*Warning – contains full spoilers for The Boys season 5 finale.*
Now that The Boys has come to an end with it season 5 finale, showrunner Eric Kripke has been breaking down the major moments, and has revealed that Hughie and Butcher’s key final scene together was planned from the start.
“From the very start of the series, we knew that this was Hughie and Butcher’s ending,” Kripke told Variety. “It’s not totally one to one, but I think we have a reasonably faithful ending of Butcher and Hughie that’s similar to the comic. So we had a target to aim for, but that was built in from the very beginning.
“It was just so satisfying to finally do it because we’ve been laying thread for that for seven years.”
That scene in question saw Hughie killing Butcher to stop him releasing the Supe-killing virus. This came after Homelander had been killed, with the villain having his powers erased by Kimiko, before Butcher killed him with a crowbar.
Kripke also said that he and the team “100 per cent knew that Butcher was going to kill Homelander with a crowbar,” even if he’s “not sure we totally knew where or when or how, but we just knew that was going to happen”.
It turns out that one of Homelander’s final lines to Butcher, as he pleaded for his life now that he was powerless, was pitched by actor Antony Starr.
“His line that he pitched was, ‘I’ll eat your s*** on live TV.’ That’s so funny, I’m putting that in. People have said to me, ‘In his final moments, would Homelander really be that weak?’ Yeah!
“We’ve said all season, ‘Take away your powers, and what are you? You’re nothing.’ If you go through history, most strong men, when they’re finally dragged in front of some form of justice, immediately break down and they’re the biggest p*****s on the planet.
When it comes to the rest of the characters’ endings, he said these were devised by “about the middle of season 3”, although they were firmed up in the writing of season 5.
In his interview with Variety, Kripke also revealed that the third season of Gen V, which will no longer happen after the show was cancelled, would have seen Marie become “the good Supe you’re following,” replacing Annie.
“I would love to find a way to continue that story, Kripke said. “We’re in the very embryonic stage of seeing if there are any ideas that we’re really loving. It’s like all these loose nukes. You have Stan Edgar basically disavowing relationships with superheroes, and so these people who have been coddled and protected this whole time are now suddenly out in the wild.
“Who tries to be Jessica Jones, and who tries to be a super villain? It leads to some really fascinating places that I would love to see, and the hope was we were going to put the Gen V kids in the middle of all that. But hopefully we still will, and we can bring some of those characters into some of these stories that we’re talking about.”
Kripke also answered another question fans had after the finale, while speaking with TV Insider – why was Queen Maeve not involved.
Dominique McElligott’s character bowed out at the end of season 3, with her powers having been removed and the world believing her to be dead.
Fans had thought she may show back up in season 5, and those hopes were reignited by a recap at the start of the finale showing Maeve and Annie in season 1. However, it turns out that wasn’t to be, and the recap was setting up a moment where Maeve was mentioned by Annie, in a conversation with Marie.
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Kripke explained that he did originally hope to include Maeve, but McElligott turned down the opportunity for a return.
“Dom and I email a couple of times every six to eight months or so,” he said. “I said very early because I wanted to know whether we were building for it, ‘Would you be open to coming back for a day, and here are the dates.’ And it was very pleasant and respectful, she just said, ‘I’ve kind of retired from acting. [I’m not] really acting anymore, and I’m busy those dates anyway.’
“So, that was honestly it. It was a very pleasant, non-controversial moment, you know?”
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