@glennganges Published April 8, 2026, 7:30 p.m. ET Where to Stream: The Boys Powered by Reelgood More On: The Boys ‘The Boys’ Season 5 Episode 1 Recap: Nobody Runs Forever Who Is Rock Hard? What To Know About The Gross New Teenage Kix Member In ‘The Boys’ Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Boys’ Season 5 On Prime Video, The Final Season Of The Funny And Extremely Bloody Superhero Series How Many Episodes Are In ‘The Boys’ Season 5? A powerful dumbass, driven by rage and insecurity, is holding his gun on the world.
But hey at least The Boys is still sort of fictional as it begins its fifth and final season. It’s been a year or so since the events of Season 4, and it’s a fascist Homelander’s America for all who live in it, at least until he lazer-eyes to death every last citizen. With most of The Boys detained, a powered-back-up Annie January (Erin Moriarty) leading a losing resistance movement as Starlight, and Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) still a threat but also sick somewhere, Homelander (Antony Starr) is free to gloat. When he appears before a sea of red hats at CPAC – cough – a Vought International shareholders’ meeting, it’s to raucous cheers and blind adulation. These people are sheep for their supe god daddy.
President Steven Calhoun (David Andrews) is an executive only of capitulation. As Vice President, Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) is just a propaganda mouthpiece. And as CEO of Vought, Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) is implementing her own brand of intelligent design. From tech oligarchs to the Obamas, everyone calls her for advice; she is the node through which this superaddled regime truly operates. And even Annie jacking the terrible Transoceanic Flight 37 footage into Vought’s live national feed can’t stop this bizarro world party. The wildeyed faithful, gathered before Homelander, are more than willing to believe he’s their hero, even as he screams “I’ll lazer ever fucking one of you!” in the past and is tempted to do the same to them in the present. Sage pauses Homelander’s answer for everything – indiscriminate murder – with a hand on his shoulder.
As the smartest supe ever, Sister Sage is better at straddling a workable position with Homelander. She’ll accept his needling references to Gen V Season 2 and her disastrous relationship with Thomas Godolkin – because who cares, they blamed that campus supe massacre on Starlight. She’ll be happy to run public interference for Homelander’s depraved fuckery – because clearly she’s working some personal angle or endgame. And in the meantime she’ll placate him with the promise of more violence as the king supe with all the power sputters about insecurities at an individual level. In so many ways, Homelander has already won. But this victory only highlights his emptiness. He’s a caped and gilded idiot carping about personal attacks via meme.
Butcher is definitely still sick, and definitely still a threat, but these are now in combination. He has become one with the Kessler virus that hounded him. His tendrils and sperm daggers are part of him. And as he travels the world – threatens his estranged, abusive father in London; scoops up Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) in Manila – the people in his life are now as wary of Butcher as those in Homelander’s circle are of getting lazered. Billy and Kimiko reunite with Annie, ‘cause it’s time to bust Hughie (Jack Quaid), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) out of the Homelander-branded “Freedom Camp” where they’ve been detained. But while Butcher’s main objective is to get Frenchie working on the anti-supe virus again, for Kimiko, it’s all about seeing – and talking with! – her professed true love. Kimiko speaks!
The Freedom Camp raid goes haywire immediately, always a feature not a bug of any Boys op, because Homelander is there. He sniffed out Hughie’s Hogan’s Heroes act, the Molotov cocktails stuffed under floorboards, and carnage kicks off as his eyes slice the regenerating Kimiko in half. No matter – she and Frenchie kiss passionately as he carries her torso to safety. Butcher deploys his supe limbs, Starlight is airlifting people out of there, and just when Homelander’s about to ventilate Hughie’s skull, the Boys get an assist from the newest member of the resistance. A-Train (Jesse T. Usher) has been on the run ever since he switched sides, staying one step ahead, and keeping his loved ones hidden from douchey Homelander minion The Deep (Chace Crawford). But nobody runs forever. A-Train uses his powers to help the Boys crew escape, and draws Homelander away from the camp at breakneck speed.
As A-Train bolts from his former boss, there is a really nice reference to Season 1 and the TV beginnings of The Boys. An innocent young woman walking in the road, who A-Train changes course to consciously avoid. It speaks to the reclamation of his soul after too many years as a member of glorified Vought hit squad The Seven. But the redirect also knocks him off his pace, and Homelander corners him.
It is delicious to watch A-Train laugh in this evil fucker’s face. “What was I so afraid of? You’re just an empty suit.” He knows it’s the end of the line for him, and we also know this, considering Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has been teasing Epic Deaths since the series conclusion was announced. But it’s so powerful to watch the character, in his final moments, totally destroy Homelander’s fragile veneer of sanity.
“Take away these powers, and what are you? A pathetic, weak, sniveling fucking loser.” Antony Starr twists Homelander’s features from swaggering supe arrogance into the weak, desperate for love laboratory abomination he really is, and he snaps A-train’s neck. It’s the solution of a bully. Like any despot, cruelty and murder is all he knows.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
