The Boys debuted near the tail end of the MCU’s better days, and Prime Video/Amazon‘s Bad Supe franchise is still going strong as James Gunn’s DCU takes shape. However, The Boys is winding down while the Gen V spin off is now firmly established with prequel series Vought Rising in the works. Before that show launches, we gotta see Homelander lose it for good, so let’s talk about how The Boys‘ fifth season might torture his psyche and more.
Plot
To be perfectly blunt, Amazon has managed to reveal almost nothing about this final season’s plot. As showrunner, Kripke has also revealed that filming began last November with scripts only half written. He stressed that this isn’t uncommon for the satiric, superhero-skewering show since current events have forced last minute changes, so even if concrete plot hints had dropped, they could completely change by air time.
However, we can take some semi-educated guesses. Plot armor is now gone, so anybody and everybody could croak. Yay? Also, Butcher is likely working out how to use the virus as a weapon of mass destruction. Starlight and A-Train re the Supes most likely to free Hughie, MM, Kimiko, and Frenchie. Homelander has so many enemies, and that list has grown since he became de facto U.S. president. He will be beholden to Sister Sage, and it would be amazing if she turned on him and helped to take him out. For that matter, a satisfying Homie obliteration could come from Butcher, Ashley, Soldier Boy, Hughie, and others, but Eric Kripke (while speaking with TV Insider) has also made it sound like he remains his own worst enemy while really wanting Soldier Boy to come through as his father:
“Yeah, no, he is. The thing about Homelander — and I was just talking to Antony about this yesterday — is it’s sort of tragic, actually, but ultimately, the guy just wants someone to love him. He tries amassing all of this power just so someone somewhere will love him, but they’re all scared of him because of all that power. And I think the same goes for Soldier Boy… [Homelander] just wants a dad to love him and be proud of him. And without spoiling anything in Season 5, I would say, because the revelation that Soldier Boy was his father came so late in Season 3, we never really got the chance to play it, but actually playing this father-son relationship between those two characters, there’s a lot of material to mine there and a lot of fraught emotional turns. So we’re able to dig into that in Season 5, and it has been a blast watching those two actors play off each other in the dailies.”
Then there’s the Supernatural reunion of Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy being thawed out after bringing Homie to tears upon discovery. Kripke recently weighed in with TV Insider on how these characters cross paths:
Behind the scenes, the fun has already been captured as Kripke shares, “It’s a blast. We already shot it.” And for anyone wondering which actors will share the screen with one another, Kripke adds, “I will confirm that Jared, Jensen, and Misha are all in the same frame together, and in the same storyline, and interacting with each other.”
Another major question remains: what will Ashley be like as a Supe? The last season finale featured her possibly Hulking out after taking Compound V in sheer desperation. The resulting transformation looked painful for her and showed her scalp beginning to pulsate. Colby Minifie has admitted that she hopes this is “humiliating” for Ashley:
“As we’ve seen, when V first enters your body, the historic visual on the show is that it enters your bloodstream and things start happening in your blood, and it takes over your body. So what we’re hinting at is something’s going to happen! We don’t know if she survives or dies, but I have pitched some things of what her superpower could be — they’re all humiliating. I don’t know what they’re gonna do, or how they’ll see that to fruition. But it will be something crazy.”
A fitting possibility includes “super hair” akin to Medusa. After Homelander made Ashley’s hair fall out from stress (and then he publicly dragged her for being bald), those snakes would be an incredible way to squeeze him into submission. Hey, somebody needs to do this.
Cast
At this moment, the official lineup of The Seven includes Antony Starr (Homelander), Chace Crawford (Deep), Susan Heyward (Sister Sage), Nathan Mitchell (Black Noir), and Valorie Curry (Firecracker). Yup, that’s only Five, but A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) recently left the building and will be part of the fifth season, surely behind enemy lines. The same goes for Starlight (Erin Moriarty) officially being part of the rebellion. Other confirmed The Seven-tangential returns include Colbie Minifie (as Supe-d up Ashley) and Homelander’s son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti). Meanwhile, Daveed Diggs nabbed a secret role.
Also, showrunner Eric Kripke’s Supernatural reunion is adding Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins (who knows what roles?) to the existing equation of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s imaginary Joe Kessler and Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy, who will also be warming up for Vought Rising.
Detained rebels will include Jack Quaid (Hughie), Laz Alonso (Mother’s Milk), Karen Fukuhara (Kimiko), and Tomer Capone (Frenchie). Where is Karl Urban’s Billy Butcher? Working on a dastardly plan with that Supe virus in tow when Urban isn’t exercising middle fingers on-set with Quaid for funsies.
We can also plan on seeing ghostly Becca Butcher (Shantel Van Santen) and potential returns from Cindy (Ess Hödlmoser) and Gen V‘s Sam (Asa Germann) and Cate (Maddie Phillips).
Release Date
Gen V will return in Summer 2025, and The Boys will return sometime in 2026. From there, Vought Rising will probably arrive in 2027, and The Boys: Mexico (with Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) remains “a while away” from an official greenlight, according to Eric Kripke.
Trailer
We won’t see a trailer until after Gen V‘s next season surfaces, but it’s worth reliving the moment when an unimpressed Sister Sage unsettled Homelander while he recruited her for The Seven.