After five seasons and countless raunchy and explosive storylines, The Boys came to an end in May amid the 2026 TV schedule. Creator Eric Kripke is proud of the series finale, which sees Antony Starr’s Homelander finally getting what he so rightfully deserves. It’s hard to believe that the show is officially done, as it seems like just yesterday that viewers met The Seven for the first time. Kripke actually just revealed his initial pitch for the show, and I’m chuckling over the amount of f-bombs he included.

What makes The Boys a filthy show it its profane language and wild storylines (with "Herogasm" being a prime example). So it’s not surprising to know that when Kripke - fresh off the twice-canceled NBC sci-fi drama Timeless, wanted to do The Boys - his pitch was just as filthy. He recently took to his Instagram amid awards consideration season to share what he brought to studios in the hopes of getting the comic book adaptation made. The producer came in hot with his first statement:

Seriously, I'm in awe of how many f-bombs are included, and Kripke's confidence is impressive as well. I also love that this pitch indicates that Kripke's vision mostly seemed to stay intact amid the development process. Also, Kripke was about the series and the comic book, which is sweet. He definitely knew what he wanted, and I’m so happy that Amazon decided to take a chance on it. In his pitch, Kripke also said:

The f-bombs really did not let up throughout the show’s run. In fact, Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy had some pretty filthy lines during the fifth and final season, and that was on top of the unexpectedly bloody Supernatural reunion. I'd argue there will likely never be another show like The Boys, even with the prequel, Vought Rising, on the way. Still, I’m eager to see how that spinoff builds on the show’s legacy.

Meanwhile, Kripke is not the only one who has extensively used f-bombs. Ahead of the finale, Erin Moriarty shared a perfect four-word NSFW message, and it was really the only way to describe The Boys’ run. It seems relatively certain that Vought Rising, which hits Prime Video in 2027, will have some pretty filthy and raunchy dialogue as well, but it has a high bar to clear if it wants to outdo its predecessor. I'm still sad to see the flagship show go but, if anything, Kripke's original pitch gives me more of an appreciation for what went in to making this show happen.

Since Eric Kripke has continued to share both photos and videos from The Boys’ run, I’m curious as to whether he'll share any additional tidbits from the making of the show. For now, though, I'll continue to marvel over the vivaciousness with which Kripke sold this hit of a TV series.

Fans can watch all five seasons of The Boys now using a Prime Video subscription and enjoy all the dirty and ridiculous dialogue to their hearts' content.

Spoilers ahead for The Boys' final two episodes.

While there are plenty of comics book movies and TV shows in the world of pop culture, The Boys was in a league of its own. Those with an Amazon Prime subscription recently saw its fifth and final season on the air, and The Boys' series finale was a doozy. Showrunner/creator Eric Kripke previously revealed he wanted Dominique McElligott to return as Queen Maeve, and he told CinemaBlend what his plans were for that character.

Kripke is proud of how The Boys ended, even if Queen Maeve didn't get to appear as he originally planned. I recently had the chance to speak with the writer/producer about the show's ending, where I asked how he would have used Maeve if he got the chance. He told me:

Well, my FOMO is through the damn roof. I've always loved Maeve, and was hoping she'd pop up in one way or another during The Boys' final season. And while Eric Kripke had the same idea, it ultimately didn't work out. But at least we know how the former member of The Seven could have factored into the story.

The Boys' final season had a number of character returns, including Elisabeth Shue's Madelyn Stillwell. And it sounds like Maeve could had a role, although she wouldn't have been back in the action fighting Homelander. Instead her farm would have been a safe house for Starlight and the Gen V characters. While we didn't see McElligott, this is going to be head canon for me moving forward.

What Kripke Previously Said About Why Maeve Didn't Return

The only reason I knew that The Boys could have included Queen Maeve for Season 5 was thanks to Eric Kripke's interview with Gold Derby. In it he revealed that he actually reached out to Dominique McElligott, but it didn't work out. As he said:

And just like that, Maeve's role in The Boys Season 5 was done. Overall it didn't make a huge difference to the core story behind told, although longtime fans of the show like me would have loved to catch up with the former hero. Alas, instead she got to live her happy ending off camera, and out of Vought's sights.

The Boys' last season is streaming in its entirety over on Prime Video as part of the 2026 TV schedule. It's currently unclear when the next spinoff Vought Rising will debut, but folks are expecting it sometime in 2027.

Be warned if you haven’t yet watched The Boys’ series finale streaming via Amazon Prime subscription!

Some of television’s most deplorable characters and pungent personalities are no longer with us, now that The Boys’ series finale has come and gone in all its bloody glory. (Check out what we had to say about the gross-out episode.) The ep was surprisingly free from any noteworthy Soldier Boy appearances, which creator Eric Kripke said was a purposeful move to keep the final installment focused on the mains, with Jensen Ackles’ Vought Rising spinoff having previously enjoyed some narrative set ups.

Given that the spinoff will be a prequel focusing on the rise of Supes in the 1950s, as well as Soldier Boy’s sordid relationship with Aya Cash’s Stormfront, does that mean we’ll never find out what happens to Soldier Boy’s cryosleep-induced body after Stan Edgar returned as the CEO of Vought? I hope that’s not the case, as I think it would be interesting and valuable to know what a Homelander-free version of the company would do with one of its OG enforcers.

Having delivered a finale he was proud of, Eric Kripke isn’t exactly oozing spoilers for the impending series, which isn’t set to debut until after the 2026 TV schedule has wrapped. But this is a case where his lack of an answer speaks more volumes than any other kind of answer. The creator (who is an executive producer on the spinoff) was asked by Deadline if Vought Rising will take place across multiple timelines, and here’s how Kripke responded:

There's no real way to come away from that answer thinking, "It probably won't feature multiple timelines and will consistently remain set in the 1950s no matter how many seasons it gets." If he's unable to talk about it, that means it's almost definitely happening. But in what capacity?

Obviously, my biggest hope here is for Vought Rising to provide some follow-up insight on what went down inside The Tower after Homelander's shame-inducing death, and whether or not Soldier Boy's holding tank was put back into clandestine hiding, only to be unearthed the next time a potentially catastrophic Supe attempts to usurp mankind. (I'd also like to know who had to clean up Homelander's corpse, and whether or not his body was also put into a cryo tank for DNA-saving purposes.

While not confirming or denying the timeline question, Kripke did tease the new show's ability to surprise viewers, aying:

Though The Boys is obviously where fans first met Soldier Boy, Stormfront, and Bombsight, the comic book adaptation wasn't meant to make setting up the sequel a major part of its storytelling, so fans will have to wait and see what kind of debauchery showrunner Paul Grellong has in store. I doubt it'll have the same kinds of Supernatural references that played out in Season 5, as well as the gore-filled reunions, but hopefully other vets from that world will share space with Ackles anew one day.

Check out the first promo for Vought Rising that was released in the days after The Boys' series finale dropped.

Maybe in the next trailer, we'll get a flash-forward to the present, where we learn that Soldier Boy's cryo-tank is being used as a coffee table for Starlight and Hughie, or that it's been set up in a public space for citizens to mock and judge accordingly. Not that I think SB would take any amount of backtalk lightly, even in his sleep.

With no date set yet for when we might see Vought Rising on the small screen, we're also waiting to hear more about the Mexico-set spinoff that went into development a couple of years ago.

Spoilers ahead for the series finale of The Boys.

While superhero projects are everywhere, those with an Amazon Prime subscription have been treated to unique, R-rated spins on the genre. Chief among them is The Boys, which recently wrapped its tenure on the air with its series finale. And creator/showrunner Eric Kripke spoke about wrapping up various characters' stories and why he's pretty much "proud of all of them."

The final season of The Boys has been a wild ride, with the Season 5 premiere killing off A-train, and starting a long list of character fatalities. I had the chance to speak with Kripke ahead of the final two episodes airing, where I asked which characters' endings he was particularly proud of. He got honest, telling me:

Rather than having doubts or FOMO, it sounds like Kripke told exactly the story he wanted to during The Boys' final season. Indeed, he told me he was inspired by Breaking Bad, and strove to create emotionally satisfying endings for the show's starring cast. He also included some surprising returns, such as Elisabeth Shue's Madelyn Stillwell showing up and finally bringing in Marie and Jordan from Gen V. Unfortunately Gen V was canceled, so we'll probably never see more of the latter characters.

I personally found the last episode satisfying, and would put in the category of series finales that actually ended well. Both The Deep and Homelander were finally killed in the last battle, and while Ashley had a moment of redemption, she was forced out of office as President. Then there's Butcher, who had a final mental break after Terror died, and was killed by Hughie to stop him from releasing the virus and killing all Supes in the process.

When the dust settled we also got to see our surviving members of The Boys get their long-awaited happy endings. MM got married and adopted Ryan, Kimiko let go over her rage and traveled to France to be close to Frenchie, and Hughie and Annie are revealed to be expecting a baby together. I felt like everyone got a proper ending in the series finale, so I get why Kripke is feeling so proud about how the comic book adaptation wrapped.

The Boys is streaming in its entirety over on Amazon Prime Video as part of the 2026 TV schedule. Luckily for fans of the franchise, we'll get another spinoff when Vought Rising arrives sometime next year.

Spoilers ahead for the series finale of The Boys, which is streaming now on Amazon.

After five seasons streaming R-Rated superhero content for those with an Amazon Prime subscription, The Boys has finally ended for good. The Boys' series finale is being debated online, as is the case when most popular shows end. One hot-button issue was Butcher's dog Terror dying (of natural causes), with creator/showrunner Eric Kripke explaining why he made that tough decision for the story of Karl Urban's character.

Eric Kripke was inspired by Breaking Bad when crafting The Boys' final season, including big character deaths that started at the Season 5 premiere. The finale saw Terror passing away peacefully in his sleep, which caused Butcher's final mental break. In a conversation with THR, Kripke addressed this plot point, saying:

Points were made. While it's a huge risk to kill off any dog in TV and film, Kripke was thinking of the larger narrative when Terror crossed the rainbow bridge. Namely because it would be the final straw for Billy Butcher's humanity, and inspired him to try and wipe out all supes with the Godolkin virus. After being rejected by Ryan and losing his loyal companion, there was simply no more humanity left in the character, leading him to try and wipe out every superpowered person in the world.

This was fodder for one more conflict, even after Homelander was depowered and murdered. Hughie was eventually the one who had to stop Butcher, killing his friend and ally in the process. Karl Urban's character wasn't happy simply ending Homelander for good, and Hughie killed him to stop him from creating a genocide. And just like that, Butcher became the last big character death in The Boys' run on TV.

Fans were definitely not happy about seeing Terror's dead pooch body onscreen, but it definitely helped to move the series finale's story forward. In the end, most of The Boys got their happy ending, although Frenchie and Butcher didn't get to make out to see their happy ending.

The Boys is streaming in its entirety on Amazon as part of the 2026 TV schedule. As for the new spinoff Vought Rising, that's going to premiere sometime in 2027.

Major spoilers below for the final episode of The Boys, so be warned if you haven't yet watched via Amazon Prime subscription!

Well, it finally arrived, Starlighters and Homelander-ers. The final episode of The Boys. The very last one. (Not accounting for spinoffs, prequels and potential sequel series.) "Blood and Bone" delivered an end-all conclusion for both Billy Butcher and his superpowered nemesis, with much collateral damage caused in the process. Thankfully, neither CinemaBlend's Kelly West nor Nick Venable were among the casualties, and we're here to share all our thoughts about this gnarly finale.

We won't necessarily go in order, and possibly won't cover every single detail. But away we go!

What Happened To Homelander

NICK: What didn't happen to Homelander, amirite? He attempted to become a full religious entity, usurping Jesus Christ by calling himself the "First Coming." Who does that? The kind of guy who keeps his father locked up in cryosleep and then says he doesn't matter, that's who.

Kelly: I love that he couldn't even get through everything on the teleprompter with a straight face. Ended up dropping the script and just threatening all of the non-believers.

NICK: Ryan said it best — not a statement I've ever voiced during any of these five seasons — when he put this observation into words, no doubt crushing his old man's spirit.

• "Scaring people into making you god doesn’t make you god." - Ryan

In the end, I'm glad Ryan showed up to help save the day.

But I suppose the biggest hero of the day was Kimiko. (Eat it, Butcher.) Her suffering inside Fort Harmony's radiation pit actually worked!

Kelly: Kimiko! Love her. And getting to see Frenchie one last time 😭 and accessing her power. Loved it, but it broke my heart.

I'm also really glad that Homelander's undoing didn't happen in an instant. First, he lost his powers. Then he faced Butcher and lost again. I like that we got to see him powerless, attempting to fly and failing. Beautiful.

NICK: I will say that I wasn't all that impressed with the way Homelander and Butcher's fight went down before Kimiko stepped in. It was fun to see Butcher's tentacles getting lasered through, but the editing was really choppy, and not in a Bourne-esque way, but more like if the scene was being viewed from bumper cars.

But herky-jerky action aside, watching Homelander become the most pathetic version of himself was valuable, but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it, exactly. It kinda just made me feel gross to hear him offer to suck d-ck and eat sh-t on TV to stay alive. And did he really think that Butcher was going to suddenly think that oral sex and coprophilia were more important than killing off the world's most powerful Supe?

Kelly: Homelander begging in front of the whole world. Seeing it broadcast in Times Square was the icing on the cake.

Or maybe that was the crowbar through the head. Either way, we got a nice, gross look at the inside of his skull. RIP Homelander.

The Deep vs. Starlight

NICK: This was a confrontation five years in the making, given Starlight and The Deep's introductions were so tied together. (But not tied up together, because ewwww.) Thankfully, it only happened after Chace Crawford's character totally ate sh-t mentally, with Homelander dropping this nugget:

• "I have never had less respect for anyone in my life.” - Homelander

Not to mention the shame he probably still didn't feel by admitting that he only knows the Crusades through a movie that isn't even about them.

Kelly: I WAS expecting the Deep to end up in the water the second he and Starlight landed on the shore, but I wasn't expecting Ambrosius' name to be brought up by the fish and other sea creatures. I thought they were just mad about the oil spill. Oh well, delayed justice served for Ambrosius.

NICK: I also don't quite understand why all the other creatures knew about Ambrosius enough to say that justice needed to be served, but maybe word gets around in the sea faster than it does in non-watery atmospheres. Someone call a scientist.

I'm insanely glad that The Deep didn't get any kind of redeeming arc. He killed Black Noir 2.0, and that was just uncalled for. I bet his podcast numbers sucked, too. I hope no fish or other sea life choke on his bones.

Hughie And Butcher’s Final Scene

NICK: After a lot of what some might consider wheel-spinning in terms of Hughie and Butcher’s relationship, The Boys really locked their horns back up in recent weeks, and it all built up to a deadly conclusion that many fans likely saw coming, but still had some impact.

This isn’t a show that could possibly end by having a guy like Butcher happily walking off into the sunset. He’s survived one grief after another, combined with cancer and Supe-dom, and actually succeeded in conquering the goal he’d been struggling with for years. But his subsequent goal of taking out all powered-up supes by virus-through-sprinklers was a step too far for Hughie.

No amount of Lenny comparisons could stop him from doing what needed to be done. Honestly, I’m surprised Hughie didn’t take a few extra shots for all the years of mental AND physical abuse that Butcher put him through. He should have at least had something funny etched on the tombstone. Sigh.

R.I.P. Terror. The biggest tragedy in the entire episode.

Other Deaths, Debauchery And Distractions

NICK: Props (literally) to everyone involved with crafting Chekhov's ballgag as a way to take out Oh Father in the most fantastic way possible. Although I do wish it had happened while he and the President were in the Oral Office, as such.

Kelly: Honestly, they clearly didn't think that thing through. That could've been quite the surprise.

What about Sage losing her super-intelligence and bailing just in time for the third act. From a plot perspective, it made sense, and I absolutely adored her exit.

On a completely unrelated note, I never would've predicted Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves being referenced once (let alone more than once) in this episode.

NICK: Fun-ish fact. "Iago" was a nickname of mine for a few years. Not that this has anything to do with Sister Sage forgetting Othello.

I wonder how many true believers thought that Homelander would rise from the dead after getting his brains, considering the Easter of it all.

Love that Queen Maeve got a shout out from Starlight, even though it was a negative one.

Kelly: Ok, this is a bit random, but did anyone else notice that there were lions on the TV screen in Hughie and Annie's electronics store? The reason I bring this up is because, well, there were lions on the screen at the store where Hughie worked in the very first episode...

NICK: Disappointing that Marie Laveau didn’t have more of an active hand in taking Homelander down. Or any of the other Gen V characters, I guess.

Also, does anybody else out there think that Gunter Van Ellis might have been the nicest richest man in the world, and he might have really made a change before Homelander took him out into space?

Here's a few more of my favorite quotes from the episode, out of context:

• “We have to imagine the secret presidential f-ck tunnels must be pretty secure.” - Hughie
• “He’ll rip my t-ts out through my v-g.” - Ashley
• “You are not a monster, Butcher. It just hurts to be human.” - Hughie
• "Dad...get f-cked." - Ryan

There was something poetic about seeing all the Homelander posters being painted over as a stand-in for how the world is going to change now that he's no longer in charge. Big ups to Stan Edgar for swooping back in and taking charge once more. I fully believe Vought will be a respectable company now. [Snorts into hands.]

Oh, and how did we go all this time without bringing up Frenchie's will? You know, the one in which he essentially bequeathed the paranoia that someone else might be looking at your a--hole. I both really want to know, and also never want to know, the details behind how he has everyone's anuses mapped out.

Kelly: Ok, one last thing from me, and then I'm done. I love the way the story left off for Hughie and Annie. Fighting crime and running an electronics store while they wait for their bundle of joy to arrive.

Plus, Annie fighting bad-guys in comfy clothes and a pair of accessorized Crocs? 100% here for that, especially given everything she went through with her Starlight suit.

Their final scene seemed to take Hughie's story full circle, as he ended up, once again, on the sidewalk, smiling into the face of the woman he loves. Obviously there's a happier ending this time around, but the callback to the series premiere episode was sweet.

NICK: Yesssss. I loved the synchronicity there. Now I wonder how many other moments were direct reflections of the premiere. Guess I'll have to watch it again...

But it is now time to close out my own thoughts, as talking about a show for longer than the episode's runtime is tres gauche. But this episode was definitely worth the time and effort, as The Boys has been one of my favorite things to watch on TV for all the years that it's been around.

As a huge fan of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book source material, I think Eric Kripke did a great job at balancing just how many of the comics' most f-cked-up moments were utilized for live-action, and which were repurposed to mirror the real world in increasingly freakish ways. (I'm still bummed Black Noir's story wasn't the same, as weird as it would have been to make that work.)

Thanks to everyone who worked on the show, and who read all of our thoughts above. Let's all reconvene when Vought Rising is near, presumably with lots of Shari Lewis merch in tow. We all know how Soldier Boy feels about her. Rawr.

The Boys has been a big point of conversation on the 2026 TV schedule, seeing as it's in its final season, it’s wildly popular, and it’s been full of buzzworthy moments. However, this week, a new show (with 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, I might add) became available for folks to binge with an Amazon Prime subscription, and it’s also generating a whole lot of attention. In fact, so many people are tuning into it that it’s taken the No. 1 spot on Prime Video, while the superhero show sits at No. 2.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering: What could be No. 1 over the final season of The Boys? Well, the answer is the freshman season of Off Campus, a hockey romance that’s a book-to-screen adaptation of Elle Kennedy’s wildly popular novels. Listen, I warned that the girls weren’t ready for Off Campus. As an avid romance reader and as someone who fully fell head-over-heels into hockey romance after Heated Rivalry became a massive hit, I had a feeling this show would be a big deal.

However, outpacing The Boys means it's even bigger than I anticipated. Don’t get it twisted, The Boys is still a very big deal. I mean, this final season has had multiple shocking deaths, a Supernatural reunion, and a whole bunch of moments (and cameos) that have gotten the internet talking.

Plus, Season 5 of The Boys has a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. Overall, it's been received well, and it’s going to end very soon, with the series finale set to drop on Wednesday, May 20. So, we’re in the endgame now.

With all that in mind, I’d expect this beloved show to be No. 1. However, it’s not. Off Campus holds that title, and it goes to show that you can never underestimate the power of romance.

This new sexually explicit Prime Video program follows a college hockey team, and specifically its captain, Garrett Graham. In the show, he meets a music student named Hannah Wells while she’s trying to figure out how to act on her crush for a boy named Justin. Garrett agrees to help Hannah by fake-dating her, and in exchange, she helps him pass philosophy. Obviously, real romance comes out of this fake relationship, and overall, this story is a lovely, thoughtful and spicy.

Along with Hannah and Garrett, Off Campus also introduces us to Garrett’s teammates/housemates as well as Hannah’s friends. They’re immediately just as lovable as the lead couple, which is great, because this show is Bridgerton-ish and will shift focus to a new romance involving a different hockey player every season.

As a fan of these books, it’s not surprising that this is a hit. The story is irresistible, and the show is a remarkable adaptation of its source material. That’s not just my opinion, though. Generally, this romance has been beloved by critics and audiences alike, as it boasts a 96% Tomatometer score from the critics and an 89% popcornmeter score from the audience.

So, for now, Off Campus reigns supreme on Prime Video in the No. 1 spot while The Boys sits at No. 2. However, that could easily change with the series finale of the superhero show dropping on May 20. Although after that, I think Off Campus is set to have a dominant long game. That’s because, as The Boys comes to a full end, the hockey romance is already set to go into production on Season 2.

Spoilers below for the latest episode of The Boys, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched via Amazon Prime subscription.

The penultimate episode of The Boys upped the Season 5 body count by having Homelander kill Frenchie off (which still sits wrong with me), which will no doubt give Butcher, Starlight, & Co. even more motivation to rid the world of Antony Starr’s self-assessed messiah in the series finale. We also saw the last of another major Supe in “The Frenchman, The Female and the Mother’s Milk,” as Homelander put an unwilling Soldier Boy back into his cryosleep tube. But not before a final Supernatural callback!

During their final-for-now conversation, after Homelander tried to win his dad over by revealing Soldier Boy-related additions to Voughtland, Ackles’ character made it clear that he did not want a lasting relationship with his offspring, and that his decision to give up the priceless V1 formula was guided entirely by his love for Aya Cash’s Clara (a.k.a. Stormfront). As he put it in the ep:

Just about anyone familiar with Supernatural presumably perked up at that moment, since the show's Winchester brothers were well known for driving (and fixing up) a 1967 Impala that they named "Baby."

Obviously that wasn't as ginormous a Supernatural connection as the surprisingly bloody reunion episode with Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins, but it so very obviously counts. Not just because of Ackles hiimself, of course, but because The Boys creator Eric Kripke also created and ran the monster-filled drama (which also co-starred Jeffrey Dean Morgan) for its early seasons. And he pointed out that the Impala reference almost didn't make it in there.

Soldier Boy Didn't Originally Reference The Impala

Speaking with Collider about the episode, Kripke revealed that the scripted version of that scene featured a reference to a boring old car company with ZERO links to Sam and Dean Winchester. Booo! Here's how the Impala comment eventually made it into the ep:

Kripke calls it a "danger," but I think him working with Phil Sgriccia is far more of a feature than a bug. Not that the sequence would have been a failure had he only joked about working on a Ford instead of the Impala, but it definitely helped make it that much more memorable. Especially if it's the last time fans see him until Vought Rising gets here and brings "Ben" and Clara back together. And it is.

Without any further Soldier Boy scenes to look forward to, I guess we just have a bunch of still-unrevealed cameos to anticipate. Find out when the series finale hits streaming on Wednesday, May 20. (Or if you're so brave, the episode is screening in 4DX theaters on Tuesday night.)

Spoilers ahead for the penultimate episode of The Boys.

Shortly after its premiere The Boys established itself as one of the best Amazon Prime Video shows to watch. The comic book series (which is streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription) mixes both gory violence and R-rated humor, to delightful results. The pressure is on for the series finale to deliver on May 20th, and showrunner/creator spoke to CinemaBlend about how Breaking Bad's finale helped inspire various character returns in Season 5.

The Boys Season 5 has been a doozy so far, and the pressure is on for it to deliver a series finale that's actually good. I had the priviledge of speaking with Eric Kripke ahead of the final two episodes, where I asked him how he decided to bring back certain characters like Elisabeth Schue's Madeline Stillwell. He told me:

Points were made. Breaking Bad's entire final season is a testament to sticking the landing, and that series finale is really the cherry on top. Kripke wanted Season 5 of The Boys to be similarly effective, and a love letter to the fans who watched the entire run on Amazon Prime Video. That included bringing back missing figures, as well as killing off major characters throughout the entire season. RIP A-Train and Frenchie.

All eyes are on what will happen in the mysterious series finale for The Boys, and the stakes feel especially high for Season 5. Fans were thrilled when Jaz Sinclair's Marie Moreau finally popped up, despite Gen V being cancelled. And we'll have to see what other familiar faces show up in the final episode. Later during our conversation, Kripke went on to share why returns were important to closing the loop on the show. In his words:

Only time will tell if the final chapter of The Boys is quite as successful as Breaking Bad's ending. Things are looking almost apocalyptic in scale with Homelander now seemingly immortal and in full control of the country. Luckily we don't have to wait too much longer to see how things shake out.

The Boys airs new episodes Wednesdays on Amazon Prime Video as part of the 2026 TV schedule. While Gen V has been scrapped, a new spinoff is coming with Vought Rising.

Spoilers ahead for the penultimate episode of The Boys.

The Boys is a truly wild superhero project, and arguably one of the best Amazon Prime shows on the streaming service. Those with an Amazon Prime video subscription are currently watching the show's fifth and final season, and its penultimate episode, "The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother's Milk," was a doozy. It also included a wild cameo from Samuel L. Jackson, with the show's creator Eric Kripke explaining how it went down.

The Boys Season 5 has been steadily building its tension, and Episode 7 featured a huge character death. But it also had Sam Jackson voicing a seriously angry hammerhead shark named Xander, who threatened to kill Chace Crawford's The Deep if he ever entered the water again. Kripke spoke to Polygon about how this wild cameo came together, saying:

Talk about thrilling. Samuel L. Jackson does have an iconic and distinguishable voice, and as soon as Xander started mouthing off to The Deep, it was clear who was the man behind the shark. While they were always going to shoot their shot, Eric Kripke and company lucked out that the Oscar-winning actor was a fan of The Boys, and was happy to get in on the fun. And just like that, Xander was born.

While this was a funny gag and a relatively quick cameo, the scene in question showed just how low Crawford's character is. Not only does The Seven no longer exist, but his blind loyalty to Homelander has resulted in the entire ocean turning against him. That means he can't use his powers, and has lost all his friends who live in the water. What exactly does he have to live for anymore?

Perhaps this is setting up The Deep to finally unite with The Boys against Homelander in the forthcoming series finale. The aquatic supe has been pretty unredeemable throughout the show's five seasons on the air, mostly out of fear of his boss. But now that he's been pushed out of both Vought and the water, it might be a good time for him to finally get on the right side of history. We'll just have to see what happens in the show's final episode.

The Boys airs new episodes Wednesdays on Amazon Prime as part of the 2026 TV schedule.

Major spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed The Boys’ latest episode via Amazon Prime subscription, so be warned!

The past few weeks of The Boys have been pretty mirthful, all things considered, based largely on the extremely bloody Supernatural reunion, followed by that hilarious blooper reel. It’s hard not to celebrate all the filthiest things Soldier Boy has said, know what I mean? But the satirical series’ penultimate episode, “The Frenchman, The Female, and The Mother’s Milk,” was no laughing matter. (Some of it was.) The installment finally took out one of the core protagonists we’ve been following since the beginning, with Tomer Capone’s Frenchie getting a hero’s death.

I fully understand the necessity of killing off at least one of the titular Boys before the endgame, so that the finale’s stakes can feel that much bigger and more dangerous, which creator Eric Kripke spoke to by way of a Lord of the Rings comparison. But while I’m fine with the death itself, I’m legitimately confused and bothered by the way it was handled in the episode.

Erik Kripke's LOTR-Infused Explanation For Frenchie's Death

As viewers witnessed, Frenchie put himself in Homelander’s deadly path as a way of distracting the would-be God from locating Sister Sage and Kimiko cramped together inside a vent shaft within Fort Harmony. Could Frenchie have found a hiding place if he was moving faster? Probably. But he instead stayed mobile within the uranium testing chamber, and drew Homelander’s attention and ire at just the right moment, even going so far as to open the radiation floodgates as a final Supe-shaming offense.

Alas, that earned him not only some gnarly scars and burning, but also a fatal blow to the midsection from the V1-infused maniac. The episode then delivered a highly dramatic final conversation and smooch between Frenchie and Kimiko before he passed on, which was almost emotional enough to make one forget that they're only barely an actual couple. Speaking to TV Line, Eric Kripke explained the need for a big death, saying:

In a vacuum, everything Kripke says there is true. To the point where TV viewers are savvy enough to know that second-to-last episodes are where a lot of series deliver the most damaging blows, so that final episodes can wrap stories up to pay off whatever twists and deaths came before. So I'm perfectly fine with the general idea that Frenchie had to die. But I actually wanted to believe it.

Why Frenchie's Death Still Felt Off To Me

In the first place, I don't even understand the ends to the means of Frenchie distracting Homelander. If Kimiko and Sage were on the run, and the point was to keep the Supe's attention for as long as possible to put more distance between him and the women, that would track. But they're not going anywhere, so was Frenchie's plan just to lie and prolong the situation hoping that Homelander would forget what he's doing there?

I mean, it all works, but why in the world would Homelander believe Frenchie's claims about Kimiko already gaining Soldier Boy's power? Why would the dude even still be at the Fort if they were successful? There's also no reason why Homelander would immediately fly off after wounding Frenchie instead of double-checking the vent that he was so intrigued by just minutes prior. I guess it's because his ego was dinged, but still.

Frenchie's death sequence also plays directly into Homelander's super-heightened senses, as he used his X-ray vision and enhanced hearing while within Fort Harmony. But here's the thing: Frenchie got the Supe's immediately attention by barely tapping the wall (or door?) in front of him. But why wouldn't Homelander have heard Frenchie breathing, or even his heartbeat? As well, wouldn't he have heard the same involuntary sounds from Sage and Kimiko? That vent was hardly soundproof.

Even beyond all that, I am astounded that Homelander chose to kill Frenchie in a way where it wasn't even obvious what happened to him. Which is total bullsh-t, since Homelander doesn't merely leave victims on the verge of death. He smashes skulls to goop with his boots, lasers opposers' bodies into pieces, and impales skulls with sculptures. He gives the practical effects team a lot of great material to work with, so to speak, so there's no way he would have just given Frenchie a pretty bad belly cut without punching a fist through the protagonist's torso.

I'm sure all of my concerns can be explained away quickly enough by Eric Kripke or someone else from the creative team, and I'd probably be willing to buy it, since I fully want to go into the series finale with optimism and enthusiasm. But it reminded me too much of the seemingly avoidable way A-Train died in the Season 5 premiere, so I can only hope that the final episode takes more justifiable strides in offing its established leads.

The Boys' final episode is set to hit Prime Video on Wednesday, May 20.

The Boys’ fifth and final season is streaming now with a Prime Video subscription amid the 2026 TV schedule, and it’s been intense. As part of this last stretch of episodes, there have been some fun surprises, including a bloody Supernatural reunion between Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins. That finally came to fruition in Episode 5, and it was well worth the wait. On top of that, Prime Video just dropped an excellent outtake, and it shows Collins, Ackles and Padalecki all reprising their SPN characters.

Despite both shows being created by Eric Kripke, The Boys and Supernatural are very different, especially when it comes to how they're written. With that in mind, it was hilariously jarring for me to see the outtake shared to Prime Video's Instagram. In it, Padalecki, Ackles and Collins not only channel Dean, Sam, and Castiel, respectively, but they also make reference to other elements from the beloved CW show like Chuck and Busty Asian Beauties. Take a look:

It’s been over five years since Supernatural ended, and I never thought I'd see the day that Sam, Dean and Castiel would return in some form. While this isn't like a canon addition to SPN lore in any way, it's hard not to smile when seeing the three actors slip back into versions of their beloved characters.

All in all, the trio seamlessly slide back into their respective roles, and it’s almost like no time has passed. Ironically, Ackles was nervous about working with Padalecki and Collins again but, based on this clip and what really happens in the episode, I'd say those concerns weren't warranted. Unsurprisingly, fans are absolutely loving the blooper, and you can see some responses below:

• @soldierbitch1: YESSSSSSS WE ASKED THEY LISTENED!!! 👏👏👏 Howling!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Dammit I love these guys!
• @wickedlyhandmade: This Supernatural girlie is SCREAMINGGGG 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
• @mrs_bernales3: I'm so glad they dropped this 😂 Jensen mentioned it and all us Supernatural fans have been patiently waiting!
• @bajouk_ali: They waited 15 years to swear like this lmao.
• @tatiapaiva: Killing people, hunting V1, not family business!

I don’t know what’s better. The fact that Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins reprised their Supernatural roles, or that the trio got pretty violent with each other on the actual show. During the episode, Ackles' Soldier Boy and Collins’ Malchemical get into a fight with Padalecki’s Mister Marathon, who ends up getting killed by Homelander (Antony Starr). Such a crushing scene is what I'd expect from The Boys and, while there's a sense of irony to such brutal moment marking a great reunion of actors, let's be glad we now have it along with this blooper.

Speaking of outtakes, I'm curious as to how long it took for them to really get through filming. Those who have seen the 15 seasons’ worth of Supernatural bloopers know that for a serious show, the stars could get completely unserious while filming. To this day, I’m not sure how everyone managed to do 15 seasons and over 300 episodes, because it always seemed like Ackles, Padalcki and Collins could not get through scenes.

After seeing this episode of The Boys, what I want now more than ever is an R-rated Supernatural revival. The chances of that happening are probably slim, but I'll continue to hold onto that hope. For now, know that new episodes of The Boys hit Prime Video on Wednesdays. Also, those who want to see Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins on Supernatural can also stream all 15 seasons of the show on the aforementioned streaming service.

Some spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet caught up with the latest episodes of The Boys Season 5, streaming now via Amazon Prime subscription.

The lead-up to The Boys explosive series finale has been quite the deadly one, with major characters like A-Train getting killed off early on, with Firecracker and Black Noir meeting their makers in more recent episodes. off (seemingly for realsies). You know what couldn’t be more alive, though? Soldier Boy’s filthy f--king mouth, and Jensen Ackles’ ability to deliver the hilariously foul dialogue with gravelly aplomb.

At a certain point, I just had to start keeping track of Soldier Boy's most disgusting takes on life, his most extreme sexual adventures, and his troublesome fascination with referring to male genitals. His dialogue may not be quite on par with all the amazing practical effects that are every bit as disgusting, but they're still worth remembering. (A lot of these would be great for keychains and car magnets.)

Soldier Boy's Harshest Quotes Said Directly To Homelander

To be sure, some of Jensen Ackles facial expressions in scenes with Antony Starr's Homelander are worthy of capturing all on their own, so infused with judgment and superiority they are. But the words themselves do make his points more abundantly clear. Namely that he doesn't like his own son. He's barely outside the cryo-tube before he's asking his offspring about unconsented sex.

• "Did you f--k me? Is this some kinda incest thing?" - Episode 502
• "You know, all I see is a freak. A freak with a bushel of gray pubes." - Episode 503
• "Your c-ck’s as useless as your cape. What’s the point of being famous if you’re not getting your d-ck wet?" - Episode 504

I do love that Soldier Boy takes a swipe at Homelander's cape in the same breath as he insults the Supe's manhood. Most of his views are shamefully non-progressive, but he's got a point there.

Soldier Boy's Dirtiest Quotes About Homelander

Soldier Boy has as much of problem blasting Homelander behind his back as he does saying it all to his face. Which is to say, he DGAF, and also doesn't care who he's saying any of it to.

• "He is the strangest motherf--ker I’ve ever known, and I’ve had a threesome with Gary Busey. Oof." - Episode 503
• "If he’s the second coming, what does that make me? Joseph? I mean, talk about the biggest cuck in history. Man trades his best cow to bag some hot-a-s virgin, and then God comes and squirts his baby gravy up her meat wallet. F--k that." - Episode 505
• "Nobody f--ks my son but me. That came out wrong." - Episode 505

Is there a theology course out there concerned with God's baby gravy? Is that a part of the holy trinity that I just spaced out on in catechism?

That third quote is possibly the most ridiculous one of all, but Ackles sells it so cleanly and believably. Sucks that he ends up killing Misha Collins' Malchemical immediately afterward, but I guess we knew that long-awaited Supernatural reunion was going to be violent and deadly, even if it was even bloodier than I expected.

Soldier Boy's Nastiest Quotes About Celebrities From Yesteryear

Perhaps the funniest thing about Soldier Boy's entire existence is that all of his X-rated anecdotes are about celebrities who were in their primes before nearly all of the main characters were born. (Save for some like The Legend and Stan Edgar.) So his stories get reactions of both disgust and slight confusion.

• "If the virus doesn’t get you, time will. And when you’re sitting in that wheelchair, s--tting in a colostomy bag, I’ll be running the Seven, s--tting on Shari Lewis’ t-ts." - Episode 503
• "I gotta hand it to you. I haven’t f--ked that hard since I railed Shari Lewis on the balcony of Studio 54." - Episode 503
• "The last time I let a Black woman boss me around, it was Nell Carter…with a c-ck ring, and a tub of Crisco." - Episode 504
• "It was a real Guccione p-ss party." - Episode 505
• “Buddy, the Queen sat on this face. It’s a national f--king treasure.” - Episode 506

What other show on TV has referenced Nell Carter, Shari Lewis and Bob Guccione in a three-episode stretch? Maybe The Muppet Show or something, but that's probably it. Poor Lambchop.

The Best Of The Rest Of Soldier Boy's Hilariously Awful Quotes

Not that all of Soldier Boy's most immoral lines can be classified together so easily. Ackles gets to make plenty of other derogatory and debaucherous comments that make it quite clear that his rugged and unrefined personality is not an act.

• "I’m no a-s-felching Commie. You got that?!?" - Episode 502
• "So what, you you asked me up here so I could watch you swim in t-t-jizz?" - Episode 503
• "I’d rather fist myself with a handful of razors." - Episode 503
• "You seem a little out of it. Did you nut? Because usually you nut." - Episode 505
• "If there is a god, he sure as hell didn’t come out of my balls." - Episode 505

I guess it's good that he cares about Firecracker's orgasm? Or maybe not. And I guess that he cares about The Deep's potential knee pains in the following quote. Or maybe not.

• "You’re looking at me like you wanna suck my hog. So I’m asking if you would like some knee pads." - Episode 505
• "My, my. How the mighty have f--ked themselves square in the ass." - Episode 505
• "Jesus, you could get pregnant with all the eye-f--king." - Episode 505
• "Well, banning abortion would be a big problem for me, personally." - Episode 505

That last comment makes me wonder if Soldier Boy has a lot of other offspring running around out there, even if none of them are on the same level as Homelander. Maybe we'll learn more about that part of his life in Vought Uprising. But I can only pity anyone who learns late in life that he's their dad. Not that I pity Homelander. I'm not quite as grounded as The Legend.

Only two episodes left to go for The Boys, which is celebrating its series finale by bringing the episode to theaters around the country specifically outfitted for 4DX screenings, to give fans all the jolts and vibrations usually happen when Soldier Boy and Shari Lewis are together.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Season 5, Episode 5 of The Boys, “One-Shots,” streaming now with an Amazon Prime subscription.

The long-awaited Supernatural reunion finally hit The Boys on Wednesday on the 2026 TV schedule, and it was pretty memorable. Fans got to see Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins on-screen together for the first time since Supernatural ended in 2020, and it wasn’t anything like The CW series. And since it is The Boys, things got pretty violent and bloody.

Ackles has previously opened up about how nervous he was about his former co-stars joining him on The Boys. While the trio frequently sees each other at fan conventions, working together again is a different story. He told Deadline how it was working with Padalecki and Collins again after so long, admitting they had to do some adjusting since they were in a different environment:

As both a Supernatural and The Boys fan, it was so fun seeing Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins on screen together. While it was definitely not like Supernatural, and they weren’t the only ones having to do some adjusting, seeing them banter and joke around, it was like nothing had changed.

Of course, there were some additional lines of coke and a whole lot of blood, but it was as entertaining as ever. It was announced a while ago that a Supernatural reunion was coming for the fifth and final season of The Boys, with very little information surrounding it, and the wait was definitely worth it. And even despite the adjusting, Ackles loved it:

When it came to filming the scene in question, it was not your typical Supernatural scene. Padalecki portrayed a former member of The Seven, Mister Marathon, while Collins was Malchemical, a Supe whose power is toxic gas. There’s a lot of fighting, a lot of violence, a lot of blood, and neither Mister Marathon nor Malchemical makes it out alive, thanks to both Soldier Boy and Homelander. But throughout everything, Ackles felt comfortable with what they were all doing, and putting on the Soldier Boy suit while filming with his former co-stars:

Even though working on The Boys together is a little different from Supernatural, it’s not like Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins haven’t dealt with crazy characters before. Ackles recalled the intense storylines that they had to do on SPN, and having to play different, villainous versions of their characters, so it’s not that big of a stretch:

While the episode ended on a pretty tragic note, it was still entertaining to see Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins on-screen together, especially since you don’t know when it’ll happen again. There have been some talks of a potential Supernatural revival, so who knows what will happen. For now, fans can always watch Supernatural with a Peacock subscription. New episodes of The Boys drop on Wednesdays on Prime Video.

The Boys is in the midst of its fifth and final season on the 2026 TV schedule, but Prime’s anti-superhero franchise seemed to be staying strong. Well, at least with one exception. It was recently announced that Jensen Ackles’ Vought Rising, where he will reprise his role as Soldier Boy along with Aya Cash as Stormfront, will officially premiere in 2027. Unfortunately, college-set spinoff Gen V will not be coming back for a third season, and one star is speaking out.

Gen V premiered in 2023, centering on young Supes at Godolkin University, and it proved to be somewhat essential to The Boys' storyline. The second season wrapped up in October, but Prime never officially canceled or renewed it, and fans had been left waiting for any kind of news.

Unfortunately, the streamer recently confirmed that Gen V will not be getting another season, and people are appropriately upset. Jaz Sinclair, who plays Marie Moreau, spoke out about it on her Instagram, and she is obviously not happy:

It's clear Sinclair is not wanting to spout off, or may be too emotional to handle what has doubtless been a torrent of messages since the news dropped. The cancelation definitely came as a surprise, but the longer the wait, I did personally feel the less it seemed like a renewal was gonna happen. I'm guessing Sinclair and the rest of the cast probably have a lot more to say, so i'd think it will be only a matter of time before more comments come out.

Gen V’s Season 2 finale set up The Boys Season 5, but the connection has yet to be made. Marie has been teased to appear in the final season of The Boys, which has so far only made name drops here and there since it premiered earlier this month. It shouldn’t be long until she makes an appearance, and Sinclair previously shared her excitement with The Hollywood Reporter:

Gen V’s second season, which aired in the fall, suffered an unexpected loss, with the death of star Chance Perdomo. Production had to be delayed, with writers having to rework most of the season. The series paid tribute to the actor, who had died in a motorcycle accident. And while they killed off his character, Andre, they definitely made sure to share the impact he had on everyone and the direction the show took.

Cancelations are always hard to deal with, especially since there was still so much more to tell with the story. While The Boys is continuing with Vought Rising, since it is a prequel, don’t expect any Gen V characters to show up. Fans will just have to hope that these final episodes of The Boys give some resolution. New episodes drop on Wednesdays with an Amazon Prime subscription. All episodes of Gen V are also streaming on Prime Video.

Major blood-soaked spoilers below for the latest episode of The Boys, so wade carefully if you haven’t yet watched via Amazon Prime subscription.

Ho-leeee. Mo-leeee. Fri-joleeees. The Boys has once again topped itself with the episode “One-Shots,” which shockingly killed off a major Supe, set up an until-death rivalry between two others, and delivered a celebrity cameo-filled sequence that went far beyond the highly anticipated Supernatural reunion for Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins. This will no doubt go down as one of the most fun and bloodiest hours in all of 2026 TV.

So let’s put our viscera-proof swimming caps on and dive into this muck to celebrate all the larger-than-usual number of wild and gory deaths, as well as series executive producer Seth Rogen heading up a murderer’s row (and eventually murdered row) of comedy stars, including Kumail Nanjiani, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Will Forte and Craig Robinson. All in a day’s work for the Supes that populate The Boys, amirite?

Jensen Ackles Got To Brutally Kill Off His Supernatural Co-Stars

The very first look at Misha Collins on The Boys surprisingly foreshadowed his death in the episode, with Soldier Boy holding his character Malchemical by the throat just before snapping the Supe's neck. I thought the show might buck that expectation somehow, but no.

From a plot perspective, Malchemical's death is pretty tragic by way of Butcher & Co.'s grand plan to kill off Homelander, since he could emit fumes noxious enough to knock the Seven's leader unconscious. Unfortunately, none of The Boys are likely aware Malcehmical exists, and thus likely won't be able to reverse-engineer his knockout gas. (That said, I'm holding out hope for Misha Collins-as-a-corpse to reappear in Episode 506 for Frenchie to extract DNA from.)

Jared Padalecki's speedster Mister Marathon was also an important introduction for the overall plot, as he confirmed where perhaps the last remaining vials of the V1 serum are. But his death was most much elaborate, utilizing some of the gnarliest practical effects I've ever seen in this show. (But only after fans got to see a hilarious assortment of Sony Pictures-produced VCU offshoot movies with Padalecki's character front and center.)

In a sequence straight out of a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon, Marathon runs arouns his mansion chasing Soldier Boy, who amusingly puts the various celebs in his pursuer's path, causing each of them to full-on explode the way Hughie's girlfriend did when A-Train zipped through her. I guess Rogen didn't get fully 'sploded, but more on that below.

I Absolutely Loved The Dorky Nods To Superbad And Saturday Night Live

If you're looking for an SNL vet to play the weirdest dude in your movie, you're probably gonna go with Kyle Mooney. But if we're talking the second-weirdest character, that's the realm ruled over by talents like Will Forte and Bill Hader. Only, the latter isn't around anymore in The Boys' timeline, as he was outed (correctly or otherwise) as being a Starlighter, and Forte was only too happy to take advantage. As he put it:

I think hearing him refer to himself as "The Forte" could grow on me. But probably not for a while.

Elsewhere, when everyone is reacting in a panic to Homelander getting knocked out, Mister Marathon makes it clear that one of Forte's most memorable characters does indeed exist in this universe.

• WILL FORTE: Can we f--k off, please?!?
• MISTER MARATHON: Chill out, MacGruber! Everything is cool.

Forte's body does end up looking like the wrong end of a MacGruber mission, as he's the first celeb Soldier Boy sacrifices while running away.

But let's jump back a bit to before things getting so bloody. Seeing Seth Rogen and Christopher Mitz-Plasse together at the card table immediately sparked memories of Superbad, given that was the movie that put Mintz-Plasse on the map. So it's only fitting that he hilariously threw co-star Michael Cera under the bus as a possible traitor.

• CHRIS MINTZ-PLASSE: Hey, do we think Michael Cera's a Starlighter? 'Cause we're up for the same part right now, and it'd be pret-ty good if he got vanished.
• SETH ROGEN: You've been friends with him for 20 years, Chris.
• CHRIS: Yeah, but I really need this part, man.

A couple of minutes later, Homelander's ire has everyone on edge, and Mintz-Plasse once again draws attention to the Arrested Development vet, saying:

Technically, the Bill Hader comment could also count as a Superbad reference, since he and Rogen played the bumbling cops in that. Fans may recall that Craig Robinson played a drug dealer in 2007 comedy and its "Cop Car Confessions" extras. Well, he also showed up for an extremely brief cameo to gripe about Danny Trejo's tacos before Mister Marathon turned him into human salsa.

Seth Rogen Joked About Hating Weed And Then Got Half His Body Blown Off

Amidst all of the stressful happenings, Mintz-Plasse sparks up a joint and offers it to Rogen, who turns it down with the following reasoning:

It's high-ly ridiculous for this scene to imply that Mintz-Plasse wouldn't already be aware of Rogen's disinterest in the devil's lettuce after so many years. But still a funny joke, since there's a less than 0% chance that Rogen wasn't stoned while filming that very scene.

Firecracker's Fuse Was Permanently Snuffed

After all the earlier events of the episode, including Sister Sage laying out her mega-plan to eradicate humanity and catch up on reading, Homelander punctuated the episode off with another shocking death. After Firecracker pulled off arguably her most deplorable and sickening act by falsely accusing her hometown pastor and his church of being in cahoots with Starlighter, so soon after sitting with him and knowing that wasn't the case at all.

Against her better wishes, Firecracker remained loyal to Homelander's "I'm God now" turn to a fault, and likely would have continued to do his bidding for years on end. Which could have happened just so if Homelander never learned that she bagged his old man. He should have directed his anger at Soldier Boy, who knew that Homelander didn't rise to the occasion with her, but instead took it out on the one who actually had his back.

It's not quite as divisive as A-Train death scene in the premiere, since there wasn't anything redeemable happening with Firecracker. But still gave an equally cruel example of how little Homelander cares about anything or anyone around him. He's even getting breast milk from rando churchgoers now? For shame.

Find out who'll be the next to die when The Boys drops the rest of Season 5's episodes on Prime Video every Wednesday.

For many fans out there, the fifth episode of The Boys represents a special moment in pop culture, as "One-Shots" will showcase the long-awaited Supernatural reunion between Soldier Boy portrayer Jensen Ackles and former co-stars Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins. Eric Kripke, who created both of the hugely popular series, doesn’t necessarily see the two projects as being all that different, at least thematically, even if they don’t share a similar level of on-screen lube and other fluids.

Kripke spoke with Comic Book Resources ahead of the key episode hitting the 2026 TV schedule, and he weighed in on the ways he thinks both The Boys and Supernatural stem from the same core idea, and it’s a link that seems perfectly clear in hindsight. As he put it:

To be sure, it's a central theme that could easily apply to plenty of other TV shows and their characters, from Scooby-Doo (which got a Supernatural crossover) to the Buffy-verse to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. (Maybe?!?) But it does absolutely hold true for both shows, even as it takes different approaches.

Supernatural is certainly more tied into the biological family is key idea, with the Winchester lineage also getting explored in the short-lived prequel series. That series also played into more religious bloodlines as well, such as Jack Kline's Nephilim origins, but the show never lost sight of the idea that Sam and Dean were the anchors, and those who joined them were family as much as those who stood against were not.

On the flip side, while The Boys has featured some complicated biological relations — the nightmare of Soldier Boy fathering Homelander — it's so much more about the idea of its titular found family. Hughie didn't grow up with Butcher, Starlight, or the others, but he doesn't know life without them at this point in the show's run. And they're slowly but surely all working towards one shared goal, although the various different sub-goals may destroy things.

Eric Kripke shared this thoughtful addendum to that idea, reinforcing the notion that nobody should feel like they have to face difficulties and tragedies alone. In his words:

Thankfully, despite an uncanny number of comparative situations between The Boys and our real world, it doesn't seem like we're ever going to have to deal with V-infused superbeings influencing the government, global commerce and the entertainment industry. So we don't all need to form Boys-esque groups just to cope. But if that time ever does come, I like to think I'd be the Frenchie of the group. Draw whatever conclusions you will from that.

Eric Kripke also shared a genuine response when asked by CBR how Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki's Supernatural brothers would fare if they lived The Boys' supe-filled world.

We'll soon see just how long Padalecki and Misha Collins' characters will survive when they arrive in the newest episode. We got our first look at the trio together again in a Season 5 trailer, which sparked some naughtier than usual fan requests. Join me in finding out of those requests pan out when the episode hits streaming via Amazon Prime subscription on Wednesday, April 28.

The superhero genre is wildly popular, but certain projects stand out among the rest. The Boys, which is one of the best Amazon shows to binge watch, is definitely in that category thanks to its R-rated humor and wildly gory action. Those with an Amazon Prime Subscription have been watching its fifth and final season, but the franchise isn't ending there. A prequel Vought Rising is on the way, and Jensen Ackles spoke to CinemaBlend about how his performance as Soldier Boy in Season 5 impacted the forthcoming spinoff.

The Boys Season 5 has been wild so far, including Soldier Boy coming out from ice and becoming a member of The Seven. Fans are curious to see how the flagship series will end, as well as how it'll connect to Vought Rising. In a conversation with CinemaBlend, Ackles spoke about bringing the character back for the fifth season, offering:

It sounds like his impending work on Vought Rising didn't really factor into the Supernatural star's performance in The Boys Season 5. Instead he just focused on bringing Soldier Boy back to life with this new set of circumstances, after being absent since The Boys' Season 3 finale.

But what about his work on the prequel series? Later in his same conversation with CinemaBlend, Jensen Ackles explained how wrapping up Season 5 actually informed his work in Vought Rising. As he told it:

This makes a great deal of sense. While Ackles will bring the end of Soldier Boys' story on The Boys to life, it helped inform his performance in Vought Rising. Much of the Supe's backstory is still a mystery, and it should be fascinating to see get some much-needed content about how he ended up as the brutal antihero we know him as. You can see the actor's comments below:

We've still got a bunch of The Boys episodes left before its series finale, and it feels like just about anything could happen. Homelander's mental health is reaching a new low, and I have to assume a big conflict with his father is coming. That is, as long as he can procure some V-One and achieve immortality.

New episodes of The Boys air Wednesdays on Amazon as part of the 2026 TV schedule. As for Vought Rising, that's not expected until sometime in 2027.

Many TV shows use the final season to make big moves. This includes taking risks that lead to some heartbreaking deaths. We expect people to die in The Boys' final season. Unlike some shows that fear killing characters, I was confident that we would see a lot of death in this final season.

The premiere episode even made a huge choice by killing off a major character. I think it was one of The Boys' best decisions to start the season. Let me explain why this death worked for me.

Warning: The Boys Season 5 premiere spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution.

We All Knew A-Train's Death Was Coming, But I Appreciate That They Did It In The Premiere Episode

A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) seemed marked for death the moment he decided to betray the Seven and help The Boys. He managed to escape his fate far longer than any of us expected. Therefore, the moment he appeared in The Boys Season 5 premiere, we knew what’s about to happen. I was surprised to see him make an appearance this early in the season, because it could only mean he would die this early.

The Boys could have dragged out A-Train’s death for a few more episodes, or even until the series finale. I wouldn’t have minded seeing A-Train appear in the final episode, but I think making the move to kill him early works best. I believe that his character arc always ended in death, especially because he chose to do good.

The Boys has always existed in a cruel world, similar to our own, so sometimes the choice to be and do good can only end in tragedy. Additionally, we expect a lot of trauma in the final season, and it was actually kind of the series to ease us into everything with a death we all expected — not a shocking one. It also set up the stakes. Characters we love and hopefully many we hate will finally meet their demise in The Boys Season 5. A-Train is just the first of likely many casualties.

A-Train Saving Hughie Was Such A Full Circle Moment That Made Me Cheer

I think many may agree that the best part of A-Train’s death is the callback to the premiere episode. Hughie (Jack Quaid) sets off on a quest for revenge against the Supes when A-Train carelessly kills Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin (Jess Salgueiro). He runs straight through her and doesn’t care. In The Boys Season 5 premiere, A-Train saves Hughie in a similar fashion to how he killed Robin.

It’s a way for him to atone for this horrendous act. Maybe a little part of Hughie can forgive him when he's saved. It’s not only a moment that feels like a major Easter Egg for dedicated fans of the show, but symbolic of A-Train’s story arc coming full circle. He took someone who mattered the most to Hughie away during the first episode. He destroyed his life. He saved his life this time and gave him a chance to maybe have a happy ending in the end.

Because of what it represents, it may be The Boys' most sentimental moment thus far. Hopefully, The Boys’ final season has many other moments that highlight the show’s history and give some closure to characters. We need more moments like this in the final season to balance some of the gore.

I Love That A-Train Got The Final Laugh At The End

A-Train and many other members of the Seven fear Homelander (Antony Starr), and that has been a main source of his power. He has kept these people and superheroes in fear of him. We saw A-Train react and behave in fear of what Homelander would do to him or his family. When he comes to kill him, A-Train embraces his death.

He doesn’t run from it. He even laughs in Homelander’s face moments before he's killed. A-Train shows he no longer fears him. He can see the pathetic man that Homelander is, and tells him that as well. Homelander also gives him more of a respectful death than he’s given other characters.

It may show that, in Homelander’s own twisted way, he did care about him or respect him. It’s the best death he could expect from someone as psychopathic as Homelander.

A-Train's Storyline Felt Like A True Redemption Arc That Many Characters Don't Get

A-Train has never been a perfect character, and once was a despicable bad guy. However, we have seen the character wrestle with his morals and what it means to be a superhero over the last few seasons. He’s done things to help others and The Boys. However, it doesn’t feel like he truly gets his full redemption until The Boys Season 5 premiere episode. He has a chance to run and not get involved in this final battle.

He knows it likely ends in his death. A-Train chooses to be a true hero and sacrifices his life to save The Boys, who are likely the only ones who can save the world from Homelander and other evil Supes. I love that we get to see a true redemption arc because I don’t think many other Boys characters will ever attempt to redeem their past evil deeds. It was nice to start with a character redemption arc being completed.

I Liked That A-Train Got A Respectable Death To Honor His Character Growth

The Boys has had many gruesome and gory moments that I was worried the show would kill him in some horrific way. Thankfully, the show didn’t go for the shock value that has made it such a popular Prime Video show. Instead, it killed A-Train without guts spilling and blood everywhere. Homelander cruelly but quietly killed him.

I appreciated the simple death. It felt the most respectful way to kill him. A-Train also saved The Boys before his death and got to stand up to Homelander and make him feel small. A-Train in past seasons would have begged Homelander not to kill him. Here, he took it like a true hero and made it easy to know that I will miss the character.

He’s one of the few on The Boys who fully redeems his past actions. Therefore, I am fine if he’s the only character going forward who gets a redemption arc and an honorable death.

Stream The Boys with a Prime Video subscription.

Spoilers ahead for the Season 5 premiere of The Boys.

Superhero TV shows and movies are everywhere, but The Boys stands out thanks to its gory violence and R-rated humor. Those with an Amazon Prime subscription were recently treated to the start of Season 5, which will be the final chapter in the beloved series. The Season 5 premiere saw the surprising death of A-Train, and while some fans are mad about the character's ending, I've got the opposite feelings. Let's break it all down.

The Boys Season 5 is finally here, and the stakes couldn't be higher for the series, which is one of the best Amazon shows to binge-watch. While some folks were confused by A-Train's death, I think it was the perfect way or the season to begin, and confirm that no one is safe during this final batch of episodes.

A-Train's Death Raised The Stakes For All Of Season 5

A-Train's story has been a fascinating one throughout The Boys. The show opened with him accidentally killing Hughie's girlfriend, kickstarting the entire story of the series. But he's been seeking redemption in the more recent seasons, aiding Annie and the Starlighters in resisting Homelander and his authoritarian rule.

This redemption definitely made the death of Jessie T. Usher's character especially tragic, and the resistance lost a huge ally after Homelander killed his former colleague. Personally I thought this twist was super effective, mainly because it showed how no one was going to be safe in the show's fifth and final season.

While The Boys is known for its wild practical effects and gory violence, most of the main cast has stayed safe throughout its time on the air. Killing A-train off in the Season 5 premiere was a big change, and immediately raised the stakes for the entire series. And now each fight scene has more weight because it feels like the comic book adaptation could actually kill off its main cast any any point. That's exactly what we need to make the final set of episodes especially effective.

Personally I'm hoping that we get to see more major character deaths in Season 5 prior to the series finale. I want the stakes to feel urgent throughout its final season on the air, and with Homelander becoming even more unhinged, it feels like no one is safe. We'll just have to see how things shake out, and if The Boys joins the ranks of shows that actually ended well.

New episodes of The Boys air Wednesdays as part of the 2026 TV schedule. There are just a handful of episodes left, so the pressure is on for the cast and crew to stick the landing.

While superhero projects are everywhere, The Boys is on another level. The ultra gory series (which is streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription) is a NSFW romp full of blood, guts, and insane superpowers. Season 5's premiere started killing off major characters, but prior to that craziness of its final batch of episodes, the cast spoke to CinemaBlend about their favorite practical effects. And their answers were both hilarious and disgusting. Hey, that's the show's brand!

The Boys Season 5 is here, and the first three episodes have been expectedly wild. The cast spoke to CinemaBlend about the series, where a number of them spoke about which practical effect stands out to them. As you can see in the video above, Jack Quaid cited the whale from Season 2, which was memorably rode by The Deep during a chase sequence. As the Hunger Games alum put it:

Points were made. Following the success of Season 1, The Boys really upped its ante in its sophomore season. That includes crafting a massive beached whale set piece for the cast to enter... complete with a beating heart. Quaid has seen a lot of blood and guts while playing Hughie throughout five seasons, but that's one (understandably) memorable moment.

One actor who has had seen plenty of blood and guts on The Boys is Homelander actor Antony Starr. He spoke to CinemaBlend about one of the most stomach-churning moments: killing Webweaver in Season 4. In his words:

That's definitely a great choice, but it's specific to Homelander. And I'll never forget watching him literally tear a man in two last season. Of course, there another common them for many of The Boys' cast: the show's penchant for superpowered penises. Ashley actress Colby Minifie cited the giant penis that was constructed for Season 3, when shrinking hero Termite enters his partner’s urethra. She recalled her memories of that set piece, telling us:

They've all truly seen too much at this point. Five seasons in, there's been plenty of set pieces and practical effects that you'd never expect to see on any other show. But that's The Boys for you, and the giant penis head isn't the only time the male anatomy has been used to bonkers results.

Mother's Milk actor Laz Alonso has had a number of fights with the supe Love Sausage, who has a large prehensile penis that he uses as a weapon. The actor referenced showrunner/writer's enchant for this, saying:

Firecracker actress Valorie Curry had her own uniquely The Boys memory of practical effects. Namely the way that her character breastfed Homelander in Season 4. As she told it:

Isn't it fascinating to see how the sausage gets made? While The Boys is obviously a show that uses visual effects to bring its superpowers to life, there's also a ton being done practically. And it certainly sounds like the cast has memories they'll remember long before the show's tenure on the air is over.

New episodes of The Boys air Wednesdays as part of the 2026 TV schedule. There are only a handful of episodes left, so the stakes feel high. And smart money says there will be more memorable sequences that'll shock audiences along the way.

Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet streamed The Boys’ Season 5 premiere via Amazon Prime subscription, so be warned! [Cue the airhorn on Black Noir’s podcast soundboard.]

The critic-approved final season of The Boys finally arrived last week — or at least the first two episodes did — and with them came the return of Love Sausage and his extremely lengthy (and violent) manhood. But watching Mother’s Milk once again face off against the well-endowed villain wasn’t the most talked-about moment from the opening salvo. Rather, that distinction went to one of the more shocking deaths to hit the 2026 TV schedule thus far, with Jessie T. Usher’s speedster A-Train getting fatally derailed by Homelander.

The death itself follows the truly great moment where A-Train chuckles in Homelander’s gobsmacked face just before his neck is snapped. Given the former Seven member’s death was fully inevitable, the moment itself wasn’t as shocking as seeing it play out before Season 5’s first hour ended. But I’m taking some issue with the precise way it went down, as the logic behind it all doesn’t quite add up to me.

I’m Perfectly Fine With A-Train’s Death Being A Callback To Robin’s Death In The Very First Episode

Entirely on a thematic level, I think it makes abundant sense for the writers to make A-Train’s final act of mercy be a direct reversal of how audiences first met him, when he obliterated the body of Hughie’s girlfriend by running straight through her. That all-time horrifying Boys moment is what kicked off Hughie’s whole anti-Supes arc, and what looped him into Butcher’s vigilante group.

So it makes cosmic sense that one of his final acts was drawing Homelander away from killing Hughie, in spite of all past animosity. I feel like he would have done the same thing even if another protagonist was in the line of fire, save for Butcher, but there's extra meaning with Hughie.

As well, the episode gave us a last bit of "all is well now" closure between A-Train and his brother Nathan, which worked as something of a neon sign alerting everyone that the redeemed speedster would be taken out of commission before much longer. His brother's kind words, plus The Deep's ignorant ones, helped bring A-Train to making the heroic decision that doomed him. That all tracks.

But it’s his other final act, where he clumsily avoids turning another young woman into Jackson Pollock-spatter, that took me out of the moment entirely.

Almost Everything Else About A-Train’s Death Sequence Just Confused Me

For all that I can buy into the emotional logic and poetic justice imbued in A-Train’s death scene, I’m having trouble coming to terms with several of the moments that led to it. Here are some of those details that are tripping me up.

• Even if A-Train is running in a zigzag motion, Homelander isn’t an alligator, and isn’t shooting projectiles. So there’s no real reason why A-Train should have been able to avoid getting sliced in half by Homelander’s swivel-headed laser blasts. Are the lasers not continuous? Was A-Train just ducking and jumping at THE most opportune moments?
• The Boys showed off A-Train’s speedy precision inside the freedom camp just before the Homelander chase, where he more or less stopped time in front of Homelander to save Hughie & Co. While being chased, however, A-Train doesn’t seem to have this ability, or else he would have been able to more easily sidestep seemingly the only obstacle on this barren street.
• This show has made a strong point of noting that A-Train was high off Compound V when he obliterated Robin, without exactly excusing him for it, but certainly indicating that he was too effed up to avoid her. Now presumably more sober than he was then, A-Train should have been able to avoid this woman without it turning into a woods-destroying catastrophe.
• I get that having Homelander chasing him is a distraction, but what sense did it make for A-Train to look over his shoulder right at that moment? Did he think Homelander wasn’t there anymore? Also, a speedster turning their head back and forward again should conceivably happen way too quickly to be the catalyst here. If that’s the case, just him blinking would be near disastrous.
• As a speedster, wouldn’t city streets and neighborhoods be the worst place to aim for when zipping around, especially when being chased? That’s literally where all the people are. I get that it’s easier on the feet, and that A-Train is better about dodging people outside of pursuits, but the first step in this plan should have been only running through non-populated areas. Even if it’s the middle of the night.

One way that my dorky brain would probably accept this scenario without further issue would be if we saw a supercut showing off hundreds of other times A-Train slipped up while narrowly avoiding open car doors, unhoused citizens, wandering pets, frisbees gone askew, or any number of other unsuspecting obstacles in his path. If he's going through this on a weekly basis, if not more frequently, I can more easily buy into this mishap causing his fate to be sealed. Or neck-snapped, more specifically.

I get that this is my own hang-up, that others might not agree, and also that it's not showrunner Eric Kripke's job to please every viewer with every moment. So in the long run, I guess I don't think it was THAT diabolical. Although I do wish A-Train had been able to physically embarrass The Deep after dismantling the aquatic antagonist's flimsy confidence. If we'd have seen a lightning-fast one-two combo to his singing gills, the details behind A-Train's death might not have phased me at all.

Okay, that's a lie, but still. The Deep needs to get his own neck BRO-ken. Nailed it.

The Boys will keep building up its Season 5 body count every Tuesday on Prime Video. Be sure to have a box of (Teenage) Kix and — [licks lips] — milk ready for that morning's viewing. Or whatever time of day.

SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for The Boys Season 5 premiere. If you have not yet watched, make good use of your Amazon Prime subscription, catch up now, and then head back here!

In the weeks leading up to the premiere of The Boys Season 5, Karl Urban was quoted as saying that nobody in the cast is safe and that there are fatalities right from the get go. After watching the first episode, we now know what he is talking about. In the final moments, the audience says goodbye to Jesse T. Usher's A-Train, who has been a key player on the show since the pilot. It's a huge and emotional moment given everything that the character has gone through and how he has changed – but the moment is made particularly perfect because he goes out laughing in the face of Antony Starr's Homelander.

When I interviewed the cast of The Boys last month during the show's virtual press day, I made a point of asking Usher about A-Train getting to go out with a smile on his face, and I was surprised to learn the origin of the fantastic emotional expression: it wasn't in the script, and he didn't think of it himself; instead, he gives credit for inspiration to his talented scene partner. The actor took me back to the night that the scene was shot and detailed how it went down:

Over the course of the first four seasons of The Boys, A-Train and Homelander maintained a fraught and complicated relationship. As a member of the revered The Seven, the blue-clad speedster most definitely enjoyed living the consequence-free life of a supe, but that also came with a cost. Like all of his teammates, he lived in fear of their star-spangled leader, and that fear forced him to do a lot of terrible things and make a lot of horrible choices. At the end of Season 4, he finally starts to break away, but that unleashes Homelander's full fury.

Continuing, Usher explained that part of the behind-the-scenes process on set for the actors was to go back and forth asking questions – the idea being to find the emotional truth of the moment. That was uncovered when Starr submitted a particular query:

It's definitely not crazy for anyone in the universe of The Boys to be afraid of Homelander, as he is practically invincible, stacked with all kinds of dangerous powers, and a total psychopath. But as we've also seen through four seasons, his emotional fragility and extreme insecurity is a major weakness, and A-Train has a natural reaction when he finally recognizes it. Usher continued,

He added an apt metaphor that any of us can relate to: when we're kids, we can imagine all kinds of nightmares lurking in the shadows of the bedroom closet at night… but when you finally realize that there is nothing in there other than a bunch of clothes, you can't help but laugh at yourself. A-Train long saw Homelander as an unrelenting terror, and it took until his final moments to understand the reality of the villain. Usher concluded,

It's a perfect, albeit dark conclusion for the premiere, and in addition to sending the message and the show isn't playing with kid gloves in the final run, it also demonstrates a wonderful understanding of the characters.

The Boys Season 5 is off and running, with the first two episodes now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video – and the next six will respectively premiere weekly on Wednesdays on the 2026 TV schedule.

Few shows will ever attain the same level of NSFW debauchery that The Boys consistently oozes from its every orifice. The fifth and final season has finally landed on the 2026 TV schedule via Amazon Prime subscription, and it’s definitely on par with past seasons in critics’ opinions. That said, co-star Jensen Ackles likely hopes at least one thing or two is different from previous years: proper prop placement.

Speaking with CinemaBlend about the new season alongside his co-star and on-screen father Antony Starr, Ackles shared a delightfully sordid story about the time when he (and allegedly “many” others on the set) mixed up hand sanitizer and body lubricant. You know, that common thing that people do, probably more often than anyone would expect. (In the sense that it happening even once is more than I’d have expected.)

Asked about any on-set mementos that may have been liberated from the set, Ackles went just so slightly over the top when sharing his response, saying:

Ah yes. Ye Olde sub-legendary “Herogasm” episode. The installment remains one of The Boys' most extreme episodes, in part for setting a penis on fire, so it only makes sense that things would skew less than sanitary behind the scenes as well. Thankfully, Ackles anecdote isn't quite as extreme as it possibly could have been. He continued:

Starr made a joke about having hands that were impossible to dry off, which seems like the kind of thing Homelander would also be into. Although with more of a bent towards breast milk rather than either hand sanitizer or lube.

I do have a question or two about this fateful mix-up on The Boys' set. Was "Lube" the brand of hand sanitizer, and that's why Ackles got mixed up? Or, on the flip side, was the lube branded as Hand Sanitizer? Probably neither is the case, but at least I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Check out the video from CinemaBlend's interview below!

I'm just going to blindly assume that Ackles' reasons for being Nervous about reuniting with Supernatural co-stars. has nothing to do with vats of lube everywhere. Although if it IS all connected, certain parts of this fandom would go absolutely buck wild.

With or without any additional lube on hand, the first two episodes of The Boys Season 5 are currently available to stream on Prime Video.

Eric Kripke has never been one to pull punches on The Boys, the superhero satire that’s given us everything from a clone “Butt Buffet” to a penis explosion that’s grosser than you could imagine. With just eight episodes remaining, I wouldn’t expect Kripke to take his foot off the gas now, so what are critics saying about The Boys’ fifth and final season ahead of its premiere on the 2026 TV schedule?

Homelander is as powerful as ever when Season 5 opens, with a suped-up Butcher willing to go to any lengths to take him down. In addition to the inevitably epic showdown between these two, Season 5 promises a Supernatural reunion, new depths of toxic masculinity and, according to Karl Urban, “fatalities from the get-go.” I won’t spoil any of them here, so you’re safe to read on to see what critics think of The Boys’ last hurrah.

Victoria Luxford of NME points out that what may have started as a satire of DC and Marvel has come to resemble real-world political unrest, and Antony Starr’s performance as Homelander is “a startling piece of work.” The critic gives the season a perfect 5 out of 5 stars, writing:

Jeremy Mathai of SlashFilm agrees The Boys goes out on top, rating the season an 8 out of 10. After what the critic calls an “overly-bleak and cynical season 4,” the final episodes hold absolutely nothing back with engaging action, unrivaled gruesome practical effects and plenty of much-needed heart. Mathai says:

M.N. Miller of Geek Vibes Nation gives The Boys Season 5 a 9.0, writing that the series goes out in a “bloody blaze of resonant glory.” All the gallows humor is still there, as well as its venomous revenge narratives, and it’s all wildly entertaining. Miller’s review reads:

Alison Herman of Variety, like many of the critics, notes how closely some of The Boys plots parallel our current world, sarcastically remarking that Season 5 is “Just the kind of escapist entertainment we all crave!” However, Herman admits that each “geyser of blood and squelch of spilled guts” actually does offer sorely needed catharsis. Her review continues:

Jake Kleinman of Polygon points out some flaws in The Boys’ final season, including the introduction of a MacGuffin (one of the superhero genre’s worst tropes, in the critic’s opinion), as well as integrating characters from Gen V. Kleinman says you can still catch onto the plot even if you haven’t seen the spinoff and promises there’s still plenty of fun to be had in this dark world. He continues:

I’m so excited to hear these positive reactions to The Boys Season 5, and I can’t wait to dive into the depravity. My God, just think of the Homelander memes.

The above critics aren’t the only ones praising the series’ final eight episodes; The Boys holds a Certified Fresh 97% on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter. Catch the first two episodes streaming with a Prime Video subscription on Wednesday, April 8, with episodes dropping weekly thereafter.

It has to be said that some weeks not a tons gets released on the various streaming platforms. And then there are weeks where it seems all the streamers conspired to release all their biggest content at once. Some of the best series and movies streaming in April are coming out this week. It’s a good thing Daredevil: Born Again is only coming out weekly, so there’s time for everything else.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord - April 6 (Disney+)

Despite relatively short screen time in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul is one of the more popular of Star Wars’ villains. The character has a long and deep history that you won’t be familiar with if you haven’t watched animated Star Wars shows like The Clone Wars, and now your Disney+ subscription will give you an untold chapter in Maul's life in the new animated series Shadow Lord.

The Testaments - April 8 (Hulu)

The Handmaid’s Tale was a critical and fan favorite, but don’t let the fact that it has come to an end lead you to end your Hulu subscription. Margaret Atwood’s 2019 sequel novel, The Testaments, is set to make its debut as a series this week, with One Battle After Another’s breakout star Chase Infiniti leading the cast.

The Boys, Season 5 - April 8 (Prime Video)

Of all the superhero content one can find on TV and in movies, The Boys, available with a Prime Video subscription, is truly unique. No other series is quite so violent or holds the same sort of lens up to the genre. The show has been incredibly successful, and hopefully, with this fifth and final season, it will be going out on top.

Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair - April 10 (Hulu)

Of all the series reboots that we have seen in the last few years, Malcolm in the Middle is one that maybe was not on anybody’s bingo card. And yet this week we get the limited series that, as the subtitle says, promises that Life’s Still Unfair. The show finds an adult Malcolm who has spent his life avoiding his crazy family, forced to deal with them.

Outcome - April 10 (Apple TV)

In Outcome, coming with an Apple TV subscription, the biggest movie star in the world, Keanu Reeves, plays the biggest movie star in the world. Reef Hawk. However, while Keanu is the actor everybody loves, Reef is an actor that seemingly nobody likes. It’s a fact that leads him on a journey of self-discovery after a viral video ruins his reputation. From director Jonah Hill, the new movie looks to be equal parts funny and life-affirming, and it has an incredible all-star cast.

While there’s a lot to love streaming this week, the month is only just getting started. A new season of Netflix’s critically praised Beef comes out next weekend, and reality fans will be able to jump into a new season of Love Island on Peacock. Get ready.

99% of all televised media might as well pack it up this week, as The Boys is about to tear down the 2026 TV schedule with the arrival of the fifth and final season, streaming via Amazon Prime subscription. Fans will presumably get to see all manner of superpowered massacres and debauchery on display, as well as plenty of meme-ready Homelander faces, but not before seeing a slew of behind-the-scenes shots from star Erin Moriarty, who also penned an emotional and gracious farewell to her time as Annie, a.k.a. Starlight.

Moriarty is one of several Boys stars who has been keeping her followers hyped up about the final batch of episodes, having shared earlier celebratory posts, but this latest photo drop shared to Instagram is all about looking further back at the past rather than anticipating the future. She’s got some fun and hilarious shots in there that successfully make it seem like working on The Boys was a hoot for all these years. As she shared in her post caption:

As Season 5 was in the midst of its production, Erin Moriarty revealed in June 2025 that she'd been diagnosed a month prior with Graves' disease, and discovering that was a gamechanger for the actress, who had suffered issues for a while but had "chalked it all up to stress and fatigue" before seeking medical treatment.

She continued her caption, sharing that even while in the physical dregs, she was emotionally lifted by spending her days with the cast and crew of The Boys. As she put it:

Moriarty's pics also include Jack Quaid pulling an action pose wearing a pink robe, Quaid drinking a beer while flipping the camera off, Karen Fukuhara wearing that bloodied-up tiny arm prosthetic from Season 4's premiere, and Laz Alonso covered from head to toe in a cream-colored goop. ONe of the more bizarre group shots is of Moriarty lying in bed with Chace Crawford and Colby Minifie, who's wearing a flesh-colored shirt that makes it look like she's topless (with IG heart emojis over the faux boobs).

Minifie, Black Noir portrayer Nate Mitchell and The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke all shared positive responses to the actresses' nifty pics, as seen below.

• ERIC KRIPKE: Love you dude, so lucky and grateful you’re Annie
• COLBY MINIFIE: Love you Erin!!! ❤️
• NATE MITCHELL: Love you bbgrl!!! ❤️❤️❤️

It's encouraging to know that Moriarty was seemingly surrounded by love throughout those five seasons. Even if it wouldn't make much sense for her to appear in the upcoming prequel Vought Rising or other projects in development, here's hoping Starlight survives the final battle with Homelander & Co. and returns in some way down the line.

Colbie Minifie was so inspired by Moriarty's post that she shared her own throwback photo dump that similarly had me feeling both highly amused and highly emotional about this show bowing out soon.

Set to deliver a final showdown that could possibly eclipse all impending battles heading to any upcoming DCU TV shows or upcoming Marvel TV shows, The Boys is ready to start milking the joy out of audiences on Wednesday, April 8.

The superhero genre continues to dominate the entertainment industry, with a number of shared universes in play. But some of the most popular comic book shows aren't from DC or Marvel, such as The Boys. The bloody series (which is streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription) will debut its fifth and final season shortly. But information is still trickling about previous installments, including why The Boys' Season 4 finale was almost pulled from the air. Let's break it all down.

The Boys' characters have done plenty of awful things during its years on Amazon, to the delight of fans like me. But there have been moments where the show has connected with the real world in startling ways. During a conversation with Polygon, showrunner Eric Kripke spoke about how the Season 4 finale was nearly pulled after the assassination attempt of Donald Trump happened just days before. Fans will recall that in the episode, Antony Starr's Homelander creates a plan to kill the President. As Kripke recalls:

The Boys is ending in Season 5, so the Season 4 finale was key to setting up the final chapter in the superhero series. But the fact that the episode was going to deal with a story about a presidential assassination was tricky, given the state of the political landscape at the time. So how did they get around it?

Rather than the Season 4 finale being scrapped or delayed, Amazon went with another pivot: a title change. Originally, the episode was titled "Assassination Run", but was renamed to simply "Season Four Finale." This allowed it to be in better taste amongst the news of Trump's attempted assassination. As Kripke put it:

Given how much the tension had built throughout Season 4 of The Boys, fans likely would have had a strong reaction if the finale had been delayed due to events in the real world. The episode left us with a bunch of thrilling cliffhangers, which will finally be resolved shortly.

The Boys Season 5 will premiere April 8th as part of the 2026 TV schedule. Hopefully, the final batch of episodes doesn't have any issues airing due to issues happening in the real-world. Fingers crossed.

Antony Starr's Homelander is just about as extreme a character as you'll find on the small screen today, and while the principal payoff of his wildness is making The Boys evermore enjoyable and insane with each season, it also results in some tremendous memeage. The actor employs incredible expressions to get across the insanity and emotional volatility of the dangerously powerful supe, and fans have been happy to use his face to get across certain feelings online. But which meme is best? Starr has thoughts.

The Boys Season 5 had its world premiere at the Cinema Moderno in Rome, Italy earlier this month, and when Prime Video Italy's social team caught up with the show's principal villain on the blue carpet, he was asked to rank the different Homelander memes. As you can see in the video below, he kind of made his own rules playing the game, but I would expect no less from a man best known for playing a character who prefers to make up his own rules:

I'm not sure how two memes get ranked fourth, two get ranked sixth, one gets ranked third, and one gets ranked 20th, but considering all of the Homelander memes are fantastic, I'm willing to give him a pass because the truth is that all of the Homelander memes are great.

And if you're a person who happens to very much enjoy using Antony Starr's visage when you communicate on social media, text message and slack channels, you should definitely pay attention to the message that the actor offers at the end:

There is certainly a lot expected from Homelander. Following the chaotic and devastating ending of Season 4, The Seven essentially calls all of the shots in the American government, and that makes the red, white and blue menace the leader of the free world. That being said, he's never really been a guy who is ever satisfied when he gets what he wants, so we can be sure that there is a lot of mayhem on the way (and let's also not forget that he is now in possession of his father, Soldier Boy, who is being kept in stasis.

After nearly two years of waiting (not counting the awesomeness of Gen V Season 2), The Boys is finally almost back, so be sure that your Amazon Prime subscription is up to date. The fifth and final season of the show is set to debut on April 8 with a two episode premiere, and it's been promised that there is going to be plenty of chaos and death. We here at CinemaBlend are excited for every minute of what's to come, so be sure to keep checking back here on the site in the coming months for interviews, features and more.

The fifth and final season of The Boys will be coming soon on the 2026 TV schedule, on April 8, to be exact, and there is a lot to look forward to. Now, while I can't wait to see how this action-packed series ends, I also have to admit that I'm equally excited for the Supernatural reunion that will happen during it. With Jensen Ackles returning as Soldier Boy, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins will be appearing in the series as well, but Ackles was apparently nervous about working with them again.

Supernatural ended over five years ago, but Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins are still close. They frequently attend fan conventions together, and were even still on The CW in some way, shape, or form for a bit after SPN ended. So you’d think working on-screen together again would be a breeze. With The Boys, though, things were a bit different. Ackles explained to TVLine why he was a bit nervous about his former co-stars joining the fun on the Prime hit, and it’s pretty understandable:

Ackles joined The Boys, which was created by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke, in Season 3, and he’s now set to lead his own prequel, Vought Rising, alongside Aya Cash. Joining a series, especially one you’re a fan of, can be intimidating, so it makes sense that he was nervous about being on The Boys. But then those nerves just got bigger when Padalecki and Collins joined the show for Season 5, and it was more so for them rather than for him, and it really shows just how much he cares for them.

Despite the nerves radiating from the three of them, Ackles recalled just how fun filming The Boys with Padalecki and Collins truly was. As of now, their roles have yet to be revealed, but from the looks of the trailer, the three will be getting into some fun trouble, and for the Soldier Boy actor, it was like nothing had changed:

Those who have seen 15 years’ worth of Supernatural bloopers or really any panel video from any convention they’ve attended know that things can get pretty chaotic when you put Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins in one room. So it’s nice to know that not much has changed between them since the last time they were all on-screen together. And it makes me even more excited to see what they bring to The Boys.

It can be assumed that Padalecki and Collins’ roles won’t be revealed until The Boys Season 5 premieres. Regardless of what their roles are, it’s going to be pretty fun seeing them and Ackles together again, even if Soldier Boy is going to be roughing them up a bit. The Boys’ fifth and final season premieres on April 8 for those with an Amazon Prime subscription.

For all the wonderful new projects that are peppered across the 2026 TV schedule, this year also marks the end (in some ways) for one of TV’s best-ever comic book adaptations, The Boys. The final season is wrapped and ready for fans to start streaming via Amazon Prime subscription, and though it won’t be fully public until April 8, the show’s made its global premiere in Rome over the weekend, sparking some explicit celebration (and eye-catching pics) from star Erin Moriarty.

Moriarty’s Starlight — Annie January in her street clothes — will no doubt be an integral element in the fifth and final season as the first of Vought’s super-powered creations to go against the Seven, with Jesse T. Usher’s A-Train joining her, Hughie and the rest of the protagonists. So it makes sense that the actress would be especially enthused about these episodes finally dropping, and she marked the occasion with this 4-word summary on Instagram:

It was a big night for The Boys, with the cast and creator Eric Kripke on hand to partake in the world premiere of Season 5 with an adoring audience. And to be expected, the first reactions stemming from that screeing have been quite positive indeed. And all without any threats from Homelander influencing those takes.

Erin Moriarty was talking about more than just the Italian event, though. The Boys will almost definitely go down as the most unique and non-replicable project of many of the main cast members' careers. How many other shows will include anything like Hero-gasm or the singular powers of a character like Love Sausage?

To be expected, Moriarty was dressed to all the nines for the event, decked out in a shiny, shiimmering dress that seems like it'd reflect starlight quite magically. Check her out in this shot from photographer Emilia De Leonardis:

Erin Moriarty seems to be all smiles and positivity when promoting the upcoming episodes, BUT…will Season 5 be the kind of f–king ride that ends with Annie paying the ultimate price for striking back against her makers, so to speak? Karl Urban has seemingly teased a high body count for the season, and considering none of the reported spinoffs are set to be follow-up stories, all bets are off on who will survive and what will be left of them.

Check out the full-length Season 5 trailer below!

The Boys Season 5 will begin milking viewers’ attention spans on Wednesday, April 8, only on Prime Video.

When The Boys finally dropped the first full-length Season 5 trailer online, the biggest group of fan reactions logically came from Boys viewers themselves. But given that this season features the highly discussed reunion between Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles and former co-stars Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins, those actors’ appearances in the promo have also sparked a ton of comments from the SPN community, with many of them sharing the same idea.

The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, who also happened to create Supernatural, knew exactly what he was doing when he first cast Ackles as the villainous Soldier Boy, and thankfully fed into the fanbase’s hopes for the actor to one again share the screen with his former on-screen bro and angel BFF. The details behind it all have somehow been kept mostly hidden from public knowledge, but the trailer heavily indicated that this won’t be an entirely loving interaction, at least going by how Soldier Boy handles Collins’ character.

At least that’s how it might come across to anyone who’s never written/spoken/embodied the word Destiel before. To those in the know, a little choking and roughhousing between these two is far closer to a dream scenario than anything antagonistic. More like Sold-rawr Boy, amirite?

No, not everyone buys into this character ship between Ackles' Dean Winchester and Collins' Castiel, or that it was made canonical in the final season before one of the most devastating deaths of Supernatural's run. Yes, an anti-Destiel crowd has long existed online. Yes, there are Boys viewers whose undies are in a bunch over SPN fans hijacking the conversation. But there's contrarianism everywhere you look online, and that's not what we're focusing on here. So on with the positivity!

• Now that the trailer for The Boys 5 came out, all the Destiel fans are super hyped up like every day but cranked up to 500 (me) - @goodluckb4beeee
• I just think that Kripke has an obsession with Jensen choking Misha 🤣 - @angel8782
• we’re getting a new destiel au if you think about it
• destiel artists just got fed for another fifteen years and im SO READY - @hannibalism_
• After that, I'm going back to reading Destiel fics. - @gicomgiz

These are exemplary of a much larger subsection of the commentary surrounding The Boys' trailer, although they're the more friendly-for-work comments as compared to other more lurid reactions.

Supernatural's Tumblr fame even re-entered the spotlight after the promo dropped and reinvigorated the shipdom and its most vocal proponents. And whoever's in charge of the site's social media gets kudos for acknowledging it.

• for those of you who dont go here this is like the second coming of christ for 2010s tumblr gay youths - @deancasdenver
• destiel doesn’t die. it just reinvents itself - @Tumblr

Amusingly enough, with all the attention going to seeing Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins sharing the screen again, not as much of the talk has focused on the wildly gory outcome of that scene, in which Misha Collins' character is apparently turned into an unrecognizable pile of organs. Not the cleanest way to pay off on a long-awaited reunion.

And all the while, Jared Padalecki's character is just standing and watching from the side, which drew its own amusing reaction.

With the final season’s production wrap recently being celebrated by the crew, The Boys Season 5 will blast its way onto Prime Video starting on April 8, 2026. Meanwhile, fans looking for SUpernatural won’t find it at its former longtime home of Netflix, but rather using a Peacock subscription.

The Boys’ crew recently celebrated the near-completion of the fifth and final season’s production, and less than a week later, fans are now already able to check out the first full-length trailer. And what a trailer it is, with ample time devoted to the seemingly endless number of largely amoral and deplorable characters that have been introduced. Karl Urban’s Billy Butcher and Antony Starr’s Homelander get the most attention, of course, given their inevitable grand-scale faceoff has been years in the making.

I can’t wait to see those two unstoppable forces slamming against each other, now that Butcher has left his deathbed behind, giving Urban more to do this season. However, I’m in zero hurry to catch back up with Chace Crawford’s The Deep, whose character arc started off with sexual assault, and then somehow didn’t get less skeezy or misogynistic across the next 31 episodes. It’s a sordid pleasure to see what awfulness he gets embedded in, but his five seconds of new-trailer screentime already makes me want to hit fast-forward.

Check out the new trailer below, complete with shots of Supernatural’s reuniting co-stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, which looks like a literal pain in the neck for Misha Collins.

Weirdly, Firecracker is also a terrible person whose actions are abysmal at every turn, and yet praise be, she doesn't get under my fin...er...my skin the way The Deep does. To be sure, this isn't a gripe about Chace Crawford; rather, I think he's too good at being a blight on society.

For those unable to watch, there's a moment early on with The Deep "parking" on the beach after riding some kind of sea creature, but that's not the worst part. It's that The Deep is podcaster now, along with the equally corrupt Black Noir, on a show that seems to be called Manhandled. He's not into discussing movie reviews, fast food chains, or book-tok releases. No, he's up to his gill-holes in toxic masculinity, as evidenced not just by the title, but also by all of the posters decorating the walls.

Two of the posters that can't be seen in the shot above include a "Men For Equality" one that says "Isn't It Nice To Have A Girl Around The House?" and then some kind of a "Pro Choice" poster with two women on it that also says "Why Not Both?" I don't even want to know how that can be explained. I just don't.

We get exactly one line from The Deep during these few seconds, and it's more than enough to make the seething start.

• THE DEEP: That's beta male s--t, bro. Noir, am I right?
• BLACK NOIR (PRESSING BUTTONS ON SOUNDBOARD): P-P-P-P-Preach.

I don't want to know how this podcast ends up entering the plot. However, even though it hurts my soul to say it, I do kinda want to hear Black Noir hitting every button on that soundboard. I need my own "For Real" button.

Maybe Prime Video will release home versions of Black Noir's soundboard as show merch. And maybe the Deep will suddenly remember what it's like to be ridiculed on a constatnt bass, and become an ally to women the world over. Which is to say, neither one of those will happen.

The Boys Season 5 will debut via Prime Video subscription on April 8 via Prime Video subscription.

The fifth and final season of The Boys is upon us. When Prime Video announced that the raunchy superhero drama would be ending after Season 5, Season 4 hadn’t even premiered yet. Fast forward two years, and the series is set to debut its final season in April on the 2026 TV schedule. Post-production is almost done, and the creative team celebrated by giving middle fingers. Of course, upon seeing that, Erin Moriarty, Seth Rogen, and more had some playful responses.

Filming wrapped on The Boys last year, and not surprisingly, everyone got pretty emotional thinking about the end. It’s still unknown what will happen, but Karl Urban teased some deaths in Season 5, so you know it’s going to be big. The creative team has been hard at work on finishing the season, and creator Eric Kripke shared a pretty appropriate picture on Instagram to celebrate finishing one of the final steps:

Between the middle fingers and the very appropriate balloons in the background, I can only imagine how fun that little party was when they eventually finished the final sound mixing. And while things seemed fun in the picture, Kripke got emotional in the accompanying caption. He reflected on the journey, saying how much he’ll miss the show, and honestly, me too:

Kripke went on to explain that making television isn't about the destination, it's about the journey and the people you go on it with. Explaining that point in emotional detail, he wrote:

I'm sure some of this sentimental emotion will sneak into the show. However, as the middle fingers imply, this is The Boys we're talking about, so I expect it to be far more action-packed and gloriously brash than anything.

Following this post, plenty of people took to the comments to share their thoughts on post-production nearing a wrap, including stars Erin Moriarty and Karen Fukuhara, as well as Seth Rogen, who serves as an executive producer:

• Seth Rogen: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
• Erin Moriarty: Immeasurable amount of gratitude and love for you/everyone/everything [The Boys] related. forever. x
• Karen Fukuhara - My heart !!!
• Shana Stein (Director) - All the feels. Sad it’s over. Happy that is was and always will be. Grateful to have gotten to come play with you all - the best of the best from start to finish. ❤️
• Zach McGowan - 🐶🪢❤️
• Laz Alonso: Nice!!!!!! Can’t wait to see what u all cheffed up! 🔥

The Boys Season 5 premieres on April 8 for those with an Amazon Prime subscription, so fans still have a little bit of time to prepare themselves, and it seems like the cast and creatives are preparing themselves as well. Since this show is highly unpredictable, you never know what can happen and how things will truly end. If the finale of Gen V’s second season is any indication, there will be a lot at stake in the final season, especially with the much-anticipated return of Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy.

Luckily, The Boys universe will remain alive and well post-The Boys. Ackles and Aya Cash will be leading a new prequel, Vought Rising, and Prime has yet to share an update on Gen V’s future, which could very well receive a third season. But it will still be sad to see The Boys end, and I am looking forward to seeing how they close that crazy chapter.

Through its first four seasons, The Boys has featured dozens if not hundreds of on-screen fatalities… but if we’re being totally honest, some characters have always felt safer than others. It’s far from a unique thing about the streaming series: there are always some protagonists and antagonists that serve as pillars for everything being built, and there is no real expectation that their time as part of the cast is going to be cut short. All that being said… when it comes to a final season all bets are off, and star Karl Urban has teased that the superhero show is not going to disappoint in that respect with the upcoming Season 5.

Known to fans as Billy Butcher, Urban teased what’s to come from the last run of The Boys during a recent press line interview with Variety, and he highlighted the extreme stakes that audiences can expect. He promises that folks are going to be left with proverbial gaping jaws in upcoming episodes, and it’s not even going to be a delayed thing: we can expect some stunning developments in the premiere. Said the actor,

Even Billy Butcher’s head is on the block this season (pun absolutely intended). When we last saw the character in the Season 4 finale, he was not only on the verge of death thanks to his usage of Compound V but also completely insane – hallucinating friends who had died years ago. Because of his V usage, he now has powers tied to the darkest part of himself, specifically the ability to generate vicious black tentacles, and he is in possession of a virus that could wipe out every supe on the planet.

Both Butcher’s continued existence and the virus pose extreme danger to all of the main characters on The Boys… but let’s also not forget that Antony Starr’s Homelander has complete control of the United States government thanks to the machinations of Susan Heyward's Sister Sage. That power is guaranteed to result in a massive body count, and there are few people that Homelander wants dead more than the members of The Boys.

It feels like it was just yesterday that The Boys debuted and wowed audiences with its diabolical and razor sharp satire – aimed both at superhero culture and disturbing developments within our own reality. Set to debut on April 8, Season 5 is arriving a little less than two years after the finale of Season 4 in July 2024, and if you need a refresher on everything that’s happening, you can rewatch all of the previous episodes of both it and the spinoff Gen V with an Amazon Prime subscription.

Karl Urban has built a career on playing tough, unbreakable characters, but his latest comments about the upcoming Mortal Kombat II suggest he may have finally found a role that pushed him harder than anything that came before it: his take on Johnny Cage. In the process, the actor may have unintentionally thrown a little shade at Billy Butcher, the character he’s spent years embodying on The Boys, which streams with an Amazon Video Prime subscription.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Karl Urban explained how the timing of Mortal Kombat II lined up perfectly with where he was coming off The Boys. But according to the actor, stepping into the world of the video game beat 'em up required a completely different level of physical commitment, one that left him more challenged than satisfied. He explained:

The Dredd star is no stranger to screen violence. Between disemboweling Supes and surviving increasingly unhinged action movie sequences on Amazon’s hit series, you’d think his threshold for punishment would be maxed out. Heck, he apparently asked for heavy action movie content. Well, wish granted. He continued:

The Boys is known for its chaos and brutality, whereas Mortal Kombat II requires a bit of discipline. The fights are apparently structured, stylized and unforgiving when it comes to technique. Urban had to retrain his body to move with precision rather than rage.

The sequel also presents Johnny Cage at a specific point in his life. As described in prior news reports, Cage is introduced as a washed-up Hollywood actor. This former martial arts prodigy made his name in low-budget action movies before fading into convention appearances. That backstory allowed the Lord of the Rings veteran to blend physical comedy with legitimate martial arts skill, especially in key fight sequences like Johnny’s big showdown with Kitana.

The Star Trek alum even compared Johnny’s fighting style to classic Jackie Chan performances, in which humor and physical vulnerability are baked into the choreography. According to director Simon McQuoid, the balance was intentional. Johnny couldn’t look helpless, but he also couldn’t appear fully prepared for what he was being thrown into.

Karl Urban wanted something harder, something that demanded more of him, and Mortal Kombat II delivered. Whether his comments were meant as a playful jab at Billy Butcher, they do highlight that after years of controlled chaos, Karl Urban was ready to "test his might" in a whole new way.

We’ll see the results when Mortal Kombat II hits the 2026 movie calendar in theaters on May 8, 2026.

While he might look like your cool science or theater teacher during his everyday life, Antony Starr is recognizable around the world as one of TV's most horrifically ruthless villains, The Boys' Homelander. Or at least he's recognized the world over whenever he's got his hair dyed blonde and he's rocking his American flag cape. As it turns out, fans are far less likely to notice Starr in his everyday mode, and especially when co-stars are also around.

Starr spoke with GQ to share some spoiler-free promotion for The Boys’ fifth and final season, which will soon give viewers a reunion between Supernatural’s Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins. The actor was humbled to learn that he’s viewed far and wide as portraying one of the greatest modern villains in television or any other medium. It’s a viewpoint that he doesn’t seem entirely cognizant of, despite having played the breastmilk-infatuated supe for years now. In his words:

In Starr's mind, Homelander's popularity is only possible because every other element of the show is working on a similar level. If anyone was slacking behind the scenes, it would reflect on not just all the on-screen stars, but also the swath of crew members working to bring the comic book adaptation to life for one last hurrah. So credit is given where credit is due.

You know who doesn't get any credit, though? The fans who don't grasp who Starr is because they can't see the all-powerful monster's visage beneath the thick black frames of his glasses. Even when he's right there in their faces and standing amidst other The Boys stars whose on-screen looks aren't quite so different, the actor shared the gobsmacking reveal that fans will legitimately ask him to take a picture while they pose with the other actors. It's like me asking Clark Kent to get a shot of me and Jimmy Olsen. (Which I would totally do, mind you.)

Here's how the actor describes those amusingly baffling experiences:

To be fair to anyone who has any amount of trouble differentiating people's faces from one another, Antony Starr rocks rather dark hair in his everyday life, as compared to Homelander's stark blonde 'do, and he often boasts a mustache and beard combo that stand in constrast to The Boys' character's ever-shaved skin. When the glasses are added in on top of all that, he does look more like a guy with a passing resemblance to Starr. He's like Homelander's cousin who's a poet sometimes.

One has to wonder whether Starr wishes those present for his botched James Bond audition would have also failed to recognize him. Or maybe he just wants that one to do over again, even if he's not an actual Brit.

Get ready to see Antony Starr back in Homelander's costume and as recognizable as ever when The Boys' final season lands. Check out the first trailer for it below!

The Boys will deliver its final array of earth-shaking calamaties when Season 5 hits streaming (via Amazon Prime subscription) at a still unspecified point in the 2026 TV schedule. Stay tuned for more details, and keep an eye out for any Homelander-esque looking celebs near you.

No show on the 2025 TV schedule made my brain work in the way Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin’s The Chair Company did, and me thinks it real good thing. Ahem, I mean to say, I think it’s a net positive that in a world of overabundant, same-y programming, a show can exist that blends together conspiracy thriller intrigue with absurdist comedy timing and sympathetic family drama into one 30-minute time slot. But, now it’s over, at least until Season 2 gets here.

I can’t just make my entire life revolve around Tecca the way Ron did, though, so in between theorizing over finale questions and pondering which moments from the show might have been in Ron’s head, I started thinking about other shows I love where Tim Robinson’s signature off-kilter vibes would be amazing to see. Maybe if I think about all of them hard enough, at least one will actually happen!

Tim Robinson In Severance

If you're talking conspiratorial mysteries where all of the deviousness goes straight to the top, there's no better match than Severance, which just so happens to feature a lot of office chairs. Nearly everyone in the Apple TV series can be considered quirky in one way or another, but imagine if Lumon brought in a Tim Robinson character as one of Mr. Milchick's superiors who's barely coping with the responsibilities and has a habit of talking about secrets too loudly. Or, on the flip-side, if the SNL vet were to play Ricken Hale's less-grounded brother, or the darkest blight of a sheep in the Eagan family.

Tim Robinson In IT: Welcome To Derry

IT: Welcome to Derry's first season features both a monster who feeds on fear and a soldier who can no longer physiologically feel fear. But what if Robinson was cast as one of the kids in a future season where — stay with me here — the character is just kind of too...stupid...to understand what fear is, and doesn't fully understand that Pennywise and IT's other forms are meant to be threatening or intimidating. Also, maybe he's a dentist who tries to get a better look at all of Pennywise's teeth.

Tim Robinson In Abbott Elementary

In some ways, it might defeat the purpose for Robinson to join another flat-out comedy, given the strength of The Chair Company's genre-smooshing. However, of all the weird-ass characters that the I Think You Should Leave creator has played on that show and others, he hasn't technically portrayed a new teacher who gets increasingly paranoid and maniacal about constantly being filmed at all hours of the day. Not even Jacob's good nature could weather that storm.

Tim Robinson In The Pitt

Hospital dramas are an ever-present corner of the TV realm, and I can think of few things that would cause more (unwarranted) drama within a hospital's walls than literally any Tim Robinson character. Whether he's a patient, a visiting surgeon, a stressed-out nurse, or just the dude who restocks the vending machines, he would be the straw grenade strapped to the camel's back that causes Dr. Robby to snap at the tail end of an exhaustive shift.

Tim Robinson In The Boys

To see a suited-up Robinson standing toe to toe with Homelander and proudly expressing: "Oh, I have a power, and it's a great power." Maybe that "ability" would be the inability to filter his opinions around other supes, and he can't stop himself from magnifying everyone else's awfulness, especially The Deep, but with a jovial tone.

Tim Robinson In The Simpsons

Get any thoughts of an animated, Simpson-ized Robinson outta here, because there are only three-dimensional, skin-and-organs Tim Robinson characters on the docket today. (And the docket is steaming wet for some reason.) To be as realistic as I'm legally able to mid-article, it would make the most sense for him to show up in the opening credit sequence, nearly bumping into everyone as they go about their normal actions. Watch out for that glowing, radioactive rod, Tim's character!

Tim Robinson In Dexter: Resurrection

It's too MAD Magazine to suggest Robinson play a character with a Dark Passenger that drives his guilty pleasures. But it would be damned hilarious if one of the unseen killers Dexter starts tracking down in Season 2 winds up being a Tim Robinson character whose behavior is patently impossible for Michael C. Hall's character to decipher. Then he kills Dexter and takes over the show. Steal this idea, Clyde Phillips!

Tim Robinson On Jeoaprdy!

I know that the contestant's stories are edited down to size for airing in the middle of Jeopardy!'s first round, but I can easily fever-dream up an episode where a loquacious Tim Robinson character waxes on with a myriad-threaded tale that takes up the rest of the runtime and continues on into Wheel of Fortune or the local news like an Adult Swim infomercial that Ken Jennings forgot he wasn't supposed to feed after midnight. We'll never know who won that one.

I have roughly 0% confidence that any of my above wishes will come true, even though I laid them out quite clearly to this Tim Robinson-shaped genie that popped out of this new lamp I got. And no, you can't have my new lamp!

Spoilers below for those who haven't caught up on Gen V (or The Boys) via Amazon Prime subscription, so be warned!

Now that Gen V has wrapped up its second season, there is mass-debatably only one upcoming superhero show where viewers can expect to see one or more penises dangling about during any given sequence. No, we're not talking about Spider-Noir (probably), but rather The Boys' fifth and final season, which just got a sweet, and potentially salacious, update from showrunner Eric Kripke.

To clarify, nobody specifically brought up on-screen peen, so that one's on me, in a manner of speaking. But we'll get to perverse theorizing soon enough. For now, let's focus on the more plainly positive part of the update that all fans should be excited to hear, which follows the creator's appreciation for the college-set spinoff's loyal viewership. As he put it on Instagram:

Would that update have been more exciting if he said the show was 100% wrapped and had an impending release date? Obviously. But we all know that's not feasible for effects-filled streaming shows like The Boys, so it's all about showing superhero levels of patience while everyone busts their asses behind the scenes.

Which brings us the final part of Kripke's message. Check it out and then let's discuss whether I'm reading too much into it or not.

The simplest takeaway from that would be that the final season ends with some kind of an explosive fight between Homelander and Billy Butcher & Co. Which certainly could be the case. But what if Kripke is also hinting at something...naughtier with this phrasing: "...ends with a bang. COMING..."?

Juvenile giggling aside, I don't think it's overtly ludicrous to think that Kripke would work a sex joke into his tease, nor to think that he and the other writers would find a way to make this whole series end with something sexually charged. I don't think it's all just for the sake of a joke, mind you, but perhaps indicates a new phase of evolution.

Considering how much The Boys and Gen V have focused on the Compount V injections that gave the characters their powers, as well as the complicated details surrounding many of their lab-assisted conceptions, what if Kripke is cryptically teasing The Boys ending with human and Supes co-creating some kind of new hybrid being via copulation?

I guess I don't truly know how groundbreaking a story beat that would even be, and would likely depend on whether or not the Starlighters push to eradicate Compound V from existence, or what the overall endgame will be for any of the characters. Hell, it might not even be just about human-Supe stuff. Dogknott would probably have something to say about that, as would The Deep.

In any case, before I fall further down this unwarranted rabbit hole, check out how Polaris himself, Sean Patrick Thomas, and former Lois Lane Elizabeth Tulloch reacted to Kripke's celebratory post.

• Sean Patrick Thomas: Yes indeed! 🫡🫡🫡
• Elizabeth Tulloch: 🙌

At this point, Gen V has yet to get any news about a potential Season 3, though there's certainly room for that story to grow. Meanwhile, the prequel spinoff Vought Rising continues dropping casting news as the first season films. Here's hoping we get a release window soon for The Boys Season 5.

Jensen Ackles has remained plenty busy since playing Dean Winchester on Supernatural, which ended in 2020 after 15 seasons. Most recently, he starred in the crime drama Countdown on the 2025 TV schedule. Unfortunately, Prime canceled the show after one season. Luckily, he still has The Boys’ fifth and final season to look forward to, along with prequel series, Vought Rising. But if that doesn’t work out, another show wants him for a spinoff.

Tracker's Showrunner Would Love An Ackles-Fronted Spinoff

Aside from the multiple projects he has streaming with a Prime Video subscription, Ackles has also been appearing on CBS’ Tracker as Russell Shaw, the older brother of Justin Hartley’s Colter. He was first introduced in the first season as Colter’s estranged brother, but now that they’ve been learning more about their complicated family history, the two have been growing closer. Ackles guest starred in the two-part Season 3 premiere, but showrunner Elwood Reid tells TV Insider he would love nothing more than to snag him for more than just a guest appearance:

What kind of storylines Reid would have cooked up for a Russell spinoff is unknown, but there is much to learn about him. And it would be good to see what he’s doing when he’s not dealing with his brother. Of course, given Ackles’ commitment to Amazon, that might be hard to do, but it sounds like Reid would immediately give him a spinoff if he were able to.

What Ackles Has Going On At Amazon

Ackles and his wife, One Tree Hill star Danneel Ackles, entered a first-look deal at Amazon in 2023 for their production company Chaos Machine. This means that Amazon will be a priority for Ackles when it comes to projects he’s producing and acting in, such as Countdown. Also under the agreement will be the upcoming The Boys prequel, Vought Rising.

The series was announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2024 and is set to follow the origins of Vought. Executive producers Paul Grellong and Eric Kripke shared that the series is a “twisted murder mystery” in the 1950s. Along with Ackles reprising his role as Soldier Boy, Aya Cash will reprise her role as Stormfront. The stacked ensemble cast also includes Mason Dye, Elizabeth Posey, Will Hochman, Jorden Myrie, Nicoló Pasetti, Ricky Staffieri, Brian J. Smith, and KiKi Layne.

Until Vought Rising premieres on Prime Video, it’s hard to predict how things will go. At the very least, if it doesn’t match the success of its predecessor, it sounds like Ackles won’t have any trouble landing another show. And it’s likely Russell Shaw will still be popping up on Tracker regardless, which will be better than nothing. Fans will just have to wait and see what happens.

The Boys world is expanding yet again with Vought Rising, with the action set during the early days of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Stormfront (Aya Cash). Those two reprising their roles from The Boys is enough to make this a stacked cast for any viewer with a Prime Video subscription; now, another four have been announced to join those two in the 1950s of that TV universe, including an SNL alum and an actress from the world of Westeros over on HBO.

In a very fitting move for a TV universe that spans genres, the new cast members hail from comedic, dramatic, and fantasy backgrounds. Count on seeing Cecily Strong, Mark Pellegrino, Eric Johnson, and Annie Shapero in Vought Rising, according to Deadline, although no details have been revealed yet at the time of writing about who they'll be playing in the midst of Ackles as Soldier Boy and Cash as Stormfront. Their roles will be recurring.

The most recognizable name is likely the musically-talented Cecily Strong, who was nominated for an Emmy multiple times for her work on SNL over eleven seasons until her departure in 2022. (She did make a cameo earlier in the 2025 TV schedule for the show's 50th anniversary.)

Mark Pellegrino is another newcomer to Vought Rising, most recently seen on TV with Jeff Daniels and Law & Order's Maura Tierney in American Rust, although a large demographic of viewers likely best remember him for his work as Lucifer in the Supernatural cast.

Annie Shapero technically has not yet debuted on House of the Dragon, as she was cast to play Alysanne "Black Aly" Blackwood for the third season. Considering that Black Aly is a fierce warrior in George R.R. Martin's world of Westeros source material, I'm wondering if this is a sign that Shapero will be part of action sequences in Vought Rising. She reacted to the announcement of her casting on Instagram, writing "SOMEBODY PINCH ME" in all-caps.

Last but not least, Eric Johnson is likely best known for his work in the Fifty Shades franchise, which of course makes me wonder if Vought Rising with have its own "Herogasm" storyline. On the small screen, he's been in projects including The Alienist, American Gods, and Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin. He also reacted to the big news via his Instagram account, writing "Thrilled to be joining [The Boys] universe! 💥"

There's certainly plenty to celebrate for anybody joining the cast of a show in this world, since Jensen Ackles has proven that The Boys universe can bring characters back in pretty much any show, no matters its place in the timeline.

Not only did he debut in the contemporary The Boys, but he appeared in a surprise cameo for Gen V and of course will star in Vought Rising. The Countdown vet already teased how Vought Rising's Soldier Boy will be quite different from The Boys' version of Soldier Boy, however, so the new prequel presumably won't be just retreading old ground with the character.

In addition to these four newcomers, Ackles, and Aya Cash, Vought Rising stars Mason Dye, Will Hochman, KiKi Layne, Jordan Myrie, Nicolo Pasetti, Elizabeth Posey, Brian J. Smith, and Ricky Stafferi as series regulars. Production on the new series began in August, with no expected premiere date announced just yet. You can always stream both The Boys and Gen V on Prime Video to revisit the world of Vought as the wait continues!

As fans continue to wait for the fifth and final season of The Boys, they will soon be able to head back to Godolkin University for the second season of Gen V. Premiering on September 17 on the 2025 TV schedule, the spinoff will not only be seeing some changes for Jaz Sinclair’s Marie, but it will also address the aftermath of The Boys’ Season 4 cliffhanger.

Season 4 of the raunchy superhero drama aired last summer and ended on quite a cliffhanger, which you can watch with an Amazon Prime subscription. Victoria Neuman was killed, and President Calhoun declared martial law, putting Homelander in charge of a national superhero army. Obviously, we know what Homelander can do, and we’ve seen his impact on Gen V in the spinoff’s own cliffhanger for the first season. But that’s only just the beginning, as showrunner Michele Fazekas told TVLine:

Things are pretty different following the end of Season 4, so it makes sense for that to be reflected in Gen V. This will be the first time that fans are seeing that “new world order” and the impact of that cliffhanger. With the world, or at the very least, the superhero world, being led by Homelander, who really only cares about himself and doesn’t have much remorse, there’s no telling what will happen. It also doesn’t help that his battle at Godolkin in Gen V’s first season was a bloodbath, so the university, and particularly Marie, is probably on his watchlist.

Following The Boys’ Season 4 cliffhanger, it was expected that this would greatly impact Gen V, but it was hard to tell how and in what way. It will change the course of The Boys Universe moving forward, and fans will be seeing that on Gen V, and then later on Season 5 of The Boys. Then there’s also the fact that everyone at Godolkin has their own issues to worry about, so between that and Homelander taking over, it sounds like we're in for a wild ride.

Elsewhere on Gen V, things will also look a little different cast-wise. Chance Perdomo passed away in March 2024 following a motorcycle accident, but his character of Andre Anderson will not be recast. Executive producer Eric Kripke previously opened up about how his death will impact Season 2, saying they were going to rework storylines and honor him. So that will also be something to look forward to, seeing as I've been hoping they'd pay tribute to him.

The wait won’t be too much longer, as Gen V Season 2 premieres this Wednesday, September 17. It will surely occupy fans until The Boys Season 5, which does not yet have a premiere date. Filming on the final season wrapped over the summer, and everyone was appropriately as emotional as ever, so having to wait to say goodbye won’t be too bad.

However, while we wait for that, we'll get to see how the repercussions of The Boys' previous season impact Gen V.

For so many years, Jensen Ackles was arguably most known for his Supernatural stretch, but the time since that show ended has seen him joining a variety of different projects, from Tracker to Countdown to The Boys. The actor is thankfully set to reprise his suped-up role of Soldier Boy for the latter’s fifth and final season, which wrapped filming in July, and he’ll be evolving the ego-driven character even more when the prequel Vought Rising is available to stream via Amazon Prime subscription.

No, Soldier Boy will not be the exact same hard-nosed asshat whenever fans catch up with his younger self in the new spinoff, and that sounds very encouraging to someone like me who kinda hates to love watching Ackles play such a prejudiced worm. For as much fun as it is to watch, the morally defunct character gets my blood boiling. So I’m happy that Ackles told Variety the character changes will be obvious to spot from one show to the next. In his words:

That explanation makes total sense, of course, as Soldier Boy's intolerance and anger weren't always so omnipresent within the V-addled supe. At least, that's what would might assume, although it's admittedly hard to assume anything positive about any of the characters that have ever been aligned with Vought International. I'm wondering how the reunion with his former SPN co-stars will go in that respect, and am hoping that Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins are both squarely on the protagonists' side.

Ackles shared more light details about what fans can expect to see from his more youthful era 70+ years before The Boys' current timeline, saying:

Never "innnocence" with this guy. But maybe more playfulness and a slice of charm perhaps? Not that the actor is capable of delivering a performance completely free from charm.

For as much as I'm pumped that we wont' be watching solely the worst possible version of Soldier Boy in Vought Rising, Jensen Ackles did deflate that balloon a little bit by making it clear that the performances won't be like night and day, and that we'll see the character's habit and behaviors forming as we watch.

Neither The Boys Season 5 nor Vought Rising have release dates set, and neither will likely arrive before the 2025 TV schedule has gone belly-up. But franchise fans cand definitely look forward to the upcoming superhero series Gen V dropping its long-awaited Season 2 on September 17.

Fans may have to wait to see the fifth and final season of The Boys, but luckily, they will have the upcoming second season of spinoff Gen V to keep them occupied. The much-anticipated new season of the college-set series premieres on September 17 on the 2025 TV schedule with an Amazon Prime subscription, and there’s going to be a lot to look forward to. After hearing exciting changes coming for Marie, Moreau, I’m excited to see what’s in store, especially since it’s being compared to Harry Potter.

Jaz Sinclair’s hemokinetic Supe went through a lot in the first season as she tries to control her deadly powers and come to terms with just how powerful she truly is. This includes coming face-to-face with Homelander (Antony Starr), the world’s most indestructible Supe, in the Season 1 finale.

After the final battle, which saw Marie using her powers to kill some people in a very gory way, Homelander confronts her and tells her she’s an animal before using his laser eyes to blast her. Luckily, she was able to withstand it, and it’s something that Sinclair was excited to explore more in Season 2, as she told Entertainment Weekly while bringing up an iconic Harry Potter fight:

Sinclair’s comparison to Harry and Voldemort makes me even more excited for what’s to come because that final battle between the two of them, and Voldemort had hoped to defeat Harry once and for all. It’s the same with Homelander wanting to defeat Marie, knowing how powerful she is, but then there was a twist that both antagonists didn’t expect. Not to mention the fact that any time there’s a comparison to the Harry Potter franchise, you know it’s going to be good.

Considering Homelander is not only the most indestructible Supe in the world, but he may also be the most destructive person in the world. He doesn’t have much remorse for what he does, and you know that when he targets someone, he aims to kill them. Him using his laser eyes in the hopes of killing Marie but not being able to for the first time makes for an interesting storyline for the both of them because they are both so powerful.

It was another WTF moment from Gen V's first season. And with this new season likely setting up Season 5 of The Boys, the implications could be big, and Sinclair was excited to dig deeper into her character because of it. As she put it:

That being said, just like with The Boys, nothing on Gen V is predictable, as the first season proved. Showrunner Eric Kripke wouldn’t reveal exact details, but shared that the spinoff will “take the piss” out of the “chosen one” archetype with Season 2, explaining that we don’t know if there’s anything she can’t do and pointing out that just because she has the potential to be the most powerful superhero on the planet, doesn’t mean she is.

I’m excited to see how the show will navigate and explore Marie’s powers, and what this could mean for her, and there’s no telling what will happen. Bloody up those calendars for September 17 for when school is back in session.

Jensen Ackles’ new show, Countdown (which is currently available with an Amazon Prime subscription), has made him a prominent name on the 2025 TV schedule, and he is staying as busy as ever. So, between that, his upcoming appearance on the third season of Tracker, the new The Boys prequel Vought Rising, and the final season of The Boys, he seems to be everywhere these days. He’s also done quite a lot over the years, including, of course, Supernatural, which he was on for 15 years. Considering all of that, fans were asked what he’s most recognizable from, and I’m happy that they aren’t all saying SPN.

Between Supernatural, Smallville, Dawson’s Creek, The Boys, and many, many more, it’s hard to believe just how many projects Ackles has been in, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. And because of his extensive filmography, people know him from different things. The actor recently threw the first pitch for a Toronto Blue Jays game, and the official MLB X account asked fans where they recognized him from. There are a lot of responses, and it really shows just how much he’s been in:

• Lana's ex in Smallville, then he went to another show called Supernatural which was really good for a few seasons. -BatchaTheGreat
• Supernatural. It should always be Supernatural. But I will respect anyone who says My Bloody Valentine 3D. -MiraculousMets
• Solider Boy from The Boys and Vought Rising, Mark Meachum on Countdown. (Airing now. Check it out if you haven’t. ) and Dean Winchester on Supernatural. -adder4741
• Dark Angel and then on to Supernatural. -BareMaire19492

It's fun to see what people know him from, and I love that it isn't just Supernatural. Of course, that one would be the most common one, considering the series ran for 15 seasons and spawned a prequel that he was also part of. So, it’s great to see the legacy that Supernatural has, even almost five years after it ended.

However, there are so many other projects he's been a part of that are worth calling out, too. And that includes deep cuts such as My Bloody Valentine 3D, and even Days of Our Lives, the latter of which my mom knows him from.

I really loved seeing all the love for his entire body of work here, as I read posts from fans like:

• Dark Angel, Smallville, Supernatural, Big Sky, The Winchesters, The Boys, Tracker, Countdown... and more to come. Our boy has quite the baseball card! -MMagnitudo
• Days of our lives -dmartymcfly
• Days of Our Lives -melissa0208
• Big Sky -ghelman17

I also love the fact that fans are pointing out his most recent projects, such as Countdown. The series only premiered on Prime earlier this summer. However, a lot of Supernatural fans were excited to watch it simply because Ackles was in it. But it seems the series has drawn in a lot of other non-SPN fans, and I'm here for it.

That being said, Supernatural will always reign supreme. Ackles spent a good chunk of his life on that show. Whether or not it will ever get a reboot is unknown, but both he and Jared Padalecki have shared their thoughts on what they want in a revival. Plus, the two are reuniting on the upcoming fifth and final season of The Boys, along with Misha Collins.

So, as we wait to see if that ever happens, it's nice to see the actor in other projects and to see said projects getting a lot of love:

• Supernatural. Always, but back in the day Smallville put him on the map for me officially so from there too lol -lyndzz20
• THE BOYS -MLBWeeklyAI
• Currently on Amazing "Boys" as "Soldier Boy" and "Countdown" as Mark Meachum -RM3_SpOrts
• Supernatural. Countdown. Dark Angel. The Boys. -GMOtterby

Ackles did well pre-Supernatural and is continuing to do well post-Supernatural. Thanks to streaming, people are also able to discover him and that beloved CW series. Although SPN is one of the most rewatchable shows ever, his role as Dean Winchester is not the only great role he’s played. And all this talk is making me want to go back and rewatch his other projects.

Visual effects have become a mainstay in modern Hollywood, and they aren't going anywhere any time soon. It's not just big blockbusters that make use of digital wizardry either, as it's used to various degrees in all genres – from horror to drama to romance. With that in mind, actor Patrick Schwarzenegger thinks that curriculums in acting schools need to be updated, and he specifically thinks that performers should be learning about how to work on green screen stages.

Chroma key compositing (which is what green/blue screens are used for) has been a part of filmmaking for nearly a century, but there is no question that it is used more today than in past eras, and the young star best known for his work on Gen V and The White Lotus Season 3 thinks that the industry could do better to prepare actors for it. Schwarzenegger was recently a guest on the hit online series Hot Ones, and he recounted his first time working on a green screen stage, explaining,

There are many different applications and uses for chroma key, but it's certainly not difficult to understand why it creates a particular challenge for actors. On top of knowing and becoming their character, the use of a green screen or blue screen demands an extra level of imagination that has to be factored into a performance.

Continuing, Patrick Schwarzenegger illustrated his point. Playing Luke Riordan a.k.a. Golden Boy, he had a lot to work with from his environment when shooting a scene in the character's dorm room... but then he had to step out of that space and enter "outside" for an action sequence:

Being neither an actor nor an educator personally, I don't know what the best method of teaching performance on a green screen stage – but I imagine that one of the simple goals would be exposure and experience. Regardless of context, if someone has the opportunity to work with chroma key sets in practice before encountering it in a professional capacity, they are automatically going to be more comfortable.

At present, it's unclear if Patrick Schwarzenegger will be in the upcoming Gen V Season 2 (spoiler alert: Golden Boy memorably died in the first episode of Season 1, but he has returned via flashbacks and in hallucinations), but there is little doubt that he is now working with green screen on other projects regardless. He has recently been working on the romantic drama Love Of Your Life with Margaret Qualley and is expected to be back in action as Donny Mitchell in The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, which debuts for Prime Video subscribers on August 27.

As much as I still absolutely need to see how The Boys will follow up on everything that went down in that bonkers Season 4 finale, I also dread that moment’s arrival, because it’ll mean the comic adaptation’s final season has begun, and only a finite number of hours will be left to spend with this sordid batch of heroes, villains and everything in between. (Literally everything.) But now Homelander’s Antony Starr is getting me all worked up months ahead of time with his lengthy farewell post.

The Boys finished filming the final season in early July, with co-star Erin Moriarty reflecting on Starlight’s journey almost immediately, and some celebratory Emmy nominations being announced a couple of weeks later. It took Antony Starr a little over a month to bring all of his feelings out about closing the book on Homelander — presumably a book about nursing — but he shared quite a few heartfelt feelings on Instagram alongside a series of bloody and candid behind-the-scenes pics.

Starr began by generally addressing the Boys’ creative team being able to bring a show like this to life without any obstacles…well, except for those two industry-halting incidents, that is. In his words:

The actor also pulled focus in on Homelander himself, a character whose actions are almost always repugnant and shockingly skeezy, and yet we have to love him anyway. (Partially due to the threat of being laser-eyed out of existence otherwise.) Starr addressed the joy of portraying the all-powerful Supe, saying:

Series creator Eric Kripke, who is responsible for the final season's big Supernatural reunion between Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins, understandably got a special shout-out in Antony Starr's farewell post. The fact that he straight up says the chapter is closed is kinda depressing, since I'm still holding out hope that he'll show up somehow in the upcoming spinoff Vought Uprising, as well as in Gen V Season 2. (But the latter is premiering before The Boys.)

Starr ended his post by giving thanks to all The Boys' fans watching the show with Amazon Prime subscriptions and keeping it atop Prime Video's Top 10 list. As he put it:

To be expected, Starr's post earned tons of love from fans who shared all kinds of positive and bittersweet comments about how excellent he was/is as Homelander, and how much that character will be missed.

The Boys Co-Stars Share Loving Replies

Also to be expected, several of Antony Starr's co-stars and Boys buddies shared replies of their own, as seen below:

• NATE MITCHELL: Love you buddy ❤️❤️❤️
• KAREN FUKAHARA: What a fucking time we had. Grateful to have had this experience with you + greatly miss it already 🫶🏻💛
• ERIN MORIARTY: a gift to get to watch your masterclass in acting, let alone boogie w you during it. 💛
• AYA CASH: Love ya buddy. ❤️❤️❤️
• PJ BYRNE: Stud!!

For now, it's unclear when The Boys' final season will drop, and it likely won't happen during the 2025 TV schedule, but perhaps we can kick off 2026 with some head-exploding, orgy-tastic good times. And, you know, hopefully the show debuts then as well. (Homelander would laugh awkwardly at that joke.)

Jensen Ackles has busy lately, going from the fifth and final season of The Boys to his new Prime show, Countdown, which is airing on the 2025 TV schedule. On top of that, he has Tracker Season 3 on his plate as well as the upcoming The Boys prequel, Vought Rising. Aside from his professional commitments as an actor, Ackles has been balancing parent duties with wife Danneel Ackles, with whom he shares three kids. As Ackles' eldest daughter, Justice “JJ,” gets older, she wants to watch Countdown or The Boys, and her pop has funny thoughts.

Having a kid who is almost a teenager not only means dealing with the typical growing pains that accompany adolescence. It also means a parent enters murkier territory when it comes to what's appropriate and inappropriate content for their growing tween to watch. Jense Ackles told People that his oldest daughter is very eager to watch Countdown, and it sounds like he'll only be able to deny his 12-year-old's request but so much longer:

Honestly, fact that his daughter is wanting to watch Countdown is pretty great, but what I also find funny is that Ackles is seemingly getting close to caving. I can’t blame J.J. for her enthusiasm, though, because Countdown is good. On the other hand, I can see Jensen's hesitation, though, given he does perform some intense stunts on the show. Supernatural, on the other hand, can vary when it comes to how scary or mature it's content is. (If there ever is an R-rated revival someday, however, that might be a different story.)

Speaking of R-rated, Ackles already knows that his daughter is not getting anywhere near The Boys, which is very raunchy and racy as can be. Even at 28, I’m still a bit unsure of some of the stuff that comes across my screen when I watch the series. When it comes to his daughter watching the wild, comic book adaptation, Ackles made his position humorously clear:

The Boys can be very intense, and it's absolutely not for children. After all, episodes have included an octopus lover storyline, a massive penis prop and plenty of other raunchy scenes that are just too absurd to name. There's also the whole “Herogasm” plot, so it makes sense that Ackles wants his daughter to steer clear of the series for as long as humanly possible.

At least Jensen Ackles might soon give in to Countdown, which is definitely a more age-appropriate than The Boys. Part of me also feels like if the actor doesn't allow it, his daughter might find her own way to watch it. I'm personally excited for a time at which J.J. will be old enough to watch all of his past work whether it be scary, action-packed or raunchy.

Stream Countdown and The Boys now using a Prime Video subscription. While they may not be optimal options for young children, a number of adults will surely get a kick out of the shows.

There are some scenes that stick with you for years, and one of those just happens to be a part of The Boys, whose fifth and final season recently finished filming. That series always comes to my mind, not just for being one of the best Amazon Prime shows, but also for being chock-full of NSFW chaos.

The comic-sourced superhero story and characters continue to improve from season to season as well, and even Season 5’s new cast members have me pumped to see how they factor into the new season. With the final batch of eps in the pipeline, I feel I must talk about the bonkers scene from the streaming series that still haunts me, and honestly is a masterful stroke of shock television. (Pun not entirely intended.)

That, Erm, Appendage Scene From Season 3 Is Still The Most Disgusting By Far, And It Haunts Me

I love genre-fueled efforts, and I have no issue with rewatching the best horror movies for fun. I’m the kind of person who cries more over the most heartbreaking The Walking Dead deaths rather than every actually fearing the zombies. But The Boys? It doesn't need supernatural monsters to ruin me every time. And of course, the mind-damaging scene I'm talking about is Termite's big appendage-bursting moment in the Season 3 premiere, "Payback."

To fully spell it all out, I’m talking about when the Supe Termite physically shrinks and travels into the head of a man's penis (for pleasure, of course), and then sneezes, which instantly makes him grow back to normal human size. Which, obviously, causes everything around Termite — i.e. that one guy's genitals — to expand and explode.

There’s just blood and...whatever else...everywhere. It's quite possibly one of the grossest scenes imaginable by anyone, because who thinks like that? How does someone come up with something like this? I could never. The idea of your body imploding simply from a sneeze? That gets me every time.

Even now, years later, that is the one scene that I think about. I think the main reason is that it's so graphic, but also that it's mixed with a certain kind of intimacy that I'm not entirely used, to and that in of itself makes it even grosser. Eric Kripke, you're a special kind of ringleader.

Sure, The Boys Is Full Of Disturbing Moments, But How Do They Compare?

While the Termite scene is top-tier, are there other scenes from The Boys that compares to this? Personally, I don't think so. The first potential usurper might be the conversation-starting Herogasm episode, but Season 3's opener topped that event in so many ways, in large part because we don't see anyone explode in that episode from someone purposefully pushing themselves inside one's naughty bits.

I could also point out the very first scene of the show, where Hughie's girlfriend is utterly imploded from the inside out by A-Train running into her. But at the same time, it still doesn't feel as gross, perhaps because it's just not as intimate in spacing as the Season 3 episode.

A third I could maybe point to is honestly when everyone's head explodes in the courtroom, but even THAT can't surpass this. Those are just heads. Even though there were more of those, "Payback" featured an entire body because of a sneeze in a penis. Don’t get me wrong, The Boys is still one of the best superhero shows. But good lord…I could have gone my whole life without seeing this.

I Can Only Wonder How Season 5 Will Up The Stakes

However, considering this, I do wonder what Season 5 will do. Season 4 had a lot more political takes. Some A-list cameos were hilarious. And of course, the finale set up some pretty drastic stakes. But they can’t leave us with nothing in the final season, right? I'm wondering if we're going to get even more explosive scenes -- or if Termite's ruined plans were going to always sit at the top of my horrifying list. I don't know how it can be topped.

The Boys Season 5 is expected to be released in 2026. And until then, I’ll sit in my horror and disgust. God, can someone erase my mind, please?

As The Boys’ fifth and final season is slowly becoming a more detailed blob on the horizon, the superpowered satire earned some well-deserved recognition from Emmy voters for hopefully not the last time. Nominations for the 2025 Emmy Awards were announced, with the raunchy superhero drama getting nods in four categories, including the Outstanding Stunt Performance and Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Drama categories. After the show's stunt mastermind hyped up his team of performers who were nominated, star Erin Moriarty had some sweet words to share.

For their performances in Season 4’s penultimate episode, “The Insider,” Jennifer Murray, River Godland, Alec Back, and Moses Nyarko were recognized, while supervising stunt coordinator John Koyama earned a solo nod in the other applicable category. Koyama took to Instagram to shout out the incredible stunt team, while looking back at the show’s incredible and talented crew and cast. Check out his message below:

Amidst appreciative replies from his squad in the comment section, Starlight portrayer Erin Moriarty chimed in with this sweet message that really cements the that the show itself

The Boys has been nominated for Outstanding Stunt Coordination twice, including this year and winning in 2023, this is the first time that the show has been nominated for Outstanding Stunt Performance since the category’s introduction in 2021. It’s certainly bittersweet, especially knowing that filming for The Boys has ended, so I’m sure that everyone on the cast and crew is extra emotional. That and the fact that this will be the second-to-last time The Boys will be eligible for the Emmys.

Emmy nominations come just weeks after The Boys wrapped production on the flagship's final arc, and Moriarty posted a tear-filled message about the show ending at the time. It’s hard to tell what will be in store aside from Soldier Boy’s return and the much-anticipated Supernatural reunion, but it’s likely to be as action-filled and intense as ever, and the stunts are bound to be out of this world and Emmy-worthy once again.

It's hard to believe that The Boys is ending soon, but there will be a lot to look forward to, and not just because of the stunt performances that will more than likely prove that Jennifer Murray, River Godland, Alec Back, and Moses Nyarko, along with the rest of the stunt team, deserve to be nominated. I can only imagine the kind of action that is in store for Season 5, and I’m excited for what’s to come. If it’s anything like the action in Season 4, then fans will be in for quite a ride.

The Boys is up against some stiff competition at the Emmys this year, so it’s unknown if the show will take home any, including in Stunt Performance and Stunt Coordination. But fans will have to tune in on CBS on Sunday, September 14 at 8 p.m. ET to see who wins. In the meantime, all four seasons of The Boys are streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription.