'The Boys' S5 finale explained by Eric Kripke

The Prime Video series The Boys finally came to an end. The finale episode arrived on Wednesday. The cast celebrated the finale a day earlier in the evening to ride the sunset together.

Creator Eric Kripke was joined by series stars including Chace Crawford, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Jensen Ackles, and Daveed Diggs at the L.A. finale event, though leads Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, and Antony Starr were not in attendance.

On the red carpet, Kripke opened up about the end of The Boys era, which, spoiler, saw some major deaths in Homelander, Billy Butcher, and The Deep as he explained that he had some of the main characters’ journeys plotted as far back as the pilot episode.

“I want everyone to love it, it’s not fun to go online and have like a thousand comments in a row saying ‘You suck, you suck, you suck, you suck,’ but I’ve sort of made peace with it’s going to be polarized like everything else,” the creator said of his anticipated fan reaction to the finale, after dealing with online backlash all season.

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“A showrunner said to me a week or two ago, which I really liked, he said, ‘Your job is to get an emotional reaction out of people, not exactly what that reaction is,’ and I liked that a lot. So if people love it, if they hate it, as long as they’re feeling emotion, then I’ve done my job.”

Crawford, while still playing coy about The Deep’s fate at the event, said he “was happy” with his ending, as “there’s no real way to get around it.” While teasing, there may be room for a Deep spinoff or prequel at some point, the star applauded “the way that Kripke did it with a five-act structure with the seasons and how it all went, somehow it kept miraculously dovetailing with what was happening culturally in the real world, which was genius. You can only hit so many home runs; you have to land the plane.”

Moriarty echoed that she is “selfishly satisfied and globally satisfied” with the final episode, emphasizing she hopes the fans “respond well.” She added, “I feel like people are going to anticipate certain moments of it, kind of, and then certain moments are going to be a surprise.” Ackles, however, is protesting the finale, declaring, “I want season six and seven and eight, you’re talking to a guy that did 15 seasons of a show [with Supernatural], so I’m like, really, five, that’s it? That’s all we’re getting?”

#TheBoys cast and crew pose together ahead of the series finale pic.twitter.com/XMCyA2w0Zh

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 20, 2026

 

But since this is indeed the end, he relented, “The way they wrap it up, I think it’s fantastic. I think Kripke had a really tall task in landing this plane the way he did, and as a fan of the show myself, I feel like it’s satisfying. So I’m happy for these guys, happy for all of us, and I hope the fans are happy as well.”

The larger Boys universe will carry on, though, including Ackles’ leading prequel series Vought Rising (out next year) and spinoff The Boys: Mexico, also in the works. Kripke also has hopes to continue Gen V in some way, after that show was cancelled after two seasons.

“I would love to figure out some spots for the Gen V kids because their story is not done yet, and I feel like we left money on the table with them, so I’d like to figure that out,” he said. “With The Boys, and I mean what a gift, I think we told their story, so I want to focus on the characters that there’s a little more gas in the tank.”