The Boys TV Series Creator Has A Very Specific Goal For The Ending

We're past the halfway mark for Season 4 of "The Boys," and not only is the current story arc inching closer to its ending, but the series finale of "The Boys" is in sight. Following the show's return, it was announced that Season 5 will be the final chapter of the tale of secretly sordid superheroes and the team dedicated to blowing the whistle on them.

How things will conclude is something that not even fans of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic can answer, though, given that the TV show rejected the source material's huge Homelander twist that revealed Black Noir is actually the star-spangled Supe's secret clone. That final act element didn't make the cut, according to the show's creator Eric Kripke, but the hope is that what they do have planned will leave fans happy regardless.

"I have an ending in mind, I'll say that," Kripke teased in an interview with Rolling Stone. "I want it to be satisfying, right? I mean, you could count the great series finales on one hand. So it's a real hard target. And I would want it to be emotionally satisfying but also surprising in how I'm delivering it." It's a hurdle the show will hopefully clear, but given how things have panned out so far this year, will it be enough to give the series the profanity-filled, blood-soaked sendoff it deserves?

While Season 4 has yet to complete its run, concerns were raised when initial reviews resulted in "The Boys'" lowest Rotten Tomatoes score so far before picking up significantly — only to get review bombed by fans that weren't happy with what they were seeing, citing criticisms that have since been bluntly addressed by Eric Kripke. As a result, the pressure to stick the landing might be greater than it used to be. Season 5 will need a carefully placed bow applied to its big finish, and, in Kripke's eyes, it'll need to be earned. "Anything worth having is worth fighting for. When something good in the show happens, I always ask, 'What's the cost?'"

It's certainly a question worth asking given some of the places that Butcher, Hughie, and the rest of the Boys find themselves this season, but it's only come from carefully crafting a world that has consequences. Kripke described the show as "a moral universe where when you choose love, family, and mercy, good things happen to you. And when you choose vengeance and hate, that causes as much harm to you as it does to the person you're trying to enact vengeance on." We'll have to wait for Season 5 to see which path the series' various characters ultimately choose.

To learn more about this season of "The Boys," check out our exclusive interview with Eric Kripke and the cast discussing real-life politics, murder chickens, and more.