The fifth and final season of The Boys began streaming on Amazon Prime back in April. The satirical superhero series is based on the comic book series of the same name, and was produced by Sony Pictures Television and Amazon MGM Studios, in association with Point Grey Pictures, Original Film, Kripke Enterprises, Kickstart Entertainment and KFL Nightsky Productions.
The final season stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Nathan Mitchell, Colby Minifie, Susan Heyward, Valorie Curry and Cameron Crovetti, all of whom return from prior seasons, while adding Daveed Diggs.
Sound designer Russell Topal says he met supervising sound editor Wade Barnett about 10 years ago at Formosa Group, and while they didn't get the chance to work together until Season 4 of The Boys, they often crossed paths.
"When he reached out to me about Season 4, (I was) really excited to finally work together and to be part of such a wild and fun show," says Topal.
During Season 4, Barnett and Topal bounced design ideas off each other throughout the season.
"Our showrunner Eric Kripke loves options," Topal shares, "so I designed anywhere from three to five versions for every 'Sup' character. Characters like Zoe, who could eject tentacles from her mouth, went through many iterations before we settled on the final version. It was a combined wet and slimy element for the tentacles, a vocal element for her screeching and subtle vocals for the tentacles all in one."
For the sound design team, one of the more challenging elements in Season 5 was the design for Quinn in Episode 4.
"One of the locations in that episode is an abandoned medical facility, where Quinn, who is a heavily mutated sup, is attached to a wall with plant," Topal reveals, "Like vines protruding from his body. These had to pulse rhythmically while having the feeling of struggle as he was in a vegetative state. Also, the visual effects were constantly changing, so keeping up with the ever-evolving visuals was a challenge, needing to keep the layers rhythmic while also staying in sync. With these challenges came reward, as the process was highly collaborative and evolving. We were really happy with the result."
Another challenging scene is the final battle between Homelander and Butcher.
"There is so much going on," Topal explains. "Fighting, destruction, lasers, gore, weapons, tentacles, etc. We had to figure out what we wanted to hear and when so it felt unified while still being dynamic."
He describes working on The Boys as an amazing experience and is grateful to have been involved on a show with so much fandom and creativity behind it.
"It was pleasure to work with Wade, Rich Weingart, Alex Fehrman and Ryan Briley, and the rest of the post crew," he adds.