TV Review - Amazon's The Boys Season 5, Episodes 1 & 2

Have a super day.

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.

"What was I ever afraid of?" - A-Train

Plot

After Homelander's radical takeover of the United States Government, Billy Butcher and Annie January look to breakout the rest of The Boys from a Vought freedom camp and release the Godolkin Virus to end Homelander once and for all.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

The Sweet

After a relatively disappointing fourth season, The Boys is back...and more diabolical than ever.

It's kind of ironic that The Boys is coming out at the same time as Invincible, because they are the two big alternate superhero stories that are not Marvel or DC properties. That automatically is going to create comparisons between the two of them. One of my main complaints about season four of Invincible is how slow it starts off. Well, The Boys does the exact opposite.

There is so much that happens in these first two episodes. It's almost too much...but it's not. From literally the first scene, The Boys establishes the huge stakes that it will be carrying throughout this fifth and final season. All of the characters are in danger. Tensions are at an all-time high. Homelander is the most off his rocker that he's ever been. I absolutely loved how quickly The Boys got the plot going. You want your final season to start out with a bang, and that is exactly what these first two episodes do.

These two episodes also get back to the humor that The Boys is known for. Season four leaned too much into the grotesque, shocking side of things that it lost the metaphors and sharp political commentary. Immediately, season five gets back to that. AI as a plot device has become a bit overused in today's day and age, but The Boys brings it in in a very logical and clever way. There's obviously some very gross, nauseating moments as well, but they feel funny and necessary in a way that they didn't in season four.

The Boys is at its best when it can balance the comedy and dramatic, huge stakes well, and these two episodes do that beautifully. The first episode is literally all about a rescue mission that will kill three of our main heroes if it goes poorly. Through showing all sides of this rescue mission, we get a sense at where all the characters are at, and it really is setting the stage for what will be an epic final showdown. It is terrifying how much power Homelander has, and he exploits it as much as he can here.

The moment that everyone is going to be talking about from this premiere is, obviously, the fate of A-Train. I published my death predictions on Tuesday, and A-Train was pretty high on the list. That was a good choice, because he doesn't even make it through one episode here. He's only in, like, three scenes, but they send him off beautifully. We see how far he's come and how much he's been redeemed. He has finally made peace with his brother. And, after debating whether or not he should go help Annie, he does, saving Hughie's life in the process. His final moments as he berates Homelander and calls him pathetic were just perfect. It felt reminiscent of Nacho Varga's death in Better Call Saul, and I mean that in an entirely positive way. He finally stands up to the force that has been oppressing him and forcing him to do terrible things all throughout the show. In doing so, he dies, but he dies with his dignity, and that's a powerful final note for A-Train's run to end on.

The action sequences that we get here are also really fantastic. We get two major set pieces with little fight scenes sprinkled throughout, but having epic fights early in the season just reinforces how fast of a start this has gotten off to. Seeing Butcher with his powers is fun, albeit disgusting, but it also makes for some truly exciting spectacle, because he can now actually match Homelander or Soldier Boy or whoever else.

I feel like I've both said a lot and not that much in this review, becuase I feel like I'm just praising The Boys for being The Boys. But that's good. You want your final season to feel like the true final season of your show, and, in its first two episodes, The Boys definitely does. I am very excited to see where this season goes and ultimately lands the ship.

The Sour

Again, I don't have much to say here. I think that these first two episodes were pretty great. There's a few problems that I have, but most of the issues are just issues with the show in general that are not necessarily specific to these two episodes.

I know I said that the gross-out humor was much better than season four, and it was, but it definitely still gets to be a bit too much. There's one specific running gag with a character called Rock Hard (yes, that's his actual name) that just got overused to a point where it was no longer funny and simply disgusting. There's a few other moments that are like that, but again, that's just what The Boys does. It pushes the limits of where you can go with dark, dirty humor.

I also think episode two is a pretty significant step down from episode one. It's still a very good episode, but it definitely feels a bit more disjointed and awkwardly paced than the first episode. Episode one balances all of the insanity going on well, and episode two cracks a bit when trying to get all of these plot lines the apt amount of screentime. Hopefully that's not a problem throughout this season.

And, finally, this is just a nitpick, but Kimiko talking is just weird. I know that's not even really a negative. But it takes some adjusting to. And I don't know if I've fully adjusted. Just figured I'd point that out here. That really threw me off in these first two episodes, so hopefully it'll settle in and feel more normal throughout the season.

Final Thoughts and Score

The Boys is off to an absolutely blazing start to the end with a hilarious, high-stakes, and thrilling first two episodes that are properly building towards Homelander's final confrontation with The Boys.

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

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"The Boys"

"Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite"

"Teenage Kix"

Fun Factor: 9.5/10

Acting: 8.5/10

Story: 8.5/10

Characters: 9/10

Quality: 8.5/10

Created by Eric Kripke

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

Premiered on April 8, 2026

Episode runtime: 55 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

Jessie T. Usher as Reggie Franklin / A-Train

Chace Crawford as Kevin Kohler / The Deep

Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett

Susan Heyward as Jessica Bradley / Sister Sage

Valorie Curry as Misty Tucker Gray / Firecracker

Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy

Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir II

Ely Henry as The Worm

John Noble as Sam Butcher

Dylan Colton as Jetstreak

Emma Elle Paterson as Sheline

Derek Johns as Love Sausage

Ess Hödlmoser as Cindy

Omid Abtahi as Sameer Shah

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Countess Crow

Andrew Iles as Rock Hard

Daveed Diggs as Oh Father