have to internalize it like everybody else. And it was so much healthier when I had a place put it.
Do you think ending “The Boys” will affect how viewers respond to the spinoffs?
Our feeling is, it’s a really big universe and I think the thing that really makes it special is its tone. This kind of irreverent, shocking, satirical, political, emotional stew that we have is something viewers really can’t get anywhere else right now. There are other corners of this universe that are worth exploring that we think can stand on their own as their own television shows. If we can keep the quality up, then I think that’s the best we can do.
Do you fear oversaturation, like with Marvel?
We’ll never have that level of volume. I think the most there will ever be is one show per year. My biggest concern is our tone is very like anti-corporate, anti-Marvel, anti-spinoffs, and here we are doing spinoffs. To me, the biggest challenge is just overcoming that and letting the audience know that we can take the piss out of ourselves as well. We’re aware of the absurdity of it.
How did you even begin satirizing the flood of current events with the series?
The big concern today are things like the intersection of celebrity and authoritarianism, where you can have a glitzy outside but a dictator on the inside, and what the audience is supposed to believe. These things are right in [the show’s] DNA. We sort of, by accident, stumbled onto the perfect metaphor for today and the moment we’ve been living in for the last six or seven years. Once we realized, like, Wow, in a weird way, we’re going to be able to make one of the most current shows on TV, you try to run in that direction as far and fast as you can.
You almost seemed able to anticipate things before they happened.
People’s memories are short, but the problems we were having two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago are a lot of the same problems we have today. And so we tend to just write what’s frustrating or scaring us in the headlines. We were all news junkies in the writers’ room. We would go in and be all fired up about something happening in the news and then we would find a way to process it like, “Well, what if superheroes were involved?”
Did you worry about interference from the Trump administration considering what happened with Jimmy Kimmel?
I can’t imagine anyone in any real position of power is even vaguely aware of our show. If anything, it makes me want to run further in that direction. We live in America; we’re protected by the First Amendment. We have the right and the ability to satirize public figures, especially powerful ones. Humor is a great way to deal with seemingly insurmountable problems.
“One Battle After Another” and some other Oscar winners this year really confronted the current political situation. Do you think the industry will double down on work that holds a mirror to politics?
I hope so. My corner of the world is satirical and comic and extreme, so I know that world the best and so I can speak to that. I wish there were more people thumbing their nose at the powers that be and throwing spitballs from the back of the class.
What do you hope people will take away from the show and remember it for?
My real hope is that, 10 years from now, someone will watch “The Boys” and say: “I don’t relate to that at all. My world is working great. This seems like an alien planet.” I have a sneaking suspicion that the show will resonate 10 years from now like it does today.
I hope some people were made to feel a little less crazy. There’s such a value in watching something that says to them: “No, no, no, I got you. The world’s crazy. It’s not you.” I think that helps people feel a little bit less alone. And if the show was able to do that for a few people, then consider me happy.
Emmanuel Morgan reports on sports, pop culture and entertainment.
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