The Boys: All 13 Main Character Endings Ranked — From Misfires to Masterstrokes

The Boys is finally done swinging, and Season 5 goes out with a finale that is less a full-on massacre and more of a selective culling. Plenty of blood, sure, but a surprising number of people actually make it out alive. Most send-offs land, a couple whiff, and a handful are close to perfect. It ties years of chaos together in a way that feels earned. Here’s where everyone ends up — from the shrugs to the showstoppers — and why it works (or doesn’t).

1. 13) Sister Sage
   Sage’s end is as messy as her whole arc this season. After spending Season 4 (and the top of Season 5) selling herself as the master manipulator, her big reveal is… let the world burn while she hides in a bunker. Then she hands Homelander a shot at V1 by making a major unforced error. In the finale, she gives up her own power so Kimiko can test those radiation blasts, then happily peaces out from the war. That exit could have hit — if the show had clearly set up that this was what she wanted. Instead, her motivation is foggy, and once she’s de-powered, the writing treats her like she’s suddenly dense. Losing the ‘smartest in the world’ crown doesn’t mean she forgets how to think.

2. 12) Soldier Boy
   Homelander chokes him out in the penultimate episode and shoves him back in his cryo coffin. That’s it. We never see him again, which leaves one of the few dangling threads. It makes sense to keep him out of the finale brawl — he’d pull focus from the Butcher vs. Homelander showdown — but locking him in a box is pretty limp. Feels like a breadcrumb for a present-day timeline in Vought Rising. Maybe that’s smart franchise play; maybe it’s a mistake. Depends on the follow-through.

3. 11) Oh-Father
   New supe, quick exit. Hughie and M.M. take him out without much ceremony. The ball gag death is ridiculous in a very on-brand way (and yes, Hughie gets drenched in blood one more time), but it doesn’t hit emotionally. Abrupt, mildly funny, forgettable.

4. 10) Ashley Barrett
   Ashley becomes the first super and first female U.S. president — for about five minutes. Homelander melts down on live TV, she has to eat it at the podium, and then she’s impeached and bounced. After seasons of enabling his reign, that’s the bill coming due. She shows a flicker of redemption in the episode ‘Blood and Bone,’ but when the press asks real questions, she ducks responsibility. She frees The Boys from Oh-Father’s trap and… stops there. It’s a fitting, believable arc; just don’t expect a late-game growth spurt.

5. 9) Frenchie
   He dies in Episode 7, then shows up in the finale to push Kimiko forward — vision, ghost, memory, whatever you want to call it. It works because she believes it. His death itself lands, but it’s also the one the show kept winking at all season, so the impact gets blunted. Could he have thrown Homelander off a different way? Probably. Still, he goes out with a dagger of a line:

   'I bet you never danced a day in your life'

   Great writing. The route there could’ve been sharper.

6. 8) Billy Butcher
   There was always one ending for Butcher, and the show doesn’t flinch. In a semi-accurate riff on the comics, Hughie kills him after Butcher tries to unleash the supe virus — made worse by the split second where Butcher seems to realize he’s crossed the line right as Hughie pulls the trigger. The stumble is the road to get here: Season 5 waffles on Butcher’s morals from episode to episode, so his hard swerve after Terror’s death plays sudden and extra. The destination makes sense; the map was sloppy.

7. 7) Ryan
   He’s barely around for the first seven episodes, then matters a lot when it counts: he finally rejects both Homelander and Butcher. After they both die, Ryan ends up powerless and living with M.M. It’s the right kind of hopeful. Still, questions linger. Kimiko’s blast strips the powers off a natural-born supe? You’d expect a different effect. The season also doesn’t show off his abilities much before flipping the switch. The ending plays; the build needed more.

8. 6) Kimiko
   She survives, but it’s a tough win. She adopts Simone the Bernedoodle, heads to France to honor Frenchie, and she’s still deep in grief in her final moment. As a character beat, it’s strong — the finale wouldn’t feel as heavy without real loss — but it hurts to see her and Frenchie robbed of their peaceful ending.

9. 5) Annie January/Starlight
   Annie gets a proper happy ending, just not a fully filled-in one. Post-Homelander, she and Hughie run an audiovisual store, they’re together-but-not-married, and they’re expecting a baby. She also seems to still be fighting crime, but the how of it is fuzzy — government gig, freelance hero, or just sometimes? On top of that, she never really gets the public credit she’s earned after years of being smeared. Great for her life; a little thin on the Starlight details.

10. 4) Mother ’s Milk
    M.M. spends most of the season convinced he’s a dead man. Not only does he live, he does it without losing the core empathy he keeps trying to bury. He reunites with his wife and daughter — big exhale — and then he adopts Ryan. Perfect call. If anyone’s built to be the steady father figure that kid needs after Butcher and Homelander, it’s M.M. Only gripe: I wish we’d gotten more scenes with the two of them before this.

11. 3) The Deep
    Five seasons of slime finally loops back on him, and it’s beautiful. Homelander dismisses him, Annie beats him down, and the sea life he’s been exploiting finishes the job. He still refuses to own any of it, even screaming 'no' like a toddler. It’s poetic, petty, and perfectly earned — a full-circle end that sticks the landing.

12. 2) Hughie Campbell
    Hughie gets the rarest outcome in this world: peace. He turns down Robert A. Singer’s offer to run the Bureau of Superhuman Affairs, lets go of the fight in a way Butcher never could, and builds a life with Annie. The final image of him looking up at her and smiling is the mirror opposite of his very first scene in the series. No caveats, no asterisks. Just a clean, satisfying arc.

13. 1) Homelander
    The big one delivers. The finale strips Homelander’s powers, exposes him as the coward underneath, and he keeps trying to flex like nothing’s changed — it’s darkly funny and exactly right. Butcher kills him, using a weapon that gives a very nerdy nod to the comics, and it all unravels live on television. No spin, no statue, no legacy. Antony Starr’s work in these scenes is outstanding, and the character’s downfall is going to be one of those series-defining moments that actually exceeds the hype.

That’s the lot. Not the bloodbath some expected, but the math adds up: a few great deaths, a few earned lives, and a finale that cashes the check the show’s been writing since day one. Who do you think got the best send-off?