The Boys S5 Ep 7 Was Good. The Final Season Has a Focus Problem.
The penultimate just aired. The finale drops next Wednesday. Episode 7 was a good hour of television. And I have been thinking about why I am still not feeling about this final season the way I expected to feel. SPOILERS BELOW!!
Image: Amazon Prime Video / Sony Pictures Television
Where We Stand Going Into Tuesday
Ep 6 put V1 in Homelander's hands. Ep 7 detonated a few more threads. Homelander is sitting in the Oval Office now, feet on the desk, running the country like he owns it. That image is the back half of the season in one frame.
What Ep 7 Got Right
Frenchie died. The first major death from the core Boys group in five seasons. Watching Kimiko in the aftermath was the hardest the show has hit emotionally in a long time. She does not say anything. She does not need to. Her cries were enough to rip at my heartstrings.
Image: Amazon Prime Video / Sony Pictures Television
The Deep also is finally getting a taste of what he deserves, now having lost practically everything that made him special. After Homelander disbands the Seven and effectivly outsts the Deep, Samuel L Jackson swoops in voicing Xander the Hammerhead shark previously seen early in the season arrives and informs the Deep that the Ocean no longer wants him either, threatening to kill him should he ever set foot in the water again. Five seasons of being one of the show's most consistently awful characters. The writers finally let karma start to reach him.
Image: Amazon Prime Video / Sony Pictures Television
The Episode Was Good. The Season Has a Problem.
The Boys is wrapping up a five-season story, building the inevitable confrontation against Homelander. That is what the show was. The closer we get to the finale, the more I feel like this final season has spent too much screen time setting up the Vought Rising spinoff and not enough showing me the characters I have grown to love facing the end of their own story.
The Bombsight arc is the clearest example. Tracking him down took up almost three of the eight episodes this season. On what should have been one cleanly written hour. That runtime should have been runtime spent showing how desperate Butcher and the team have become. How worn down they are. How impossible the Homelander problem feels from where they are standing. Instead we got a search-and-find subplot eating the back third of the season.
Soldier Boy Is Eating the Show
Image: Amazon Prime Video / Sony Pictures Television
Soldier Boy has been a great character since he was introduced. Jensen Ackles is doing the work. But this is not Soldier Boy's show. It is Butcher's show. It's Hughie's. Maybe it is Eric Kripke's bond with Ackles going back to Supernatural. Maybe the V1 storyline is just the most important plot piece on the board. Whatever the reason, the original group are getting backgrounded in their own farewell season, and honestly? That stings a little.
What I Want From the Finale
A satisfying conclusion to this twisted, humorous, and bloody story we have all been watching. Give Butcher and Homelander the ending they have earned. Whatever Vought Rising is doing, let it stay out of the way of the finale.
The runway to the ending matters. We get one shot at this.
Come Talk About It
If you watched Ep 7, come tell us how it hit. If you have been having the same feelings about this season as I have, I want to hear it. Tuesday's finale is going to be the conversation we are stuck on for a while.
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