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'The Boys' reaches massive global viewership milestone before Season 5 finale

Despite divided online fan reactions, the show hit record-breaking ratings ahead of its highly anticipated series finale, 'Blood and Bone.'

'The Boys' is ending its massively successful run on Prime Video on an even higher note with record-breaking ratings. Season 5 has reached 57 million viewers globally, according to The Hollywood Reporter, marking the highest viewership for the series yet, putting it among the Top 10 most-viewed seasons of any Prime Video original series. Considering the show's popularity and its characters, the numbers are not surprising. Even after growing online backlash around the final season's storyline. Some are even comparing it to the final season of HBO's 'Game of Thrones', which was universally panned.

'The Boys' showrunner, Eric Kripke, addressed the divided online reactions while celebrating the success, saying the numbers prove that social media criticism does not necessarily reflect the show's wider reception. "I’ve gone through a journey when I first started to read everything - like on social media or online - and it starts to feel like that’s the whole universe, and it feels scary, and you have a pit in your stomach," he said. "So then [you see the ratings and] you’re like, ‘Oh, obviously, how many times do I have to relearn the lesson that the online world is not the actual world?’ a fraction of very loud, opinionated people, and God love them. They’re welcome to have that opinion. But it’s actually not reflecting what’s happening out in the world. And once I saw, I calmed right down."

Kripke also noted that, despite having dozens of characters, the writers have prioritized giving each a meaningful story with a proper ending. "We have something like 14 characters, maybe 15. And I owe it to all of them - in that television is the character business - I owe it to all of them to flesh them out and humanize them and their stories," he told TV Guide. Despite the online backlash, it is clear that 'The Boys' has become one of the most popular series of all time, with characters like Homelander becoming a cultural phenomenon. It stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Dominique McElligott, Jessie T. Usher, Chace Crawford, Laz Alonso, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Elisabeth Shue, Colby Minifie, and Aya Cash in prominent roles. The series finale, titled 'Blood and Bone,' premieres in the US on Wednesday, May 20 at 3:00 a.m. ET (12:00 a.m. PT) exclusively on Prime Video, officially bringing an end to the violent and satirical superhero drama that first debuted in 2019.