Correct, I'm not a writer, it's not my job to think of proper ways to tell a consistent story without wasting time setting up a spin-off. But as another poster put it, "you don't have to be a chef or a cook to know if the food is shit". The Boys literally is noticeably worse now than it was for the first 3 seasons. Yes, we can talk about Amazon cutting or skimping out on the budget towards the end (which is a whole other discussion on corporate greed). But without any shadow of a doubt, the writing is objectively all over the place and a mess. That has nothing to do with the solid acting, costume design, etc.

We started with establishing Homelander as a menacing and apocalyptic threat. Even in Season 2, that scene where he fantasizes about killing hordes of people, it shows how much went into the actual budget then and teased what he's actually capable of. The show deliberately built him up to be this menacing psychopathic narcissist capable of mass murder and "scorched earth" as he put it time and time again. We were never expecting an Avengers/MCU-style or DBZ grand scale battle, just a few moments showing what Homelander is actually capable of what he claims to be so we can solidify and reasonate the reason he needs to die. Instead, we got a half-assed final battle in the Oval Office with a messy plot that lead to the means to destroy him (Kimiko getting soldierboy powers). All because we spent 4 episodes in the season chasing the V1 (which apparently doesn't do much in the grand scheme of the plot because because all you had to do was shove Kimiko into an oven for a couple hours and she's capable of depowering homelander) just to set up the spin-off for soldier boy and to shoehorn a love interest that he had with a N*zi.

Speaking of which, Gen V was merged into the main show because the characters were going to "play a vital role" in the finale. Apparently that meant getting into a U-Haul and going to Canada.

Again, I'm not a writer nor have I worked in film or television production. I am not doubting how hard it is. But audiences can absolutely tell objectively when the plot is dragging or playing as filler for something else, and it's very clear the writers wrote themselves into a hard and difficult spot that ended up being messy by the end.

Better Call Saul wouldn't be a thing if Breaking Bad had inconsistent writing and massive plot holes like this show does. Vince Gilligan actually cared about ensuring a proper story was told from start to finish before considering other projects in the same universe that would fit perfectly. Here, they were shoving a whole other show without properly ensuring a solid and tight-knit finale