Five seasons in with the finale in sight, The Boys is still running the same formula: Build a weapon capable of killing Homelander, excite everyone, watch it fall apart in two seconds, then scramble for something else.
The virus was supposed to be the big one this time around, in fact, the biggest one.
Dr. Sameer Shah spent two seasons developing it after getting his leg hacked off, and it looked like the actual answer for about four episodes until Homelander came to know about V1.
And then Soldier Boy handed that vial to Homelander, the weapon that was supposed to end this war became a very expensive science project.
So we are back to the roster, and it is not exactly inspiring confidence right now.
Marie Moreau can bend blood and has nerve, but Homelander has V1 coursing through him, and she has lower durability and speed than a college graduate.
Kimiko went through radiation experiments so agonizing that her healing factor started slowing with every session, and the show has not confirmed that the procedure actually gave her anything usable.
Soldier Boy, for his part, is in a cryo-tube after his own son choked him unconscious and sealed him back on ice on The Boys Season 5 Episode 7, and showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed he would not be appearing again.
And yet he is still the most credible option we have got. Somehow.
Every Other Plan Fell Apart Before the Finale Even Had a Chance
The virus arc deserves a proper conclusion, as it was the closest thing to a real plan The Boys had assembled in years.
Engineered by Sameer Shah from the original Gen V formula, the updated strain was capable of killing any Supe in its path, with the terrifying caveat that it risked wiping every superhuman off the planet if released without control.
Sure, it made the team nervous, but they were desperate enough to test it anyway.
They tested it on Rock Hard in The Boys Season 5 Episode 2, it worked, and for one brief episode, Billy Butcher looked like a man with an actual endgame rather than a person held together entirely by rage.
Soldier Boy surviving the virus in that same episode was the first crack in the foundation, because his V1 biology made him immune in ways the regular-Compound-V version of Homelander technically was not yet.
The Boys understood the implication clearly: keeping V1 away from Homelander was the entire ballgame the rest of the season.
They lost that gamble in The Boys Season 5 Episode 6, and they had already lost Sameer somewhere around Episode 5, after Soldier Boy used him and his granddaughter Zoe as leverage to extract information from Stan Edgar.
Frenchie wasn’t smart enough to rebuild the formula into something strong enough to matter, even before his death.
And there’s not a single supe right now who can stand up to Homelander.
Butcher had studied footage of the experiments that originally gave Soldier Boy his radiation blast, the power capable of stripping a Supe of their abilities entirely.
The plan was to expose Kimiko to enriched uranium until her regeneration replicated the effect.
She climbed into that chamber, session after session, her body healing more slowly each time, the recovery window stretching longer with every exposure.
By Episode 7, there was still no bright explosion, no energy build, no sign that the ability had transferred in any measurable way.
The Cryogenic Tube Problem, and Why the Show Keeps Circling Back to the Man Inside It
Kripke told GamesRadar that bringing Soldier Boy back as a series regular for the final season was specifically about the father-son relationship that Season 3 had barely touched before.
Five seasons of buildup for this.
And yet The Boys Season 5 spent six episodes watching these two passively aggressive people needle each other, swap Stormfront stories during a funny and deeply uncomfortable car ride, and reluctantly orbit each other like people who cannot figure out whether they are allies or enemies.
Then Soldier Boy handed his son the V1 and later got choked unconscious for the gesture.
His reward for the only selfless act this season is a return to the same metal coffin he spent decades frozen in.
Kripke has also said that Soldier Boy would not appear again after that, and that they had already filmed the finale without him.
That is either the straightest answer a showrunner has given all season, or the most deliberate misdirection since Homelander decided he was a prophet.
Because the structural problem with ruling him out is that no one else has a cleaner answer.
The radiation blast that strips a Supe of their powers remains the best prospect for defeating a V1-powered Homelander.
It had already worked on Bombsight and others, and the man who carries that blast in his chest is horizontal in a tube, one episode from the series finale.
For a man who spent decades in a Russian lab as a glorified science experiment, waking up in another tube sealed shut by his own child for the second time?
Yeah, that is the kind of experience that should jolt his loyalty in one direction – against Homelander.
The Boys Season 5 finale, “Blood and Bone,” drops on Prime Video on May 20, 2026.
Ending that story with Soldier Boy still horizontal while Kimiko strips Homelander’s powers “to some degree” would be a choice. And not an obviously satisfying one.
Do you think Kripke is telling the truth about Soldier Boy staying frozen? Is Blood and Bone” saving that cryo-lid opening for the very last scene?
Drop your prediction before May 20 makes us all look ridiculous. Subscribe if you want the full finale breakdown the moment it drops.
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Homelander has V1, the virus is useless, Kimiko’s experiment is unconfirmed, and Soldier Boy is frozen in stasis one episode from the series finale.
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The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 has all the signs of a penultimate episode but nothing lands well. All the season’s misstep, in one episode. Our review!
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The Boys finally achieves its goal in Season 5 Episode 6 but it also becomes clear that this season has been hijacked by other interests. Our review!
