As shocking as it might seem, developing a passionate following can sometimes be a double-edged sword. The Boys, for example, has slowly yet surely expanded its fan base as each season has gotten more compelling and captivating as time goes on. Creator Eric Kripke continues to outdo himself with the show’s narrative, while the series’ stars deliver more powerful and nuanced interpretations of their characters. The downside of this, though, is that when things don’t entirely go the way viewers hoped, they take to the internet to voice their grievances en masse. Next week will deliver the series finale of The Boys, and while it’s anyone’s guess as to how it will all wrap up, it seems like a lot of viewers aren’t ready to say goodbye quite yet. One metric that could signify those frustrations is IMDb’s user ratings, which have just hit a new low for the franchise. On IMDb, the most recent episode, “The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother’s Milk,” sits at a 6.7 out of 10 rating based on 19,000 ratings at the time of this writing. That’s a surprisingly high number of ratings, given that it’s only been days since the episode’s release. The next lowest-rated episode is Season 4, Episode 2, “Life Among the Septics,” which has 24,000 ratings and sits at 7.1. With Season 4 being released two years ago, for one episode to amass nearly as many ratings in days as another episode earned over two years, in addition to the low score, showcases how upset people are.

x

Your browser does not support the video tag.

There’s no specific reason why this latest episode is earning so many negative reactions, with those critical reactions largely being the same that all long-running TV shows earn: the story is dragging on, the characters don’t feel authentic anymore, and the production quality seems lower. On top of those more general complaints, however, a beloved character was killed off this week, so it’s also possible that taking to IMDb is what some viewers perceive as the most effective way to express their disappointment in the send-off. Even if longtime viewers were loving this season, though, it’s entirely possible that these ratings are merely indicative of the disappointment that the show is ending in the first place. After nearly a decade, last year saw the end of Stranger Things with its Season 5. While that series regularly debuted large chunks of episodes, sometimes whole seasons, all at the same time, Season 5’s release was fragmented, and the series finale was released a week after the penultimate episode. Much like The Boys, the penultimate episode of Stranger Things quickly became the lowest-rated episode on IMDb.

Whether this is a knee-jerk reaction to unexpected goodbyes or whether Season 5, Episode 7 of The Boys will remain the worst-received episode remains to be seen.