What turned out to be the finale of "Boys": ratings from critics and viewers
The final episode of "The Boys", one of the most talked—about series, has been released. The eighth episode of the fifth season, titled "Blood and Bone", put an end to the seven-year history of the confrontation between superhumans and ordinary people who decided to fight back. The reaction of the world's press and social media turned out to be as mixed as the series itself: critics greeted the finale with delight, the audience with undisguised disappointment. All the details are in the Izvestia article.
97% vs. 59%: The split the showrunner feared
Even before the finale, showrunner Eric Kripke admitted in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he was not expecting a unanimous reaction.
"I get a lot of discontent online, to put it mildly. And I think, "What do you expect? Do you expect a large-scale battle scene in each episode?" At no stage during the writing of the script did I think, "Yes, we're doing filler sequences. So what?" We all thought then that we were really working out the important details of the characters. We have about 14 characters, maybe 15. And I owe them all — in the sense that television is a character business — I owe them all to work out, humanize them and their stories," he said.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the fifth season of "Boys" finished with a 97% rating from professional critics, based on 72 reviews. This is very close to the iconic third season, which received 98%. At the same time, the Popcornmeter viewer counter froze in the range of 59-66% — a gap that is difficult to miss.
Screen Rant noted in its review that the fifth season has become the most politically acute in the history of the show, and this explains the split in the audience.
"Almost nothing in the Boys finale came as a surprise—and it's meant as a compliment. The logical and satisfying is more important than the unexpected and incoherent," the critic wrote.
Slashfilm declared that "Boys" was "the last and final word about the superhero genre in general," and Bam Smack Pow predicted that "viewers will be talking about this episode for a long time."
As for the final episode itself, critics generally considered it a worthy conclusion, although some pointed out the lack of screen time to decouple all the storylines.
"I admit, I was among those who were worried at the end of the penultimate episode of the fifth season of The Boys. It seemed unlikely that the story could be fully completed with just one more episode of standard length. Instead of 60 minutes, which has long been the standard for the series, it seemed like 90 minutes would be enough. As it turned out, all my fears were in vain," the review said. Winteriscoming.net .
How the audience met: "betrayal" and "a worthy ending"
In X (ex. Twitter) a war of opinion broke out even before the episode ended. The reactions ranged from restrained approval to utter despair, reflecting the very polarization that Kripke had warned about.
Some viewers thanked the creators: the finale, according to them, put exactly those who were supposed to be in the center — Karl Urban and Anthony Starr — closed most of the storylines and did not spare the characters where the story required it. Starr's role was called "the role of life" and added that he played "one of the best villains in the history of television."
Other comments were much sharper. There were complaints about the lack of a threat on a planetary scale, weak final battles and undisclosed arcs of minor characters. Someone put the ending on a par with the endings of "Game of Thrones" and "Stranger Things."
"None of it was satisfying. Deaths are predictable, and the final battles unfolded exactly as you expected," one user wrote.
Republic World recorded that part of the audience called the finale a "massive betrayal," while another called it "exactly what it was supposed to be." It is significant that even the most dissatisfied viewers praised the acting, especially Anthony Starr.
"This is not a Game of Thrones": comparisons that could not be avoided
Comparison with the failed finales of other series became the main topic in the discussion of "Boys". ComicBook noticed the day before: the finale was released in theaters on May 19, the day "Game of Thrones" ended six years ago. The coincidence made the parallels almost inevitable. One of the characters in the fifth season says "Winter is coming" twice, a direct homage that the scriptwriters clearly put in intentionally.
Another landmark was the finale of "Very Strange Cases", released in December 2025. Even at the beginning of work on the final season, Kripke publicly criticized this show — in the end, "everyone survived" — and promised that the stakes would be real in The Boys.
"It upsets me when, at the end of a big epic show, it turns out that everything is fine. I shout at the screen: you have to pay for everything! So don't get too attached to any character," Kripke said in an interview.
A Primetimer reviewer said that if the finale of "Game of Thrones" was a "disaster" and the conclusion of "Very Strange Cases" was a "noticeable disappointment." In the case of "The Boys," in his opinion, they chose a "more realistic ending." As noted, many viewers who remained dissatisfied, at the same time recognized the fairness of such an assessment.
NetflixJunkie compared the ratings: "Boys" finished with 97% of critics and was on a par with "Breaking Bad" and "Game of Thrones" in their best years. "Game of Thrones" has not recovered from the failure of the eighth season, "Breaking Bad" has retained an almost perfect score. "Boys" is somewhere in between: critics are thrilled, the audience is mostly not.
What's next: the universe of "Boys"
Despite the finale of the main series, Prime Video does not intend to close the universe. There are two projects in development.
Dawn of Vought is a prequel set in the 1950s. At the center of the story is a detective storyline related to the founding of the Vought Corporation and the superhero creation program. Jensen Eccles returns as a Combat Soldier, and his partner will be Aya Cash, who once again plays the role of Stormfront. Filming ended in March 2026, and the release is scheduled for 2027. Kripke expects the show to continue beyond the first season.
"Gen V", a student spin—off launched in 2023, was closed after two seasons. Kripke expressed the hope that his favorite characters will appear in other projects of the universe.
Seven years from the debut to the final
"Boys" was released on Prime Video in July 2019 and instantly became a cultural phenomenon. The satire on corporate America, superhero culture, and the media space hit exactly the nerve of an era when Marvel fatigue was already being felt, but there was no alternative yet. The series is based on a comic book by Garth Enniss and Darik Robertson and adapted by Eric Kripke, the creator of Supernatural.
Five seasons in seven years. The third, with the episode "Herorgasm", is considered by most critics to be the peak of the show — 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. The fourth was the most controversial: only 54% of the audience. The fifth was an attempt at rehabilitation. Critics say that she was a success in many ways — the audience agrees with this only partially.
In a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Kripke named the main fear that kept him busy throughout the final season: "In retrospect, people will judge the series based on how they perceived the finale." Judging by the reaction in X and on aggregators, the fear was justified. But Prime Video's record ratings tell a different story.
On May 5, Medialogia presented the results of the Russian series rating for the first quarter of 2026. The absolute leader was the project "Very Strange Things", which scored 15,948 points. In second place is the series "Lilies of the Valley" (8829), and in third place is "The First Department" (7745). The fourth place was taken by the anime "Magic Battle" with 6419 points, and "Sled" rounded out the top five with 3563 points.
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