The Boys has sparked plenty of fan debate during its final season.
Its audience numbers tell a different story.
Season 5 has reached 57 million viewers per episode globally, according to Prime Video. That marks a series high, even with only five weeks of viewing data. Prime Video counts viewers who watch at least a few minutes of each episode.
The season also ranks among the Top 10 most-viewed seasons of any Prime Video original series. It also delivered the streamer’s largest three-week ratings surge for any show or movie.
Online Debate Grows Ahead of the Finale
The ratings news comes as some viewers criticize the final season online.
Some fans have compared the backlash to the reaction around the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Others say The Boys has slowed its pace and included too much “filler” before this week’s series finale.
Showrunner Eric Kripke told The Hollywood Reporter that the Prime Video numbers helped him put the online reaction in perspective.
“I’ve gone through a journey when I first started to read everything — like on social media or online — and it starts to feel like that’s the whole universe, and it feels scary, and you have a pit in your stomach,” Kripke says. “So then [you see the ratings and] you’re like, ‘Oh, obviously, how many times do I have to relearn the lesson that the online world is not the actual world?’ [The online reaction is] a fraction of very loud, opinionated people, and God love them. They’re welcome to have that opinion. But it’s actually not reflecting what’s happening out in the world. And once I saw [the numbers], I calmed right down.”
Kripke Defends the Season’s Character Focus
Kripke said the writers had a major challenge heading into the endgame. The Boys has more than a dozen major characters, and the final season had to give each one a meaningful story and a proper ending.
He recently told TV Guide that the last episodes would not work without that character development.
“None of the things that happen in the last few episodes will matter if you don’t flesh out the characters,” Kripke said. “I’m getting a lot of online dissatisfaction, to put it politely. And I’m like, ‘What are you expecting? Are you expecting a huge battle scene every episode?’ At no point during the writing of it was I like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re making filler episodes. So who cares?’ We all thought at the time we’re really getting these important character details. We have something like 14 characters, maybe 15. And I owe it to all of them — in that television is the character business — I owe it to all of them to flesh them out and humanize them and their stories.”
Season 5 has also helped set up Vought Rising, an upcoming prequel series. Prime Video plans to premiere that show next year.
