It’s clear by now that not everyone will make it out of The Boys’ final season alive, but the superhero drama’s latest fatality has hit fans hard.
The show’s penultimate episode saw Frenchie (Tomer Capone) succumb to his injuries after going head-to-head with super villain Homelander (Antony Starr) to protect his beloved partner Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara).
Capone, 40, has spoken out about his character’s death in episode seven after it landed on Wednesday (13 May), revealing that he still can’t bring himself to watch it.
“It’s too close, man. I’m too attached,” he told Variety. “It’s the longest character I’ve ever had in my career. Frenchie has been there for five seasons, and at the moment it feels too close to watch.
“I’ve never had it before, where I really feel nervous about watching it and how I’ll feel about it. We’re still seeing and talking with each other; it feels like we’re still going. I don’t think I got it wrapped around my head that this is the last season, and it’s done.”
He added that while he would have loved to return to the character, he now can’t following his death. “That’s a new thing for me. I did my best, and there’s no turning back,” he said.
Capone has played Frenchie, a former arms trafficker who seeks redemption for his past crimes by joining the vigilante group, since the show’s first season in 2019.
While Frenchie’s tragic death is bound to be a shock for fans, The Boys creator Eric Kripke said that his death was inevitable. “We knew we had to kill off one of The Boys,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.
“You can’t have a shot at victory unless it costs your heroes something that’s really hard. I always think The Lord of the Rings was so good at that, and Game of Thrones was so good at that,” he continued. “For narrative momentum, your heroes have to pay a steep price – because that’s how it works in the real world.”
Kripke added that he wanted to kill off a character whose death would be “the most heart wrenching” and knew early on that it would be Frenchie due to his romance with Kimiko.
“We knew this would have real maximum destruction, and I think it had to happen. They would not have a chance of winning if Frenchie doesn’t sacrifice himself,” he said.
The Boys is currently streaming its fifth and final season on Prime Video. Kripke revealed earlier this month that he was getting “a lot of online dissatisfaction, to put it politely” over what fans were considering to be “filler” episodes.
“I’m like, ‘What are you expecting? Are you expecting a huge battle scene every episode?’” he said in response to the criticism.
The final episode of The Boys will arrive on Prime Video on Wednesday 20 May.
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