The superhero genre continues to dominate the entertainment industry, with a number of shared universes in play. But some of the most popular comic book shows aren't from DC or Marvel, such as The Boys. The bloody series (which is streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription) will debut its fifth and final season shortly. But information is still trickling about previous installments, including why The Boys' Season 4 finale was almost pulled from the air. Let's break it all down.
The Boys' characters have done plenty of awful things during its years on Amazon, to the delight of fans like me. But there have been moments where the show has connected with the real world in startling ways. During a conversation with Polygon, showrunner Eric Kripke spoke about how the Season 4 finale was nearly pulled after the assassination attempt of Donald Trump happened just days before. Fans will recall that in the episode, Antony Starr's Homelander creates a plan to kill the President. As Kripke recalls:
It created a lot of anxiety because I directed that one. I had a lot of emotional eggs in that basket, and there was a very real possibility that they were going to delay its airing. It went all the way up the chain to Andy Jassy, the head of Amazon, and he was OK with airing it.
The Boys is ending in Season 5, so the Season 4 finale was key to setting up the final chapter in the superhero series. But the fact that the episode was going to deal with a story about a presidential assassination was tricky, given the state of the political landscape at the time. So how did they get around it?
Rather than the Season 4 finale being scrapped or delayed, Amazon went with another pivot: a title change. Originally, the episode was titled "Assassination Run", but was renamed to simply "Season Four Finale." This allowed it to be in better taste amongst the news of Trump's attempted assassination. As Kripke put it:
All that came back was, ‘Just change the title. It's a tasteless title considering, but it's different enough, and we will back it.’ Thank God that they did. I had a really stressful 24 hours, but it all pales in comparison to the madness in the real world.
Given how much the tension had built throughout Season 4 of The Boys, fans likely would have had a strong reaction if the finale had been delayed due to events in the real world. The episode left us with a bunch of thrilling cliffhangers, which will finally be resolved shortly.
The Boys Season 5 will premiere April 8th as part of the 2026 TV schedule. Hopefully, the final batch of episodes doesn't have any issues airing due to issues happening in the real-world. Fingers crossed.
