Eric Kripke has repeatedly said he has a five-season plan for The Boys and, earlier today, we learned that he's sticking to it. Yes, the series is ending with season 5, a shock given the apparent popularity of the Prime Video series which has so far spawned animated and live-action spin-offs.
Entertainment Weekly caught up with the producer and writer to get further clarification on the decision to wrap up one of the streamer's biggest shows.
"I'm excited to finally execute a 5-season plan," Kripke admits, referring to his five-season plan for Supernatural (a show which lasted a decade beyond that). "That's very exciting for me."
"Part of it is such a wonky stupid screenwriter thing but three and five are the big magical numbers for writing. Three is movie acts, TV acts are five," he adds. "Jokes are a runner of three for five. Five just seems like a good round number. It's enough to tell the story but also bring it to a climax without wearing out its welcome."
"It's been hard because I haven't been able to tell everyone. I was thrilled to finally be able to get the word out there."
As for the impact this will have on season 4, which launches later this week, Kripke says, "That was part of my argument: No one can watch this season without feeling at the end like 'It's ending next year right?' So we might as well announce it so people can watch it with that cool epic heading-toward-the-end feeling, which is what I'm hoping for."
Despite many of the reviews for the fourth season pointing out that The Boys' premise is wearing thin, it's been "Certified Fresh" at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, so this decision is obviously unrelated to those comments from critics.
However, while The Boys is ending, it appears Amazon's spin-off plans - including Gen V season 2 and a possible Mexico-set series - are unaffected.
"This story of The Boys will not continue on," Kripke confirms. "With any luck, Gen V will continue on, there will be hopefully a couple others in development that we're talking about that can continue on, but The Boys story ends in season 5."
A press release confirming plans to end the show with season 5 featured these additional comments from the showrunner:
"The Boys could be the best job I'll ever have. What other show allows me to write about politics, capitalism, family, and exploding genitalia, though not in that order, the cast and crew are deeply grateful to Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios for the opportunity to tell this story for another season. My only problem is that since this year promises to be free of any conflict or misinformation, we're not sure what to write about."
Are you disappointed that The Boys' time is up?