The Boys Just Erased Three Years of Setup in Two Lines for a Homelander-Level Supe

We are down to one episode of The Boys. Spoilers ahead for Season 5, Episode 7. Let me catch you up and then, yeah, we need to talk about how the show just used (and kind of undercut) Gen V.

Where things stand after Episode 7

Episode 7, titled "The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother 's Milk," ends with the board set for one last swing at Homelander. Problem: he juiced himself with V-One, so the dude was already terrifying and is now even more of a walking apocalypse.

Butcher, being Butcher, pulls one more scorched-earth move: he subjects Kimiko to the same radiation-style experimentation that was once used on Soldier Boy, aiming to give her the ability to strip a Supe of their powers. Messed up? Yep. Potentially the only shot? Also yep.

Meanwhile, Ryan Butcher is still MIA on-screen. We have not seen him since the end of Episode 3, but he is alive, which means he is either a time bomb or a wildcard for the finale.

Enter Marie Moreau (and why that got complicated)

On paper, Marie Moreau from the now-canceled Gen V should be a big deal here. Across that spinoff 's two seasons, she was built up as one of the heaviest hitters around and a legit future rival to Homelander. Both Marie and Homelander are the only known survivors of Vought's Project Odessa, a program literally designed to manufacture god-like Supes. Translation: she has the ceiling to reach his weight class.

Mother's Milk even says the quiet part out loud in Episode 7, basically labeling her the 'Chosen One' and noting she has Homelander-level potential. Marie herself is not having it, waving off the hype with:

"Reports of my awesomeness have been greatly exaggerated."

Starlight also benches her with a sharper edge:

"What's good's all that power, Marie, if you can't control it?"

Here is the issue: Gen V Season 2 was specifically about Marie learning to control her powers. No one is saying she is fully maxed out, but the show spent an entire season proving she could handle her stuff. Having The Boys suddenly frame her as too unstable to help undercuts that arc and, honestly, both shows at once.

Kripke's tightrope walk, and why it wobbles

To be fair to Eric Kripke and the writers, this is a tough needle to thread. You cannot let the finale of a five-season series hinge on characters a bunch of viewers might not know. At the same time, if you are going to bring them in, you need to honor what their own show established.

Kripke clearly tried to keep Gen V from overshadowing things: those characters do not turn up until the penultimate hour, and even then they only pop in briefly. I get the logic. The execution, though, lands in a worst-of-both-worlds spot. If you skipped Gen V, their arrival is distracting. If you watched it, it is frustrating to see Marie talked down after her show worked hard to scale her up.

The setup for the finale

Episode 7 ends with Starlight going to see Marie and Jordan Li again, teeing them up to matter in the last hour. That creates a new potential snag: if Marie suddenly does have the juice to challenge Homelander in the finale, viewers who did not watch Gen V are going to be wondering what Starlight was even talking about a week earlier. And if she does not get to do anything meaningful, then why bring her in at all?

There was a more elegant route here. Marie could have been woven into The Boys earlier this season in a way that kept the spotlight on the core cast without making her a deus ex fix. The show has spent real time setting pieces for the Vought Rising prequel; some of that runway could have gone to properly integrating Gen V characters instead of treating them like a late-game patch.

• Homelander is amped on V-One and needs to be made beatable, fast.
• Kimiko has a new, Soldier Boy-style power-null option thanks to Butcher's brutal plan.
• Ryan has been off the board since Episode 3 but remains alive and pivotal.
• Marie Moreau and Jordan Li are re-entering the story, despite Gen V being canceled after two seasons.
• Marie and Homelander share a Project Odessa origin, suggesting comparable ceilings, yet The Boys is downplaying her control right after Gen V established it.
• Eric Kripke kept Gen V involvement minimal to avoid overshadowing the main cast, but that choice risks shortchanging both shows.
• There are still over a dozen character arcs to land in one episode, which is giving me flashbacks to Stranger Things ' series finale scale-vs-character dilemma.

It is a tall order, but not impossible. Season 5 has done strong character work, and the show has pulled off high-wire acts before. Whether Marie ends up a cheat code, a cameo, or something in between, she is now a key part of how this thing sticks the landing.

The Boys series finale drops Wednesday, May 20th on Prime Video.