“The Boys” has begun shooting its fifth and final season and fans everywhere are speculating wildly on how the Prime Video superhero series will come to an end.
Though he’s remaining tight-lipped on specifics, “The Boys” creator and showrunner Eric Kripke said in a recent FYC panel alongside his stars that he’s enjoying the freedom that comes with the final batch of episodes.
“It’s really fun when it’s the end,” Kripke told Variety senior entertainment writer Angelique Jackson at the SAG-AFTRA-hosted panel. “It’s hard and it hasn’t hit me yet about the emotion of it. But just from a story point of, you don’t have to keep storylines going into a season beyond that really lets you blow the doors off it in a really exciting way.”
Also sitting on the panel were “The Boys” actors Antony Starr (who plays Homelander), Laz Alonso (Mother’s Milk) and Jessie T. Usher (A-Train).
Starr expressed gratitude for how Amazon’s Prime Video has given Kripke and “The Boys” team the space to decide when the show should conclude.
“I was just thinking what a great spot we’re in, because a lot of times, your show gets canned and you never see it coming,” Starr said. “You don’t see the train coming down the tracks. We’ve known since Day 1 — you said, five seasons. And I said, whatever, see if we do well! And nope, five seasons, which is beautiful because we get to go back. We know that we’re leaving this project. We’ll all stay in touch because everyone does genuinely get on. But we will make the most of every moment that we have together as individuals and as creatives because we’ve had that forewarning.”
Going into the final season, Kripke highlighted the fact that Homelander is “literally all trauma” after becoming the de facto leader of the “free” world through his machinations ahead of Season 4’s presidential inauguration.
“He’s literally all trauma. I think what he plays so beautifully about it is he wants to be a god, but he’s a man. And it’s kind of slowly, or maybe not so slowly, driving him insane,” Kripke said. “So dealing with things like aging, dealing with insecurity, dealing with a need for love — all very normal human things, these are all things he finds detestable. He needs them, but he’s revolted by them all at once.”
Starr joked he’d love to do a Homelander spinoff series, with Kripke quickly joining in to riff on the idea as a sitcom, adding, “‘Homefree’ coming 2025.”