Warning: This review contains full spoilers for The Boys Season 5, Episode 6!
The Boys Season 5 took way too long to get to this point, but it finally feels like we’re in the meat of this final conflict between the team and Antony Starr’s Homelander. The desperate search for the elusive V1 formula reaches its climax in Episode 6, with a resolution that promises a very dark and enticing status quo for the final two episodes. Better late than never.
“Though the Heavens Fall” is heavily preoccupied with themes of death and aging, which is fitting given that the entire conflict revolves around a deadly supe plague and Homelander’s thirst for immortality. It’s a great time to bring back Paul Reiser as “The Legend,” the disgraced former Vought media mogul who’s now living out a slightly less glamorous life in showbiz.
Reiser is very entertaining in the role once again, but the real hook with The Legend comes in his interactions with M.M. (Laz Alonso). As much as M.M. would like everyone to believe he’s at peace with himself and his place in the world, The Legend exposes his deep discomfort at being the architect of a potential supe genocide. Those scenes contrast nicely with Hughie’s (Jack Quaid) big speech about hope and reflect just how differently these two characters are processing the current state of affairs.
Reiser also shines in his final scene with Homelander, as the character confronts what seems like his imminent mortality and opens up with the emotionally spiralling man-baby before him. You get a sense of the character’s guilt over the role he played in propping up the Vought machine and contributing to the countless ruined lives as a result. But ultimately, “that’s talent.” And even Homelander gets a rare moment to show his humanity, as he lets The Legend walk free as thanks for inadvertently cluing him into the location of his quarry.
Reiser’s character isn’t the only past-their-prime supe showing up in this episode. We also meet Golden Geisha (Naoko Mori) and an entire rest home full of aged supes. That makes for a dumb but entertaining fight scene and some cute moments between Geisha and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). But the Geisha storyline takes a more somber turn as the episode wears on, particularly after the introduction of her old beau, Bombsight (Mason Dye). Episode 7 gets a fair amount of mileage out of the eternal curse that is immortality, and the pain that comes when only one half of a couple possesses it.
Building on last week’s very entertaining “One-Shots,” we get more fun with the Vought supporting cast in Episode 7. The Ashley (Colbie Minifie) and Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) subplot is once again a lot of fun, particularly with Minifie doubling down on the physical comedy routine that is her “Back Ashley” performance. Beyond that, it’s nice to see the series finally focus more attention on Sage after relegating her to the background in the first half of the season. Sage finally severs her ties with Vought and the Seven and makes her play, only for things to uncharactristically not go as planned. More on that in a minute.
The Deep (Chace Crawford)/Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) rivalry also takes an amusingly dark turn. Deep learns the hard way he never should have screwed with his bro, as Noir isn’t above causing an historic environmental disaster in revenge for the murder of Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne). At this point, I’m all for watching Deep suffer, and this episode milks the situation for all its worth in terms of both comedy and tragedy (“We know it was you, Kevin!”).
And then we come to the grand finale, where the hunt for V1 finally comes to a head and Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) has his violent reunion with Bombsight. I do wonder how this material might have played if Season 5 were coming after the upcoming Vought Rising spinoff and not before. It is a bit strange to see so much emphasis on a dynamic we haven’t actually seen take shape yet. Ultimately, though, Soldier Boy’s squabble with Bombsight works because it pushes the character out of his familiar, acerbic groove and forces something more genuine out of him.
But what of the key moment where Soldier Boy makes his choice and gives Homelander the V1. When I wrote my spoiler-free review of the first seven episodes, I alluded to the fact that the season hinges on a decision from Soldeier Boy that doesn’t entirely feel earned. This is that moment, obviously. Having had a few more weeks to stew on it, I still think this moment leans a little too much on a connection between father and son the show hasn’t properly established.
In some ways, it does make dramatic sense. If anything is going to bring the two characters closer together, it’s their shared attachment to Stormfront (Aya Cash). And it’s certainly fitting that Sage is undone by her inability to properly factor love into her mental calculations. I think the problem is just that not enough transpires between when Sage springs the Homelander/Stormfront video on Soldier Boy and when Soldier Boy hands over the V1. The show doesn’t quite do enough to justify the notion that Soldier Boy holds this much affection and hope for Homelander. Again, it might almost be better if Vought Rising had come out before this final season and we had more context for the Soldier Boy/Stormfront romance.
Regardless of how we get there, Homelander achieving true immortality is a great way to cap off the episode and raise the stakes for what remains of Season 5. The doomsday scenario has come to pass, and the supe virus is now useless. If hope was already a fragile and fleeting thing at the beginning of the season, is there any way it survives now? Maybe Hughie can enlighten us in Episode 7.
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