Follow us on Twitter | Instagram
The Boys Season 5 opens with Homelander making a god-like entrance, descending onto a stage to roaring applause. Only, this isn’t a crowd of fans, it’s a room full of Vought International shareholders, the billion-dollar machine behind manufactured superheroes. Homelander (Antony Starr) is no longer just the most powerful supe alive, he now has the U.S. President under his thumb, all while feeding America fake news, fuelling hate campaigns, and locking Starlight’s supporters in internment camps. Dude is scarily unhinged, and Anthony Starr continues his terrific streak as one of the most memorable TV villains on screen.
Also Read: Boys Season 4 Review: Chaos, Carnage, and Homelander Unlimited
Titled, ‘Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite’, episode one of The Boys season 5 gives viewers a quick lowdown on what the primary characters are up to: Butcher (Karl Urban) is estranged from the gang and is working on the supe-killing virus, Starlight (Erin Moriarty) is still fighting to expose Homelander from the shadows, Kimiko is on the run, while Hughie (Jack Quaid), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and M M (Laz Alonso) are stuck in a Vought detention camp.
And obviously, to nobody’s surprise, Butcher and Starlight set aside their differences to rescue the trio, so of course The Boys Season 5 is all about the gang getting back together to kill Homelander. The rescue mission is chaotic as hell, but also packs in a lot of wacky elements and the usual blood, gore you’d expect.
Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), Firecracker (Valorie Curry), The Deep (Chace Crawford), and Ashley (Colby Minifie) continue to be Team Homelander (not like they have much of an option). Ashley has had an unexpected new promotion, and viewers might also remember she injected some V last season, so she now has a creepy superpower which does little to help her and is also forced into a marriage of convenience with a preacher for her ‘image-building’.
Chace Crawford has fully settled into comic relief territory as The Deep, who is almost never useful and now has a podcast (a fun dig at male podcasters in general). This time, Homelander sends him after Butcher, Starlight, and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), and surprisingly, he does manage to track A-Train down, only for the speedster to casually run off.
Episode 2, titled ‘Teenage Kix’, focuses on the gang’s efforts to find a guinea pig to test their supe-killing virus on, to check effectiveness, range, and contagiousness. And if you’ve seen the teaser for The Boys Season 5, this is also the episode where Homelander gives in to the temptation of waking up Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), not just due to his unresolved daddy issues, but also to use him to find Butcher.
Kimiko finally speaking in The Boys Season 5 is… weirdly jarring, but also pretty funny because she clearly isn’t used to voicing her thoughts. Meanwhile, she and Frenchie are back to being a full-blown couple, behaving like giddy teenagers and going heavy on the PDA, much to everyone else’s annoyance. Hughie and Annie/Starlight of course are awkward, working through their issues, which now includes them being divided over how to deal with Butcher.
The first two episodes of The Boys Season 5 bring the usual mix of shocking gags, gross-out moments, and blood-soaked chaos. While nothing particularly stands out, they’re well-paced, entertaining, and give fans exactly what they signed up for. The writing continues to poke fun at everything from propaganda to blind fandom and it’s all pretty amusing.
Both episodes are easy to binge back-to-back.
Stream The Boys Season 5 on Prime Video.
Read Next: Mercy Ending Explained (Audio Version Below)