The Boys Creator Eric Kripke Fires Back At Season 5 Filler Episodes Complaints

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "The Boys" Season 5 up to Episode 6, "Though the Heavens Fall."

Whenever any popular show is rumbling towards its grand finale these days, one complaint almost always begins to crop up like clockwork: Too much filler! Viewers who've been trained by shows like "Lost" or "Game of Thrones" or, uh, anything made by "Euphoria" creator Sam Levinson are likely to expect a weekly dose of game-changing twists every single episode ... no matter what they're watching. Thus, it was probably only a matter of time before "The Boys" fell victim to the same criticism, especially as the fifth and final season ticks closer to its conclusion. 

This particularly vocal backlash has gone from the lips (er, keyboards?) of online fans to creator Eric Kripke's ears, apparently. After the last few episodes have only increased the volume among discontented audiences, the "Boys" showrunner is finally weighing in and defending the final season against this growing tide — beginning with the somewhat divisive fourth episode of "The Boys" Season 5 and reaching a fever pitch with Episode 5's "One-Shots," which dared to put the plot on the backburner in favor of spending significantly more time with its characters. Kripke recently spoke with TV Guide and fired back at what some have perceived as a waste of time or spinning of wheels:

"None of the things that happen in the last few episodes will matter if you don't flesh out the characters. 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?' One, I can't afford that. And two, it would be so empty and dull, and it would just be about shapes moving without having any import."

You know, maybe the customer isn't always right. As tough as that may be for us to digest, consider this: Storytellers who've spent countless hours writing (and rewriting) episodes and breaking down season-long arcs to a fine powder and have done the impossibly hard work of making a show like "The Boys" into a smash hit might know more about the trajectory of its story than we do. Shocker, I know! Eric Kripke clearly agrees, as he laid out to TV Guide why his creative team crafted Season 5, Episode 4 the way they did:

"It was important, for example, to really wrap out where Firecracker was. It was important to evolve Soldier Boy and Homelander's relationship and to hear how hopeless [Laz Alonso's] M.M. feels in Episode 4. It was important to see that The Boys are fracturing between people who are gathering around [Karl Urban's] Butcher, and people who are gathering around [Jack Quaid's] Hughie."

To Kripke and his writers, character remains key. That takes on even greater importance in a final season for a show known to be a bit of a bloodbath, where you simply never know if your favorite hero (or villain) is about to suffer a grisly death. Kripke continued, "At no point during the writing of [Season 5] 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."

So, you want to be in show business, eh? Godspeed with the social media quagmire, where everyone can let you know at the drop of a hat just how dissatisfied they are with your art. "The Pitt" most recently turned into a battleground for fans who may or may not know how TV works, and now it's time for "The Boys" to navigate its own little firestorm.

Maybe it might be a simple difference in priorities? While Eric Kripke and his writers felt plenty of "crazy, big things" go down every episode, he explained, "It's just sometimes it's a giant character movement. But apparently, just because it's not plot, [fans are] like, 'Nothing happened!' I'm like, 'Nothing happened, what?' The craziest, biggest moves happened. It just wasn't someone shooting someone else and going, 'Pew, pew, pew.' And if that's what you want, you're just watching the wrong show."

Is this a failure of media literacy? Maybe not. Kripke suspects something else might be responsible:

"For as much as I love the weekly release — because we should take time to have people talking and arguing about the show — my guess is if you were bingeing it or watching it all at once, you would have a very different experience than watching one episode a week that you might find slow or slower than usual, and then you have to wait a whole other week for the next piece. I think that aggravates people, probably."

While he admits that he prefers the weekly approach, that's certainly fair. Either way, let's maybe wait until the season actually ends before judging the overall process? "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 7 streams Wednesday, May 13, 2026, on Prime Video.