As The Boys heads into its final two episodes, Eric Kripke is stressing the importance of concluding every character’s story.
The creator of the Prime Video series recently responded to social media complaints about “filler episodes” in the fifth and final season of the comic book adaptation, which releases its penultimate episode next Wednesday on the streaming platform before the series finale premieres May 19 at 9:30pm in 4DX theaters and its Prime debut the next day.
“None of the things that happen in the last few episodes will matter if you don’t flesh out the characters. I’m getting a lot of online dissatisfaction, to put it politely,” he told TV Guide. “And I’m like, ‘What are you expecting? Are you expecting a huge battle scene every episode?’”
Explaining there was not enough budget for constant fight scenes in the final season, Kripke argued that direction “would be so empty and dull, and it would just be about shapes moving without having any import.”
Kripke added, “At no point during the writing of it was I like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re making filler episodes. So who cares?’ We all thought at the time we’re really getting these important character details. We have something like 14 characters, maybe 15. And I owe it to all of them — in that television is the character business — I owe it to all of them to flesh them out and humanize them and their stories.”
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The 2x Emmy nominee and his writers felt they provided some “crazy, big things” for the final season. “It’s just sometimes it’s a giant character movement,” said Kripke.
“But apparently, just because it’s not plot, you’re like, ‘Nothing happened!’ I’m like, ‘Nothing happened, what?’” added Kripke. “The craziest, biggest moves happened. It just wasn’t someone shooting someone else and going, pew, pew, pew. And if that’s what you want, you’re just watching the wrong show.”
Although The Boys is coming to an end, the prequel series Vought Rising premieres on Prime Video in 2027, and Kripke previously told Deadline that The Boys: Mexico is “heading in the right direction” as executive producers Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal develop the spin-off writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer.
Meanwhile, college offshoot Gen V was cancelled after two seasons last month, and the animated series The Boys Presents: Diabolical is unlikely to get a Season 2 renewal.