The Boys season 5 (TV series review).
The final season of The Boys has now been released on Blu-ray. One good thing straight away: there are nine extras this time.
If you read my recent review of Season 4, then you will already know the situation between Vought and the Boys. The Seven, Vought’s superhero team, is steadily diminishing in numbers as its members continue to kill each other off.
There is also the matter of locating samples of the original Vought serum, as it apparently grants extended life. With Homelander (actor Antony Starr) discovering that he is going grey and beginning to age, he wants the serum for himself. The Boys, meanwhile, see it as a possible route to creating an antidote.
Added to this, Homelander receives what he considers a revelation and decides that he is effectively God. He gets Oh-Father (actor Daveed Diggs) to prepare people for the new Democratic Church Of America, now that he has obtained the old serum.
Anyone in the congregation who does not totally believe in him is marked for death, and Homelander has psychic psychopaths checking their loyalty. Did I mention that Homelander is completely off his trolley?
He has already killed his own choice of President, beaten up his own son and murdered several of the people who brought him up. His laundry bill must be enormous, unless he simply owns a wardrobe full of identical superhero suits.
Practically everything that happens is a spoiler, so there is only so much that can safely be said. There are a few unseen jumps between episodes, but the gaps are quickly filled in.
This is still a dangerous and frequently unpleasant world, but it is also one that I can imagine revisiting from time to time.
The extras include 20-minute podcasts featuring cast and production staff from 2020 and relating to Season 2. Seeing Antony Starr as he really is, while describing himself as looking like Clark Kent, is definitely tongue-in-cheek.
The other eight extras also run for around 20 minutes each and are presented by Aisha Tyler as part of Prime Rewind. In some respects, these should probably have appeared on the Season 2 Blu-ray release, but extras are extras.
Considering how deadly the series itself is, much of the cast’s downtime seems to have been spent fooling around, presumably to balance things out.
The big question now is when I should read The Boys in its collected comic-book volumes. It has been hinted that there are some significant differences, but that happens with most adaptations. Even so, it will be interesting to compare the two.
GF Willmetts
August 2026
(pub: 2026 Productions, 2026. 2 Blu-ray discs. 8 x 58-minute episodes with extras. Price: varies. ASIN: LG-M6226)
