For a series that spent five seasons mocking the self-serious excess of superhero franchises, The Boys ending with a 6.7 IMDb score feels like the kind of irony even Billy Butcher would appreciate with a tired grin and a bottle of Temp V. The Prime Video juggernaut has suddenly found itself at the center of the exact kind of fandom backlash it used to parody. After years of exploding heads, corporate fascism, and Vought-brand propaganda masquerading as patriotism, the finale has become one of the show’s lowest-rated episodes on IMDb.

And this is where the story becomes fascinating. The Boys was never supposed to end like a polished Marvel finale. Eric Kripke built the show as a direct rejectionr to sanitized superhero storytelling. But longtime viewers expected one final devastating gut punch.

The final two episodes of The Boys aired with unusually weak ratings compared to the rest of the series. Episode 7 dropped to 6.2 while the finale itself currently sits around 6.6 to 6.7 on IMDb, a stunning fall for a show that once treated 9-plus ratings like standard operating procedure.  Looking back at the numbers, the contrast is brutal. Season one regularly hovered between 8.1 and 9.1, with its finale landing at an impressive 9.1. 

Season two escalated further and closed at 9.4. Then came season three’s Herogasm, the episode that effectively became The Boys at maximum power, pulling an enormous 9.6 rating on IMDb and cementing itself as the show’s cultural apex. Even season four, despite criticism over pacing and repetition, managed to end with a strong 9.1-rated finale. Season five, however, tells a completely different story. The opening episodes still performed relatively well with scores in the high 8s, giving fans hope that the final season could stick the landing. 

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That disappointment became even louder because of how high expectations were. Prime Video marketed season five like the show’s Endgame moment.

The frustrating part is that season five did not begin badly at all. Early episodes returned to the paranoid political thriller atmosphere that made the first two seasons so effective. Homelander leaned fully into authoritarian cult-leader territory, weaponizing fear and celebrity with terrifying confidence.

Butcher’s rapidly worsening condition after years of Temp V abuse gave the season a ticking-clock urgency. Hughie and Annie were still desperately trying to preserve some form of humanity inside a world that had become completely poisoned by Vought’s influence.

The season also delivered major losses. Frenchie’s death hit particularly hard and became one of the finale’s most emotional turning points. The Deep finally received a grotesquely poetic death involving sea creatures turning against him. Homelander ultimately lost his powers before being beaten to death by Butcher with a crowbar, a deliberately ugly ending for a man who spent years presenting himself as America’s living god. Butcher himself later died after Hughie stopped him from unleashing the Supe-killing virus globally. 

Yet despite those massive plot developments, many viewers felt emotionally disconnected from the execution. Fans heavily criticized the pacing, abrupt transitions, and underwhelming use of crossover characters from Gen V, whose combined finale screen time reportedly lasted only a few minutes. 

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What did you think about The Boys finale? Share your take in the comments.