The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has admitted to feeling anxious about the final season of The Boys hitting our TV screens, saying fans will “retroactively judge” the entire show based on the Season 5 finale.
With the first two episodes of Season 5 now live, fans have their first taste of how The Boys will come to an end. It’s a significant moment for the show’s fan base, but also for Kripke and the team behind it. Season 5 is a long time coming, and, story wise, everything has been building up to this point. What will Homelander do next? Will Billy Butcher finally win the day? And who will be left standing? These are big questions, and we’re finally set for answers. It’s an exciting time for fans.
Kripke, though, isn’t so much excited, but anxious to see how fans react. “Excites is the wrong word,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “What makes me most… anxious about the final season is really hoping we land the plane.”
He went on to say that fans will judge the entire show based on how they feel about its final episode, and called finales “super hard to do.”
“It’s super hard to do a finale. Fans will retroactively judge the show based on how they feel about the finale. If we stiff it, they will definitely say, ‘Well, that show wasn’t as good as we thought it was.’ And it’s almost like you’re trying to secure your legacy with these finales. And it’s the first finale I’ve ever done, too — so it’s not like I have any experience with it. So I’m mostly anxious and girding my loins.”
This is something we’ve seen with other shows with huge fandoms behind them. A good recent example is Stranger Things, which came to an end earlier this year with a divisive final episode. But then there’s Game of Thrones’ ending, which set the tone for discourse around that show perhaps forever more. and who can forget the ending of Lost? (Some fans really wish they could.)
Will The Boys join Most Divisive Series Finales in TV History lists? It won’t be long before we find out. While you wait, check out our spoiler-free review of The Boys Season 5, Episodes 1-7.
Last week, Kripke said it had become almost impossible for the writers to effectively parody modern America, and admitted he was “bummed out” that The Boys Season 5 was written before the presidential election.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
