TV Review - Amazon's The Boys Season 5, Episode 7

From the first.

The Boys is a 2019-2026 black comedy superhero TV series created by Eric Kripke, produced by Kripke Enterprises, Point Grey Pictures, Original Film, Kickstart Entertainment, KFL Nightsky Productions, Amazon MGM Studios, and Sony Pictures Television, and distributed by Amazon Prime Video. The series is based off of Garth Ennis's 2006-2012 comic book of the same name. It stars Karl Urban and Antony Starr. This is the fifth and final season, although multiple spin-offs are in the works.

"Thank you for saving me." - Kimiko Miyashiro

Plot

After Homelander seemingly achieves immortality, the Boys are thrust into a desperate situation as they try to cook up one last plan to save the world from it's self-proclaimed savior.

The Sweet

I've been behind on my reviews of The Boys (apologies), but I'm back for the final week of the show. We've got one episode left, people. And I am...thoroughly hesitant going into the finale.

The penultimate episode of The Boys is a hefty mix of a few great things and some continuing questionable choices regarding the final season of the show.

Let's cut right to the chase: this episode kills off Frenchie, a beloved character that has been with us since the second entry in the show. I have very mixed feelings on his death (which we will get to later), but I do think that it gives us a properly emotional send-off to this character. Frenchie has always been the sort-of lovable sweetheart of the Boys. Despite being a clear criminal, he has this enormous heart that is exemplified through his beautiful relationship with Kimiko. Their final exchange does tug at the heartstrings and feels like the appropriately emotional goodbye to this character who we've all loved since season one.

Beyond that, this episode has a few good sequences and moments. It feels like Annie has not had anything to do all season, and she finally gets some interesting development that feels earned. She's been very cynical and pessimistic throughout this season, but M.M. finally gets her back to being the hero she has always been by explaining how he got the name "Mother's Milk". The Boys has lacked these endearing moments in the final season, and this one felt earned and satisfying. Annie's lack of purpose throughout this season has also been a huge frustration for me personally, so it was nice to see her finally get back to a bit of true heroism.

I also think the banter between Butcher and Hughie was as good as its been throughout the entire run of The Boys. These two are the heart and soul of this show, and in a season as overstuffed as this has been, we've lost some of these quieter character moments between them. After they get captured by the psychics, the two of them get what feels sort of like a final exchange before they head into the finale. We see one of the psychics transform into Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Joe Kessler and expose Butcher as this disloyal psycho - to which Hughie responds by trusting Butcher and distracting the psychic so Butcher can kill him. It's a great little sequence in a vacuum, and I miss that we haven't gotten more of these moments this season.

The Sour

Unfortunately, I do not have a ton of faith in the final episode of The Boys.

Because I haven't posted about The Boys in a few weeks, I just wanted to sort of iterate my feelings on the past few episodes. This season started off incredibly strong but has really faltered since the beginning. Homelander feels more like a source of comedy and cringe than an actual terrifying villain. This season is so set on being a backdoor pilot for the prequel, Vought Rising, that it is exchanging its own story to setup characters like Bombsight and Golden Geisha. And it simply doesn't feel big enough to be a final season.

This episode really highlights that last point. We spend almost a full minute watching Sheline and Dogknott sniff each others butts and talk about what they ate for lunch. It's not funny. It's not being satirical. It's just gross-out humor, which we are spending valuable runtime on...in the penultimate episode of the entire series. I don't mind what people complain about as "filler". I think the episode where we highlighted Firecracker and Black Noir and had a few side adventures with the supporting cast was really interesting and added depth and complexity to all of the characters's attitudes and actions throughout the season. What I view as "filler" is the pointless, dumb humor that is taking away from moments where we could be building conflicts and raising stakes.

This episode also starts shortchanging all of our villains besides Homelander. The Deep is still in this show for some reason, and he is now scared of the water because all of the fish hate him because of this oil pipeline spill. Samuel L. Jackson vocal cameo aside, this storyline feels like a complete waste of time. Again, it is taking away from building towards a final confrontation between Homelander and the Boys. I don't care about The Deep. He's not meant to be and isn't compelling. He's a pathetic joke of a character and is treated as such throughout the show, so trying to give him some sort of half-baked redemption because he feels bad for killing a bunch of fish in the final two episodes feels forced and unsatisfying.

And let's talk about Sister Sage and Soldier Boy. Sister Sage is, in my opinion, one of the worst parts of both season four and season five. The writers of The Boys aren't really good at writing the "smartest person in the world" trope, so she comes off as pretentious and stupid when she's supposed to be a genius. This episode tries to justify her various failures because she miscalculated love as a variable...and I just don't buy it. In any way. You cannot tell me for two seasons that this woman is the smartest person on the planet and then whip out the "she didn't account for love" excuse in the penultimate episode. That is just lazy writing. Why hasn't this problem come up before? Probably because it wasn't convenient for the writers to use it until now.

Soldier Boy, on the other hand, is one of my favorite characters in the show, although that's beginning to falter due to his execution in this season. Every other episode, this man switches sides. One minute, he hates Homelander. The next, he's proud of him. The next, he's trying to kill him. The next, he's defending him. The next, he's giving him V-1 because he was in love with Stormfront (which, strangely, hasn't come up until this season. Again, convenient writing). In this episode, he decides to abandon Homelander because he thinks the whole "him being God" thing is ridiculous. That's both true and in character for Soldier Boy. Sure, it's frustrating that he's flip-flopping sides again, but that feels like how he would act in this situation. But then Homelander just chokes him out. And freezes him. Are we serious? Soldier Boy, arguably the second-strongest Supe in the world, gets choked out in a minute and might be done on this show for forever? What a lame way to write Homelander's inevitable betrayal of him. He literally doesn't fight back at all. Let me re-iterate that: Soldier Boy does not fight back when Homelander starts choking him. What has this show turned into?

I also hate the inclusion of the characters from Gen V. I get that they are part of this universe and probably should be included, but this show cannot commit to either fully including them or having them be cameos. I have not watched Gen V and I am of the belief that you should not have to watch another show to understand season five of The Boys, but the writers seem to think otherwise. Despite having references to Gen V in almost every episode and having Marie Moreau appear here, The Boys also fails to have them integrated into the plot whatsoever. Marie Moreau, who is apparently as strong as Homelander, shows up to talk to Annie and M.M. for a scene and then basically disappears. So these characters appear enough to confuse people who have not seen Gen V but don't appear enough to satisfy people who have. Nice job, guys.

And, finally, let's circle back to Frenchie's death. Again, emotionally, I think this was done fine. But practically? This is an absolute betrayal. Let's look at A-Train's death for comparison. A-Train has an arc throughout the entire show where he slowly starts to doubt Homelander and realize that he can be a hero on his own, without the glitz and glamour of the Seven. He finally got over his fear of Homelander and went on the run with his family. Then, when the Boys need him again, he shows up and confronts the person he's most afraid of. In saving Hughie's life, the person who's life he had ruined by killing his girlfriend in episode one, he loses a bit of speed which causes Homelander to catch up to him. In his final moments, he calls out Homelander for what he truly is: a pathetic baby. In response, Homelander breaks his neck, but it's an incredibly satisfying end for A-Train.

It makes sense for Frenchie to sacrifice himself to save Kimiko, but the way it is done is just so poorly executed. Frenchie turns on the uranium thing that they had been testing on Kimiko this entire episode to weaken Homelander and prevent him from finding her. This would be effective if it actually achieved either purpose. They are in a room with an open door. Homelander can just walk out of the room and close the door and then not be affected by the uranium. Or, in turn, Frenchie could walk out of the room and lock Homelander in there so he's stuck and Frenchie lives. Either way, it was completely unnecessary for him to expose himself to the uranium because it doesn't affect Homelander enough and he logistically does not need to be in there when it's turned on.

And beyond that, Homelander just leaves after Frenchie turns on the uranium. Homelander. The one who hates the Boys with a burning passion and would like nothing more than to kill or hurt Butcher, Hughie, and Annie in any way. But he finds Frenchie...and just leaves him. He doesn't search further for Sage or Kimiko despite knowing that Sage is there. And he doesn't even kill Frenchie. It makes absolutely zero sense to me that Homelander would not either laser Frenchie or capture him. This is the guy that made the Supe virus that endangered Homelander's life. And he decides to just leave him. That is absolutely illogical to me. And it completely undercuts the emotions that you are supposed to feel when Frenchie dies.

Final Thoughts and Score

As of right now, this is pretty far and away my least favorite season of The Boys. It feels unsatisfying, rushed, and now illogical. I hope this finale can redeem it, but I don't have a ton of faith.

I am going Sour here. Age range is 17+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good)

Sour (Bad)

Moldy (Terrible)

"The Boys"

"The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother's Milk"

Created by Eric Kripke

Rated TV-MA for strong bloody violence, sexual content, language, frightening themes and images, thematic elements

Premiered on May 13, 2026

68 minutes

Karl Urban as Billy Butcher

Antony Starr as Homelander

Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell Jr.

Erin Moriarty as Annie January / Starlight

Laz Alonso as Marvin T. Milk / Mother's Milk

Tomer Capone as Frenchie

Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro

Chace Crawford as Kevin Kohler / The Deep

Susan Heyward as Jessica Bradley / Sister Sage

Daveed Diggs as Oh Father

Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett

Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy

Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau

London Thor as Jordan Li

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Joe Kessler

Zach McGowan as Dogknott

Emma Elle Paterson as Sheline