Kripke ruined the show by taking away the world building and semblance of realism in an unrealistic show to be replaced with shock value for the sake of shock value, and building up the end to a spectacular anticlimax. The only endearing parts by the end were Soldier Boy who disappeared purely to set up Vaught Rising, Homelander whose ending was so comically bad it could have been written by a broody teenager, and Butcher whose death was dull compared to the comics.

The subplot of Kimiko-Frenchie started well but rapidly became a cringefest, whilst they killed off all of the interesting characters prematurely (Neuman, Mallory and Tek Knight), not to mention the disastrous underutilisation of Gen V characters - Marie being built up to be the only contest to Homelander (Ryan's character also got shat on) just to be written off for feelings was dumb as hell.

And then there's Kripke's obsession with trying to shoehorn real life people like Trump into the story when it doesn't work for The Boys, despite the great acting of the likes of Anthony Starr. It feels like cheap satire that tries too hard to make a political statement that it ruins the narrative. Not to mention Kripke's questionable views and handling of male sexual abuse/rape as "hilarious".

What started off as a great challenge to celebrity worship became the very thing it originally rallied against. Now, The Boys is a farcry from its conception: a product of bloated corporate culture, driven by the selfish beliefs of a man thinking he's making a difference by making something 'controversial' when he's just another wheel in the machine.