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How does The Boys Season 5 end? Finale ending, Starlight's future, Hughie killing Butcher explained
The Boys ended its five-season run with major deaths, emotional goodbyes and the long-awaited fall of Homelander.
After five seasons, Prime Video's superhero satire The Boys finally came to a bloody and very emotional end on May 20. The season 5 finale, which is also the series finale has been the most-watched season yet, drawing over 55 million viewers according to Prime Video. Showrunner Eric Kripke told Entertainment Weekly he hoped fans would find it "emotionally satisfying," saying: "I feel like the things that people have been waiting for finally come to pass one way or another. So I'm excited."
Here is everything that happened (Spoiler Alert!):
Homelander is dead, yes
The moment fans had been waiting for finally arrived. In the Oval Office, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) uses a newly acquired power, the ability to strip superheroes of their abilities to zap Homelander (Antony Starr), Butcher (Karl Urban) and Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) all at once. The power came from a plan hatched by Frenchie and Butcher, who had exposed Kimiko to enough radiation to give her abilities similar to Soldier Boy's.
Suddenly powerless, Homelander tries to fly away and just falls back to the ground. He then begs for his life. Butcher doesn't listen.
“This is for Frenchie,” Butcher tells him before beating him repeatedly. With the confrontation being broadcast live to the entire country, Homelander desperately says, "I am the Homelander." Butcher's response: “No, you ain't nothing. And this, this is for my Becca.”
Butcher then takes a crowbar, drives it into Homelander's forehead and tears off the top of his skull. Homelander dies on the Oval Office floor.
Hughie shoots Butcher and Butcher dies
Killing Homelander isn't enough for Butcher. Convinced that Homelander's death alone won't stop the Vought machine, he heads to Vought Tower with a plan to release the Godolkin Virus through the sprinkler system, a virus that would wipe out all Supes.
Hughie (Jack Quaid) shows up to stop him. The two fight and it ends with Hughie shooting Butcher in the chest. Butcher collapses and dies with Hughie beside him, crying and holding his hand.
In his final moments, Butcher tells Hughie: “It's all right, Hughie. I gave you no choice. I wasn't gonna stop. All the blood and shite I put you through, and none of it made a blind bit of difference. You stayed yourself, no matter what I done.”
The next scene shows Hughie, Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty), Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) and Kimiko at Butcher's grave. “Love him or hate him, he made the world a safer place, which makes him a hero,” Hughie says at the headstone.
What happens to Hughie and Starlight?
Hughie is offered the chance to run the re-opened Bureau of Supe Affairs by newly restored President Bob Singer (Jim Beaver) and turns it down. Instead, he and Annie open an audio visual store together.
The bigger news: Annie is pregnant. They are expecting a daughter whom they name Robin, after Hughie's late girlfriend who was killed by A-Train in the very first episode of the show.
What happens to the rest of The Boys?
Frenchie (Tomer Capone) had already been killed heroically in the penultimate episode and the finale opens with a memorial in his honor.
Kimiko moves to France to honor Frenchie and is later seen living a quiet life at a cafe in Marseilles. Mother’s Milk also gets a happy ending and is shown remarrying his ex-wife Monique.
The Deep meets his end when Starlight faces him in a full-circle moment and throws him into the sea, where he is killed by marine life. Sister Sage loses her abilities and her status as the world's smartest woman, when Kimiko strips her powers early in the episode.
And yes, Butcher's beloved dog Terror also died.
