The Boys Showrunner Has An Ending In Mind – But No Idea How They'll Get There [Exclusive]

Some shows are easier to plan out than others, as "The Boys" creator Eric Kripke has learned the hard way over the years. The media landscape is dotted with the flaming wreckage of many a once-beloved TV series that wound up overstaying its welcome, from sitcoms like "How I Met Your Mother" to appointment viewing like "Lost" (although, hot take, we maintain the finale was perfect) to arguably the biggest show of the last few decades — and the biggest poster child for an unsatisfying conclusion — in "Game of Thrones." With Kripke in particular, his experience as creator and writer on "Supernatural" taught him all sorts of valuable lessons, chief among them the idea that the best-laid plans of storytellers don't always align perfectly with the needs of broadcast television. (Initially meant to wrap up in five seasons, "Supernatural" famously went on to last a whopping 15.)

Kripke certainly hopes to avoid repeating such history with "The Boys," the violent superhero satire which was recently announced to conclude with its fifth and final season. This news came as something of a surprise, not least of all because streaming platform Prime Video has been keen to exploit the popular IP as much as possible, leading to a number of spin-offs, such as the animated "The Boys Presents: Diabolical" and the live-action spinoff "Gen V." But deciding when to end such a fan-favorite series is only half the battle. Figuring out how to land that plane — ideally a little more heroically than Homelander managed back in season 1 – is another matter entirely.

Luckily, /Film's Jacob Hall spoke to Kripke all about this daunting task a few days before the news that season 5 would be the show's last, and Kripke provided some insight into his approach for the conclusion of the fan-favorite series.

You can only hold off on the endgame for so long, and the upcoming fourth season of "The Boys" (which /Film's Danielle Ryan reviewed here) appears set to take a big step in that direction. While there are all sorts of hanging plot threads and various loose ends to tie up, the central conflict has to do with the final confrontation between Karl Urban's leader of the eponymous Boys, Billy Butcher, and Antony Starr's homicidal "supe" Homelander, with poor Hughie (Jack Quaid) caught up in the middle. Last season saw the two foes fight to a draw, essentially, even with Butcher juiced up on the volatile Temp V compound. Of course, that same super serum is now killing him, setting the stakes quite high for season 4 and beyond.

Kripke alluded to at least one last head-to-head battle to come between the pair, however, during his conversation with /Film. When asked whether he has a "master plan" or if he's adjusting the narrative as he goes, he responded:

"I'd say we're squarely in the middle. Every season we know that we want Homelander to get a little more disconnected from reality, and we want Butcher to get a little scarier. The show is, at the end of the day, about these two forces charging towards each other, between Butcher and Homelander. I know that them finally smashing into each other, once and for all, will be a big part of whatever end game we come up with. But beyond that, and beyond knowing where I want Hughie, it's like I know where I want a lot of the characters to end up. That's what I would say. I actually don't even necessarily know the climax of the show, as much as I know that 10 pages that happens at the end, when they say six months later, and you see where everyone is. I know where everyone is. Then my job, as whenever we get to it, my job is to just make sure we can back into that."

Obviously, viewers can look to the original Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comics to see where the series might end up, but Kripke hasn't been shy about diverting from the source material before and certainly won't stop now as we approach the end. Whatever form that ultimately takes and whoever emerges victorious (we wouldn't necessarily expect a happy ending for either character), fans can rest assured that it'll be bloody, disturbing, and irreverent until the end.

You can hear our full interview with Kripke on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast below:

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