The Boys Creator Eric Kripke Has The Perfect Response To Series Finale Criticism

For "The Boys" creator Eric Kripke, helming the hit show "Supernatural" may have been good training for dealing with invested fandoms. In an interview with Looper's sister site TVLine, Kripke discussed the negative reactions the ending of "The Boys" Season 5 received, and made clear that he knows how to put the most vocal fans' opinions in context. 

"The online world is not the real world," Kripke told TVLine. "We have way north of 60 million viewers, so that makes the online storm, which feels very all-encompassing, actually a fraction of a single percentage point. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course, and I'm sorry if I disappointed you, but it was the story I wanted to tell. You just have to put it into perspective of it being a reasonably small, vocal audience when the vast majority seem to be happily tuning in."

In the same interview, Kripke said that "The Boys" series finale worked hard to nail every character's ending and give them a moment to shine. This way, the story did more than conclude the way Kripke wanted — it also gave every major character a little something extra to end the show with closure. As such, regardless of some fan complaints, those behind "The Boys" worked to deliver the best end product possible.

Though Eric Kripke was prepared for some fans to not be happy with the ending of "The Boys," he was nevertheless nervous about the finale and its reception. "It's super hard to do a finale," Kripke told The Hollywood Reporter ahead of "The Boys" Season 5. "Fans will retroactively judge the show based on how they feel about the finale. If we stiff it, they will definitely say, 'Well, that show wasn't as good as we thought it was.'"

Fortunately, the ending certainly hit the beats it needed to. "The Boys" series finale gives Antony Starr's Homelander the fate he deserves, while remaining faithful to Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's original comics. Based on the way the show's ending has divided fans, it may be a tall order for the episode to find itself on the most satisfying TV finales ever anytime soon. Still, it's definitely hard to view the conclusion to "The Boys" as an utter failure.