What a season of television.
The Boys wrapped its third season this week, and the finale mostly paid off the previous seven episodes' insanity. Regardless of whether it met expectations, I'd still be singing this season's praises for just how good it is. It's one of the strongest series running on TV right now, consistently and massively improving with every passing season.
Is this finale perfect? No. But, it does a fantastic job of subverting expectations. It also provides meaningful character moments and lays the groundwork for where the series' soon-to-be-filmed fourth season and currently-filming superhero college spin-off.
Bringing together all the season's hanging threads, "The Instant White-Hot Wild," sees Butcher and Soldier Boy taking their fight directly to Homelander. The rest of the crew is actively trying to stop this meeting from happening, knowing the potentially devastating effects that their fight could have on innocent lives. Meanwhile, Vought is dealing with the fallout of Starlight's livestream exposing Homelander's hypocrisy and lies.
While I thoroughly enjoyed this finale, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little bit disappointed by it, especially after sitting with it for a couple of days. It's by no means a bad finale; it functions and works well within the story and pushes the plot forward in meaningful and interesting ways. However, it didn't have the stakes that many, including myself, expected and that were propagated by the series' cast and The Boys' official accounts on social media.
The remainder of this review contains spoilers for the season three finale of The Boys.
We all knew that Homelander couldn't die; it'd be a massive mistake for the series to kill him off when it still has so much life left. But refusing to kill off any of its other meaningful characters in a confrontation that meant almost certain death for at least one or several of those involved was a missed opportunity. Black Noir did die, but with his powerset involving regenerative healing, I wouldn't be shocked to see him return in some form or another in the future. Outside of that, the lack of other deaths raises many questions.
Why have Maeve sacrifice herself to stop Soldier Boy when that sacrifice and redemption are almost immediately robbed from her? Why keep her alive when she lost her powers and will most likely have nothing to do with the central plot again? Why have Frenchie get shot in the leg when it affects nothing in the finale's outcome? Why have The Deep, A-Train and Ashley all be humiliated and denigrated by Homelander and then not have any of them take part in the fight just floors away from them? Why have Butcher's life on a timer if we all know that he won't go out from his illness? These questions crossed my mind in the minutes and hours after the credits had rolled. During the duration of the episode, though, I was all in.
I'm not saying I want characters to die, but when it makes sense for the writers to clean house, especially in a show built on shock value, it's a bit surprising that they didn't take that opportunity. Maybe that's what they intended, to shock by returning to the status quo instead of rocking the boat.
The season's final moments, which show Homelander killing an innocent protestor in broad daylight in front of his legion of adoring fans, with his young son watching and smiling, are extremely shocking. But that doesn't mean that the episode, as a whole, hits high. The rest is a lot of tension with no real, tangible payoff. The final battle(s), as it's technically two going on at once, never reach the levels of tension or fun that the climactic fight of "Herogasm" had.
Let's discuss those final moments more. They directly evoke Donald Trump's sentiment that he "could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." It's a neat bow to tie on Homelander's arc this season of becoming a true and blatant Trump allegory. I really love what they're doing with Homelander as time goes on, slowly ratcheting up his insanity and his confidence alongside it. He discovers that his supporters will still love him when he's his true self, not the character Vought made him portray. It's horrifying and poignant, especially with how mindlessly his base supports his heinous actions, again tying back to Trump. I'm not even going to get into the seriously messed up implications this has for Ryan, who seems to be eating all of this up.
Again, this is by no means a bad episode or finale. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was watching it; I just wish the series made its stakes feel more real instead of keeping some characters alive that probably should've died (Maeve and Soldier Boy) and killing another (Black Noir) that hadn't had any real stake in the plot. Noir's death is a truly minor one that was only shocking because his death wasn't set up properly leading into the finale.
I genuinely love The Boys and what it does for both the superhero genre and TV as a whole. Hell, it even pushed me to read Garth Ennis' extremely nihilistic, self-hating and oftentimes bordering on feeling like a 13-year-old edgelord source material wrote it. This is just the first time in a long time that this series, or its spin-offs, have disappointed me, even if it is just minor. Here's to hoping that season four can continue the tradition of taking several steps forward instead of taking any steps back.
