Prime Video found its answer to the MCU in the strangest place: a satirical series created to skewer the MCU itself. But over the past five years, The Boys has gone from an ultra-violent fresh take on the superhero genre to the tentpole of a new franchise with spinoffs and complicated lore. Now, when the show has reached bigger stakes than ever before, we know what’s coming next — and it may mean the end of the show entirely.
During Amazon Prime Video’s upfront presentation, the streamer announced that The Boys would be renewed for Season 5, despite Season 4 still weeks away from premiering. There’s even an announcement video for the renewal, showing Kimiko carving “Season 5” into a desk.
However, this isn’t entirely good news — it puts the series exactly where creator Eric Kripke wanted to end it when he began planning. In 2020, he said in a Twitter Q&A that he planned creatively for five seasons. But he’s learned not to speculate too wildly about season plans — he also planned a five-season run for his previous show Supernatural, which lumbered on for 15 seasons. But considering that this announcement was for a fifth season — not a fifth and final season — is a sign that Prime Video doesn’t plan to end this show anytime soon.
“Eric has had a vision for what this all leads to for years now, and we've been in an ongoing conversation about what comes next," Amazon executive Vernon Sanders told Entertainment Weekly in September 2023. "So, it's probably premature to talk about that beyond saying we believe in Eric, and if Eric is interested in continuing the story, we'll be the first ones in line to really work with him on what that is.”
It seems that all the cards rest in Eric Kripke’s hands, and while he still feels like there is more story to tell, we will have more seasons of The Boys, its young adult spinoff Gen V, and possible future spinoffs to look forward to. However, he knows the temptation of keeping shows running far beyond their shelf life. When we do leave the world of Vought International, it will be on the story’s terms — after all, if there’s one lesson The Boys knows, it’s that you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
