The Boys Season 5's Latest Episode Is Being Called 'filler' – Here's Why Fans Are Wrong

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Oy there! This article contains major spoilers through "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 4, "King of Hell."

It's a tale as old as television: A series puts a little faith in its audience, debuts an episode that places the overarching plot on the backburner in favor of something a little more character-focused, and fans recoil in horror and abject disgust at the idea of being subjected to (what they misidentify as) "filler." Okay, that's the cynical version of events that tends to crop up in online circles every so often, but am I wrong? "Star Trek" fans have certainly been there and done that. Even the original "Avatar: The Last Airbender" has encountered similar criticisms. Anything that dares to break free of the now-popular serialized mold seems destined to be picked over with a fine-toothed comb and overanalyzed within an inch of its life.

Now, it's "The Boys" and its excellent final season that's found itself directly in the crosshairs of disgruntled viewers. Amusingly, the superhero satire is as postmodern as it gets these days. Between copious amounts of gore, pinpoint takedowns of the genre, and a self-awareness that would make the "Deadpool" franchise blush, this should be the last show to end up drawing complaints about the rhythm and pacing of the story.

Welcome to TV-watching in the year 2026, folks, where everyone gets mad and the facts don't matter. In this case, "The Boys" takes a little side trip to the middle of nowhere and sets our main protagonists at odds with each other. But, because the overall status quo doesn't really change at all by the end of the hour, fans were quick to voice their displeasure (via Total Film). Well, I'm here to explain why we've all lost the plot — literally.

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The simmering tensions begin early on in this week's "The Boys," titled "King of Hell." Reeling from Homelander's (Antony Starr) bloody beatdown of his own son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) in Episode 3, our anti-vigilante heroes assemble to go over their next moves. Stopping Homelander from achieving immortality through the V-One serum at all costs remains priority #1, but neither Hughie (Jack Quaid) nor Butcher (Karl Urban) can stop butting heads over how they ended up in this predicament in the first place. This discontent is only exacerbated as they get closer to the Clearfield, Pennsylvania facility holding the last surviving vials of V-One ... and, unbeknownst to them, to the old Supe Quinn (Kris Hagen) feeding off hatred and dishing it out in equal measure.

The fact that the main conflict of the episode is conflict itself isn't exactly subtle (nor is the irony of the main setting literally being called Fort Harmony), but who comes to "The Boys" for subtlety, anyway? That proves to be the key to unlocking the narrative purpose behind slowing things down and turning things inward for a change. That's why both Homelander and his father Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) undergo a similar arc, while Annie (Erin Moriarty) returns to her childhood home for a long-delayed confrontation with her father Rick (Tim Daly) and his new family.

To many fans, the season rumbling closer to its endgame ought to mean that the pacing accelerates and game-changing twists come early and often. Instead, the true genius of this episode derives from watching our lovable (and not-so-lovable) main characters reckon with their true feelings hidden deep down, air out their dirty laundry with one another, and actually face their worst fears.

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Here's the most maddening element of this entire conversation: Episode 4 of "The Boys" Season 5 actually features some of the biggest and most significant developments yet. Yes, technically it's true that our characters discover the V-One has long been missing from Fort Harmony and the whole escapade proves to be largely "pointless" — but only if you're one of those people who thinks the object of storytelling is to move characters from point A to B to C as straightforwardly as possible. Luckily, for the rest of us, episode director Karen Gaviola and credited writer Geoff Aull understand that setbacks and detours and lessons learned are much more important.

By taking this approach at the season's halfway point, "The Boys" shines a light on several crucial aspects of the story to come. We receive more insights into MM's (Laz Alonso) growing fatalism and his toxic partnership with Butcher, who continues to sabotage his own friends at every turn. We needed a ground-level perspective into Homelander sympathies among civilians through Annie's father and his family, which demonstrates the costs of simply going along with a system designed to oppress us. Even the fracturing between Homelander and Soldier Boy sets up a fascinating new dynamic between the world's two most powerful supes, all while serving as a backdoor pilot for the "Vought Rising" spin-off. And for the Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) shippers among us, that ending conversation as they realize just how far apart they are is as devastating as it gets.

How about this: The next non-anime fan who misuses "filler" gets a laser blast to the face. The next episode of "The Boys" streams April 29, 2026 on Prime Video.