Hope felt like a foreign sentiment at the end of the fourth season of “The Boys.” The rise of a fascist regime cemented itself with Homelander (Antony Starr) overtaking constitutional politics on behalf of Vought, marking a dark day in American history. The titular boys were among the first to be targeted, and some of them were nabbed by Vought supes, with only Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Starlight/Annie (Erin Moriarty) being able to escape in the nick of time.
This uneasy atmosphere suffocates us in the fifth and final season of “The Boys,” which takes its satirical politicking and balls-to-the-wall irreverence to its extremes. What started out as a gutsy, bonkers adaptation of Garth Ennis’ eponymous comic book series has evolved into a meaty, layered organism that is as timely as it is entertaining. The final chapter is as grandiose as you might expect it be, despite a tendency to root shock value at the forefront.
“The Boys” has always been about stopping Homelander. While Vought represents corporate rot and its horrifically greedy tendrils, Homelander encapsulates the whims of petty world leaders who disguise their emptiness with indiscriminate displays of power. A supe reared to represent American values goes on to become an unstable megalomaniac, and the walls have been closing in on him since quite some time.
Season 5 makes it amply clear that this is the final stretch of madness, with Homelander’s desperation-fueled spiral spelling unimaginable disaster for innocent people. Starlighters become the prime target for Vought-authorized violence, along with anyone who dares to speak against Homelander and his fascist regime. The separation between the church and the state vanishes within months, and Vought’s lackeys become puppet presidents, leaders, and governmental heads.
Amid this chaos, Butcher still has the Supe Virus, which is potent enough to wipe out half of the population. Although our titular group wants to use it to take down Homelander, Butcher leans towards all-out genocide while seeming blasé about it. No one else is on board, of course, least of all Hughie (Jack Quaid), who is deathly afraid that some of Butcher’s apathy will rub off on the others. Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) realize that they will have to stay back and fight to atone for their sins, as the only way to face their guilt is to save as many innocents as possible.
In an environment where supe militia pick up random citizens off the streets to put them inside Vought-controlled “Freedom Camps,” there is very little margin of error for our boys. Even so, things get expectedly messy and brutal, with ample amounts of blood, guts, and viscera (among other disgusting bodily fluids) taking turns to flesh out this final mission.
This is a complex story, given the meaty layers attributed to the face of evil and the people countering it. As a show that lives (and thrives) in the grey moral zone, “The Boys” holds up the biggest mirror to reality this season. This mirror has always existed, of course, clearly meant to lampoon and satirize everything that contributes to the rise of American fascism and its ongoing fallout. As repulsive and pathetic as Homelander is, his brand of evil is no match for the real-life dictators hell-bent on usurping lives for the sake of political gratification.
The most prominent connecting thread, however, is the fragility of such evil. Once the thread of apoliticism snaps and the world chooses to fight back, such flagrant displays of authority feel as puny as those who exploit the vulnerable. “The Boys” might up the ante with a supe-killing drug and the sacrifices of primary characters, but reality outpaces these commendable attempts at capturing the hellish times we’re currently living in.
This isn’t a drawback by any stretch of the imagination, as “The Boys” has consistently pulled off what very few shows have managed to. It’s one thing to allude to topical events once in a while (and in some cases, limit this critique to the world of quasi-fiction), and another to build an acclaimed Prime Video series that tackles these subjects head-on.
Season 5 is violent, hilarious, and devastating. The interpersonal and the political are so tightly knit that it might finally jolt awake those who demarcate politics as an abstraction that doesn’t dictate our day-to-day. Perhaps, after five boisterous, heavy-handed seasons, those who still think that Homelander is some sort of misunderstood anti-hero will come to their senses and feel pity — and disgust — towards his inept narcissism. Perhaps, they will also realize that those blindly following a fascist regime, like The Deep (Chace Crawford) or Ashley (Colbie Minifie), are equally culpable for the horrors when the dust settles.
