Binge Report: The Boys S5 Ep 4 "King of Hell" Just Made the Final Season Impossible to Binge — And That's a Compliment
Okay. We're four episodes deep into The Boys final season — that's the halfway mark — and Ep 4 "King of Hell" just did the thing I didn't know I wanted: it split the fandom right down the middle. Some reviewers are calling it pure fun, others are calling it underwhelming. I'm here to tell you they're both right, and that's exactly why it works. 🍿
Where we are
Eight episodes total. Weekly drops through May 20. Ep 4 = halfway point. Runtime clocks in at around 62 minutes, which for The Boys is basically a feature film with extra intestines.
And look — I know the whole point of a binge report is to tell you whether to marathon it. For S5, I can't. This isn't a binge show right now. It's appointment television for the first time in years. Eric Kripke is making us wait a week between episodes like it's 2010. Honestly? I'm into it.
TL;DW — Eps 1-3 in 90 seconds
In case you bounced off S4 and need to catch up before hitting play:
- Ep 1 — Franchise-best Rotten Tomatoes score for a premiere. Reviewers called it "breathless." Sets the post-S4 status quo: Homelander is president-adjacent, the Boys are scattered, Stan Edgar is quietly pulling strings.
- Ep 2 — Stan Edgar's role expands. The Boys start regrouping. Table-setting episode, but the best kind.
- Ep 3 "No Cap, On God Bro" — 97% on RT. Ryan murders a CIA black-site team in Russia. Soldier Boy publicly revealed as a member of The Seven and Homelander's father. The V1 formula is confirmed "10x more potent" than current V — which is why Soldier Boy survived the supe-killing virus and Homelander wouldn't. Butcher pitches a suicide-mission virus attack with Ryan. Dr. Shah destroys the Supe virus. Ryan gets brutally beaten by Homelander but spared. Stan Edgar locks the Boys in a bunker. Cindy gets killed by Starlight. And Madelyn Stillwell's ghost (or whatever she is now) tells Homelander to take V1 and become God.
Status heading into Ep 4: Homelander wants V1 to ascend. Butcher is operational with the virus plan. Hughie is on Butcher's team but skeptical. Starlight just killed someone for the first time and is rattled. Ryan is beaten but allied with the Boys. Soldier Boy is… officially Homelander's dad. M.M., A-Train, Frenchie, Kimiko are doing their standard gritty support-character work.
With me? Good.
🚨 Full spoilers for Ep 4 below
I mean it. If you haven't watched "King of Hell" yet, bookmark this and come back.
The beats that matter
Soldier Boy has V1 immunity. Confirmed. The Compound V1 in his bloodstream means the supe-killing virus Butcher's team is weaponizing will do exactly nothing to him. That makes him the chaos catalyst for the rest of the season — Homelander's new wildcard, the Boys' new impossible target, and the one guy who gets to sit in the middle of the board untouchable.
Homelander orders the org to hunt remaining V1. This is the desperation move. Unfreezing Soldier Boy was itself a Hail Mary. Now he's dispatching everyone he trusts (which, post-Noir weirdness, is basically nobody) to find whatever V1 is left. The Seven has officially become a scavenger hunt.
Butcher physically attacks Hughie. This is the scene. This is the one. Reviewers called it the most rage-fueled hour of the season so far, and it's because of this beat. Butcher and Hughie have had maybe four reconciliations across five seasons. This isn't a disagreement — it's a body-check. The partnership isn't fractured, it's over, and for the first time in a long time I actually believe the show will commit to it.
Ryan vs Homelander at Fort Harmony. Ryan tries to take Homelander down with the virus. He fails. It "nearly costs the younger Supe his life" — the reviewers' phrasing, and it tracks with the episode's tone. This is the most brutal father-son moment since… honestly, since Ep 3 last week. The show is just serving emotional whiplash weekly at this point. Ackles' delivery when Soldier Boy processes what's happening — Quinn, Stormfront, all of it — is the kind of work that gets you an Emmy submission reel.
The personality-flip bit at Fort Harmony. Some kind of compound or spell (this show has earned its "just go with it" card five times over by now) affects the team on site. Relationships shift, honest conversations happen, the spell breaks, everyone's back to normal — but a few dynamics are quietly healthier on the other side. It's a weird, almost sitcom-adjacent beat in the middle of an otherwise dark episode, and it's the moment that will most divide the fandom. You either find it charming or you find it a reason to go to AV Club and type "underwhelming" into a search bar.
The Black Noir meta unmask. Nathan Mitchell. Same actor as S4. The show reveals, on-screen, that the reason new-Noir stopped speaking is because the actor is going method. It is the funniest thing The Boys has committed to canon since The Deep tried to cry. I laughed out loud. Fandom is split right down the middle on whether it's brilliant or a shrug, and I think it's both.
Bombsight. Ending strongly suggests he's not dead. Primetimer already has a "is Bombsight still alive?" breakdown up. Gen V crossover hype intensifies.
Homelander rebrand meeting. The cold open, essentially. Homelander's inner circle workshops his public image. "Red Cross Worker" is the suggested framing. I will not recover from this for a week.
The Seven's new balance
The Seven used to be a corporate nightmare. Now it's a family therapy session with guns. Soldier Boy is back on the team and fundamentally cannot be handled. Homelander is paranoid, delusional, and increasingly aware that his ascendance plan requires a supply that's actively running out. The rest of the org is hunting Supe-formula vials while the public-relations crew is trying to market him as a humanitarian.
It is, structurally, the most fun The Boys has been in three seasons.
The split reception — and why it works
Den of Geek called Ep 4 "another underwhelming episode." TV Fanatic called it "pure fucking fun." The AV Club handed out a mid grade. Paste was more forgiving. IGN's season-level reviews stay positive about S5 overall but acknowledge a pacing wobble. Comic Book Movie ran two separate pieces (one on the Black Noir reveal, one on the Butcher-vs-Hughie fight) within 24 hours of airing.
Here's the thing: they're all right. Ep 4 is simultaneously a setup episode and an emotional payoff, and those two modes never fully reconcile. If you wanted the plot to move, you got crumbs. If you wanted the characters to be honest with each other for the first time in a season, you got feast. That trade-off is the whole shape of an 8-episode final season. Half the audience gets what it wants. The other half gets it next week.
S5 overall is sitting at franchise-best Rotten Tomatoes numbers — the strongest the show has looked on the critics' side since Season 2. Per-episode scores are harder to pin down because Ep 4 just dropped, but the conversation is there, and the conversation is loud.
The binge rating
S5 overall: 9/10 binge-worthiness for everything that's aired so far. The show I thought was dead after S4 is about to stick the landing. But can you binge it? No. Weekly drops only. ~4.2 hours total through Ep 4; another ~4 hours coming weekly through May 20.
Start now if you've seen S1-S4 and Ep 1-3 of S5. Skip entirely if you bounced off S4 permanently and didn't come back — Ep 3 won't re-convert you, but it might. Your call.
What's next
Four episodes remain. Ryan's arc is hanging by a thread. The V1 hunt is about to peak. Soldier Boy is an unkillable wildcard. Homelander is one bad meeting away from starting to monologue about divinity on a hot mic. Butcher and Hughie are done, and I don't believe the reconciliation is coming.
I'll see you next Wednesday. 🍿
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