Summary
The Boysis quickly headed towards a gory and decidedly hard-fought series finale in its fifth season with a lot of plot lines and character arcs left to resolve, and one star has a pretty unexpected desire for their character going into the final stretch.
The Boyshas been the single most prominent force in the superhero genre, with its bloody and irreverent parody of popular tropes and characters resonating with fans fresh off a nearly two-decade-long train of big-budget, high-profile superhero films that check all those boxes. Seen by many as even more praiseworthy for its social commentary and critiques, this facet of the show was dialed up to 11 in the most recent outing, raising the stakes to unprecedented levels in the lead-up to the show’s end.The Boysseason 4 still managed to break season 3 records despite its more divisive nature, setting the stage for a no-holds-barred conclusion in the fifth and final season.
One major part of this divisive narrative was Firecracker, a supe that played into the sort of acute political parallels thatshowrunner Eric Kripke has come to dread aboutThe Boysand one of Homelander’s most stalwart allies going into season five. Speaking toThe Hollywood Reporterat San Diego Comic-Con,The Boysstar Valorie Curry, who plays firecracker, revealed exactly what she wants to happen to her character, and it’s something that pretty much all her fans can agree on. “I hope she dies,” Curry explained in an impassioned, well-reasoned answer on the SDCC floor. “She has it coming from many people. She’s awful. She’s horrible. I hope she dies. I hope it’s not because of the meds, because that seems too easy. It should be Sage (Susan Heyward), right? It should be Sage, and then she should survive and have a spinoff. I hope she dies.” Curry, who plays the anti-LGBTQ character despite being a lesbian herself, previously mentioned that she’s glad to be playing the character.
It sounds so gross to say, but I really connected with her right off the bat. ーIt should be somebody from the community who’s getting to make a clown out of her. So there isn’t any ambiguity.
While it’s not often that a star desires their character’s death, especially in a hot franchise likeThe Boys,where spin-offs and cameo roles could go on for the foreseeable future, Firecracker is certainly a fair exception. Curry’s wishes are valid and are easy to understand when you think about her relationship with the role. Sage, who wasrevealed alongside Firecracker in first-look photos for season four of the show, has been the most prominent target of Firecracker’s more offensive rhetoric and bad behavior, ranging from racially charged remarks to outright death threats aimed at the fellow Supe. Having this character, who is no saint herself, be the one to end Firecracker could have some cathartic value. If this were to happen, Sage would likely have to rely on her intellect to pull off the act as she is one of the less physically powerful supes on the show, and that’s actually one of the best things about her.
There are certainly going to be tons of casualties in the final season ofThe Boys, and Firecracker has done her fair share to earn a place on that eventual list. While a select few characters could potentially reprise their roles inthe upcoming prequel seriesVought Rising, it’s safe to assume that Curry will be free to pursue other projects when the curtain drops on the main show.
