The thrilling ride of The Boys has officially reached its end, with the series finale premiering on Prime Video's platform on Wednesday. To celebrate this monumental occasion, the entire cast and creative team gathered on Tuesday evening to ride off into the sunset together.
Creator Eric Kripke was joined by series stars such as Chace Crawford, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, Jensen Ackles, and Daveed Diggs at the L.A. finale event. However, leads Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, and Antony Starr were unfortunately absent from the gathering.
On the red carpet, Kripke opened up about the end of The Boys era, which saw some major deaths in Homelander, Billy Butcher, and The Deep. He revealed that he had already plotted the main characters' journeys as far back as the pilot episode.
"I want everyone to love it," Kripke said. "It's not fun to go online and receive thousands of comments in a row saying 'You suck, you suck, you suck, you suck.' But I've come to terms with the fact that it will be polarized like everything else." He further added that his anticipated fan reaction to the finale would be polarizing after dealing with online backlash all season. "A showrunner said to me a week or two ago, which I really liked," he said. "He said, 'Your job is to get an emotional reaction out of people, not exactly what that reaction is.' And I liked that a lot."
Crawford, while still playing coy about The Deep's fate at the event, said he was "happy" with his ending because "there's no real way to get around it." While teasing that there may be room for a Deep spinoff or prequel at some point, the star applauded "the way that Kripke did it with a five-act structure with the seasons and how it all went. Somehow, it kept miraculously dovetailing with what was happening culturally in the real world, which was genius."
Moriarty echoed that she is "selfishly satisfied and globally satisfied" with the final episode, emphasizing that she hopes the fans "respond well." She added, "I feel like people are going to kind of anticipate certain moments of it and then certain moments are going to be a surprise."
Ackles, however, is protesting the finale, declaring, "I want season six and seven and eight - you're talking to a guy that did 15 seasons of a show [with Supernatural] so I'm like really, five? That's it? That's all we're getting?" But since this is indeed the end, he relented, saying "The way they wrap it up I think it's fantastic. I think Kripke had a really tall task to land this plane the way he did. And as a fan of the show myself, I feel like it's satisfying. So I'm happy for these guys, happy for all of us, and I hope the fans are happy as well."
The larger Boys universe will carry on, though, including Ackles leading prequel series Vought Rising (out next year) and spinoff The Boys: Mexico also in the works. Kripke also has hopes to continue Gen V in some way after that show was cancelled after two seasons.
"I would love to figure out some spots for the Gen V kids because their story is not done yet," he said. "And I feel like we left money on the table with them, so I'd like to figure that out. With The Boys - what a gift! I think we told their story so well that I want to focus on the characters that there's a little more gas in the tank."
