Why The Boys ending is bad — and why half the fandom disagrees

Both sides have a case. Here it is, laid out.

What actually happens in the finale

Butcher, Ryan, and Kimiko corner Homelander in the Oval Office. Kimiko strips his powers with a Soldier Boy-style blast, and Butcher beats the newly mortal supe to death with a crowbar on live television — a payoff to their "blood and bone" promise from season 3. Notably, this happens at the episode's halfway point.

Butcher then moves to release the supe-killing virus on the whole world, and Hughie shoots him to stop a genocide. Butcher dies in his arms. Elsewhere, The Deep and Oh Father get their endings, Mother's Milk and Kimiko walk away, and Hughie and Annie finish the series together with a baby on the way. Vought Tower is still standing.

The case against it

• The midpoint problem — Homelander, the show's engine for five seasons, is dead with half an episode left. Plenty of viewers found the remaining runtime anticlimactic.
• The marketing — promotional posters showed Vought Tower in rubble and Homelander in space. Neither happens; some fans flatly called the campaign "lies".
• The scale — after years of escalation, the finale is a comparatively contained affair, and Vought itself survives, prompting the complaint that "nothing mattered".
• The season around it — eight episodes that, per the critics of the critics, spent too long on Soldier Boy detours and a Supernatural cast reunion.

The case for it

Defenders point out the finale is closer to Garth Ennis's comics than anything the marketing implied: the Oval Office setting and the crowbar execution are lifted almost directly from the source, where a powerless Black Noir gets the same treatment, and Hughie killing Butcher over the virus is the comic's ending too.

Eric Kripke deliberately skipped the comic's actual twist — Homelander being framed by his clone — telling ScreenRant he found it unsatisfying after five years of Antony Starr's performance.

What Kripke says

The creator has read the discourse and is not losing sleep. He told The Hollywood Reporter that the writers set out to land all 15 major characters, and told TVLine the online storm represents a fraction of an audience he puts north of 60 million viewers. Then came the closest thing to an apology on offer:

"Sorry if I disappointed you, but it was the story I wanted to tell," Kripke told TVLine in June 2026.

The comparison every unhappy fan reached for was Game of Thrones. The comparison Kripke would presumably prefer — a finale people are still arguing about a month later — is technically also true.