The Boys season 5 shocks for the sake of it – and I’m disappointed

This review is based on the first six episodes of The Boys season 5.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a lazy way to begin an article about Amazon Prime’s second goriest superhero TV show.

Yes, after what feels like a particularly long wait, The Boys is back for its fifth and final season.

When we last caught up with The Boys, they were in more of a jam than a motorist trying to drive down Oxford Street on Christmas Eve.

Butcher (Karl Urban) had embraced his dark side (and his evil super tumours) while Hughie (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) had been captured by Vought Agents.

Our only hope was Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), both of whom were alone and on the lam.

Season 5 then picks up one year after those events with Homelander (Anthony Starr), his army of supes, and Vought now ruling the US through a puppet president.

Can The Boys escape and finally make sure Homelander is brown bread? Well, that would be telling…

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’ve clicked on this article, your eyes have immediately been drawn to the three-star score, and you probably think I hated season five.

So let me start by reminding you that three stars does not mean I think this season was diabolical, quite the opposite.

For the most part, I had a lot of fun with the six episodes Amazon shared with critics before release – I just didn’t love them.

As always, I think the cast did a sensational job with the material.

Our heroes – Hughie, Starlight, Kimiko, Frenchie and Mother’s Milk – are all really likeable, and the back and forth they’ve built up over five seasons is sharper than Black Noir’s Knives.

Homelander, meanwhile, is truly unhinged this series, thanks in large part to Starr, who manages to make the star-spangled prat seem constantly on edge – like a man perpetually stuck behind a slow walker, ready to explode at any moment.

It’s really scary, especially when he gives into his violent impulses and reminds everyone why he’s considered the strongest supe in the world.

Speaking of violence, if you like seeing people get turned into extra chunky human salsa, you’re in for a treat.

The show has never been bloodier, and that’s saying something considering how gory the last few seasons have been.

People explode into meaty dollops with frightening regularity, necks are snapped left and right, and a beloved celebrities gets split in half like a fortune cookie. What’s not to love?

It’s not all guts and gore either, the series hasn’t lost its slightly adolescent sense of humour, and you can expect the usual f cluster bombs, sex jokes, and people using their most intimate body parts to bludgeon others to death.

Beyond the crude humour and shocking violence, though, season five has a surprisingly compelling hook.

We won’t spoil too much here, lest we become the victim of Vought’s spoiler ninjas, but the engine driving the story forward is The Boys and Homelander’s hunt for a certain McGuffin that will either save or doom the world.

Yeah, it’s not exactly the most original of plots, but it gets the job done, and it does lead to a rather compelling cliffhanger in the second half of the season.

So, with all that said, what’s my problem with The Boys season five?

Well, my biggest issue with the show is how predictable and unsophisticated the satire feels at this point.

It’s not that the series has ever been particularly deep (pun unintended), nor have I really ever expected a show about a man whose favourite word starts with C to offer a comprehensive criticism of authoritarianism and capitalism.

Still, the show always seems to take the path of least resistance when it comes to making fun of Homelander’s more fascistic tendencies.

As a result, you can expect plenty of gags at the expense of the wokes, soy boys, and other quotes taken directly from X.

It’s admittedly quite amusing at first, but by the time you get to the later episodes and they’re constantly upping the ante, you’ll be left numb to it all.

So, while I was initially amused by The Deep proclaiming Russia an ally because it’s a ‘family first nation’, I was less entertained several episodes later when Ashley’s pulling Supes out of Ukraine because ‘they were asking to be invaded’.

Perhaps it’s because we’re living through Trump’s second term and the morning news is (in my opinion) essentially a horror show these days, but it was a lot easier to laugh at the rising tide of authoritarianism when it didn’t feel like such an existential threat.

Indeed, this is probably my wider issue with The Boys season five in general.

In its desperation to shock, it behaves like a teenager trying to prove how adult they are by not playing Warhammer anymore – it wants to appear transgressive and push boundaries, but feels incredibly juvenile for it.

Sure, it’s shocking to see a man named Love Sausage using his… love sausage… to brutalise prisoners in the first episode, but by the latter episodes, when you’re watching someone try and seduce a dog (it’s a long story) with a turkey leg, it’s harder to feel, well… anything.

It’s a shame as well because when The Boys slows down and stops trying to be so lurid, it’s actually really affecting, especially in scenes where we see that Butcher may not be the literal monster we think he is.

All in all, if you liked The Boys seasons one to four, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this fifth outing. For me, however, I’m glad we’re at the end of the road because while the show’s still good, it’s not as super as it once was.

The Boys season five is streaming now on Amazon Prime.

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