If superheroes were real, they’d be assholes — that’s the abbreviated premise for Prime Video’s hit satirical superhero series “The Boys,” which is entering its fifth, final and likely goriest season after a Wednesday premiere. Since it first aired in 2019, the Emmy-nominated show has followed the titular ragtag group of vigilantes as they attempt to tear down a corporate-backed, commercialized superhero team called The Seven, who dabble in corruption, drug abuse, sexual perversion and terrorism. Season five’s storyline is as intense as ever, with a healthy dose of what the show has become known for: stinging, at times prescient social commentary.
“You reel people in because of the genre, but then you end up feeding them more topical subject matters because you’re attracting people that may not normally want to watch a show that is centered around those topical subjects,” Erin Moriarty, who stars as the virtuous superhero Starlight, told WSN.
This season, the setting is not too far off from our dystopian reality. The cruel and egomaniacal Homelander (Antony Starr), leader of The Seven, has consolidated the power of the federal government and begun forcibly herding Starlighters, supporters of Moriarty’s character, into “freedom camps.” In one of the camps sits the heart of The Boys team: Hughie (NYU alum Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone). Homelander’s forces captured them at the end of season four, and their determination to escape and rejoin the fight for America has died down. But on the outside, diabolical team leader Butcher (Karl Urban) seeks out Starlight and the human weapon Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) to break out The Boys and settle the score with Homelander.
“The Boys” has never shied away from tackling political polarization. In season two, the show offered a sobering montage of a one-off character’s descent down the right-wing pipeline. Showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed that season three’s final scene is inspired by President Donald Trump’s famous quote: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Season five now airs amid Trump’s second term, marked by deportations at home and war abroad. Kripke has been open about the parallels between Homelander and Trump, but they seem clearer in this season than ever. In episode one, Homelander designates the Starlighters a terrorist organization much in the same way Trump did the amorphous Antifa.
“Our show questions whether or not superheroes, if they really existed, would they be good?” Moriarty said. “They’d probably be corrupt. They’d probably be drunk on power.”
Aside from its politics, “The Boys” is probably best known for its ridiculousness — and rightfully so. Characters have exploded from bombs up their anuses, shapeshifters have morphed into other people for sexual purposes and World War II soldiers have risen from the dead. Season five makes no effort to distinguish itself on this front. There’s the usual swearing and trading of crude insults, and even the introduction of the Worm (Ely Henry), a character who can swallow massive amounts of dirt at once and shit it all out simultaneously — a useful power for digging holes, and very on-brand for the show.
Superhero television has overtaken popular culture in recent years, and it’s hard not to credit “The Boys” with starting that wave. Since its 2019 premiere, comic book-to-TV adaptations like Marvel Studios’ spinoffs “WandaVision” and “Loki,” Netflix’s unconventional “The Umbrella Academy” and Prime Video’s animated “Invincible” have reigned supreme. As “The Boys” paints its final satirical portraits of our political landscape and we see many beloved characters perhaps for the last time, the show’s subversive, genre-inverting impact becomes strikingly clear.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I realize I would be on the ground floor of a superhero universe that’s completely its own thing, with its own tone,” Quaid told WSN. “Hopefully we’ve left an imprint where people question authority a little bit more than we already do.”
“The Boys” season five premiered on Prime Video on April 8 and will air one episode weekly until the series finale on May 20.