The fourth season of The Boys has begun on Amazon Prime Video; you can watch the first three episodes right now. As usual, the show is grim, depraved, and action-packed, a merciless satire of both the overstuffed superhero genre and our frightening political moment. We have a fun season ahead of us.
But showrunner Eric Kripke is already looking to the end: he recently revealed that the fifth season of The Boys will be its last. "We’re just figuring it all out now with the writers," he told Deadline. "I mean, I know where I want it to end up, but we spent the first probably four weeks of the room just talking about like overall mythology and where we want the story to go…"
Kripke likes to leave room for inspiration when breaking new episodes, but make no mistake: he knows exactly how the show will conclude. "I know that moment where the title card comes up and it says six months later, and you see where everybody is. I know that," he said. "I can really write the last 10 pages of this story right now...The rest, you know, we have broad strokes, but we’ll figure it out."
It wasn't that long ago that Kripke was claiming that he didn't know how long the series would go on for. Behind the scenes, he's known since starting work on season 3 that it would end with season 5, and is just happy that Amazon is allowing him to say so publicly. "I’m thrilled to be able to announce it because it was just like a tiny bit frustrating to always answer, 'I don’t know how long it’ll go! And maybe it’ll go forever! And who can say?' But the truth was, I just wasn’t allowed to say yet," he told Variety. "So I’m glad to just finally get it out there. I can feel more relaxed, everyone understands and they can go into Season 4 understanding the bigger shape of the huge five-season story."
Also it was nice to get Twitter off his back. "Look, I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t fun to have 1,000 comments daily about how I suck when I knew the whole time that I knew how the show was gonna end." Kripke expects to start shooting season 5 "around mid-November" and for filming to run "well into middle" of 2025. That means a wait of at least two years before we see the final season of The Boys, which Kripke confirms will have eight episodes. Viva 2026.
There are more The Boys spinoffs than we know of in development
The Boys has been a successful franchise for Amazon, which is why fans could kinda-sorta believe it when Kripke made vague hints about it going on forever. We now know it won't, but Amazon wants to keep things going with spinoffs. The animated show Diabolical and the college-set spinoff Gen V are already out there. There's also a spinoff set in Mexico in the works. And Kripke says there are more spinoffs in development, "but we’re not ready to announce anything yet."
Could there be a spinoff in the offing for Billy Butcher's old buddy Joe Kessler, played by longtime Kripke collaborator Jeffrey Dean Morgan? Deadline feels like that's where things are going. "Hey, man, if Jeffrey wants to do it, and it works out, who wouldn’t want Jeffrey Dean Boys spinoff?" Kripke joked.
I'm happy to hear that The Boys has an ending in mind, although less happy that we'll have to wait so long to see it. It's inevitable that Amazon will want to continue the show's success with sequels and spinoffs, some of which may be good; Kripke notes that he'll give feedback on the new shows but won't be "the day-to-day showrunner" on any of them. Whatever happens with those, I'm glad The Boys won't overstay its welcome. I expect it to end strong.
The Boys season 4 is wrenching, funny, existentially traumatic
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We still have the fourth season to enjoy, and Kripke sounds excited about it. "he penultimate season is the end of Act Two in a movie, right? It’s like the darkest point, the most introspective point," he said. "It’s the one where the characters have to emotionally face their existential trauma. So then they’re able to jump onto the roller coaster ride that is the climax of the movie."
"So, for us, Season Four is wrenching because each character is dealing with the thing they are most traumatized by. But I also have to say, it’s also really, really funny. I have to say we’re as dark as people have accused [the] show of being, and it is. At the same time, I think I laughed harder this season than I think I ever have before. That might speak to my own personal sickness, but I think Season 4 is really funny."
Wrenching and funny has long been the show's MO and I fully expect it to deliver. New episodes of The Boys drop on Thursday on Amazon Prime Video.
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