Sister Sage's Struggle with Morality in The Boys Season 5

By Sofia Martinez · Culture & Entertainment Editor

May 13, 2026 · 6 min read

Liam Crowley

Mona Khalifeh

Published May 13, 2026, 7:52 PM EDT

Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for The Boys season 5, episode 7!Don't expect a change of heart from Sister Sage!

While The Boys' fifth and final season sees Sister Sage in a real struggle between good and evil, this identity crisis isn't enough to affect real change in the evil supe. Episode 6 sees Sage team up with The Boys to initiate "phase three," after failing to predict that Soldier Boy would give the V1 immortality serum to Homelander. Initially under the impression that Soldier Boy's love for Stormfront would override his hatred for Homelander, Sage's genius intellect is put to the test. Still, she uses her abilities as the world's smartest person to go head-to-head with Vought, in a moment that sees her turn for good, all while dreaming up an apocalyptic endgame of her own that proves her trip back from the dark side was only temporary.

ScreenRant_'s Liam Crowley spoke to Susan Heyward, who plays Sister Sage, about teaming up with The Boys for the show's final season, and why we don't see a true redemption arc for Sage after all her evil misdeeds.

Sage's Foray With The Boys Isn't Enough To Cause A "Change Of Heart"

_ Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), The Deep (Chace Crawford), and Homelander (Antony Starr) conversing outside a cell in The Boys season 5

Speaking about transitioning to the "other side,"_ Heyward told ScreenRant that while she has a change of "tactics," she doesn't necessarily have a change of heart. Fans of the franchise will recall Sage's plot to orchestrate a self-serving war between humans and supes, utilizing a deadly virus that will kill both species, so she can be left alone to read books in peace. And though her game plan might have changed, Sage's desire for a quiet existence in her bunker — sans the threat of Homelander — is very much alive.

** Susan Heyward: That was great. It was really playful. They have a culture. They've been together for so many seasons already. So it was amazing to come be a guest and feel really welcome and find my own place in that. And I feel like, narratively, it was always going that way. She comes in season four and makes such a big splash. It was always going to happen that she needed to go to the other side, but I'm really happy that it didn't happen the way everyone thought it might. A-Train has his redemption arc; he has this change of heart, but we don't necessarily see that from Sage. We see a change of tactics, maybe, but not necessarily a change of heart. And I was excited to have that difference.

Being wrong for the first time also trips Sage up, with the supe, who is always seemingly five steps ahead, failing to calculate the lengths Soldier Boy was willing to go for Stormfront.

Susan Heyward: Well, two things: I think her experience of love is not great. She doesn't have a great history. So I really think it's unthinkable to her that someone would be so self-sacrificial. And to get that moment of self-sacrifice from, particularly from Soldier Boy, who makes such a big deal of being high status, being for himself, play all of the values of patriarchy — for self-sacrifice to come from that source, was, I would say, unlikely. And I use unlikely because Kripke and I talked a lot about how Sage's power works, and that she's always managing probabilities, she's always theorizing, "This is most likely to happen. This is most likely to happen." And the particular chain of events between Homelander finding out about Golden Geisha, and having a conversation with The Legend that leads to him being on the site, when he was supposed to be dead already from the video, all of that, all of those tiny, tiny things happening in one situation, I think, was very unlikely for her. So I think the probabilities finally caught up to her.

As for how the supe, who also appears on the show's since-canceled spin-off, Gen V, deals with being so wrong, that is, when Heyward says, Sage has a bit of an "identity crisis."

Susan Heyward: I think it's like a glitch in the matrix. I think she kind of gets stuck in a moment of, if this one thing didn't work, where do I go from here? Who am I? What's my purpose? What's my value to anyone? I think she goes into a huge identity crisis that she's going to need help getting out of.

Frenchie's Death Forces Sister Sage To Recalibrate Her Perception Of Love

_ Frenchie and Kimiko in The Boys season 5, standing together

While Sage struggles with love and what she thinks it means, seeing Frenchie sacrifice himself and his life for Kimiko in episode 7 has her "recalibrating"_ what love looks like for her, as she examines the greater meaning behind Frenchie's death.

Susan Heyward: It's heavy, and it's because it happened so quickly. She's got, one day, Soldier Boy exhibiting this self-sacrificial action, and then the very next day it's Frenchie doing the same thing to such a degree of losing his life. And I think she's confronted with the lived experience of what it means to sacrifice for someone else and be loved. She has that conversation with him, and he touches something in her. He speaks to her like a human in a way that other people don't. So I think she's having an emotional attachment in a way that hasn't been available to her. She tried, in Gen V, she tried to have that emotional attachment, and it wasn't reciprocated. So to be so close to it, to know that it actually is possible, I think, is a whole new one for her.

Everything Else Susan Heyward Said About The Boys' Fifth And Final Season

_ Susan Heyward as Sister Sage standing with Jessie T. Usher as A-Train in The Boys

ScreenRant: Going into the finale, it's the one episode that they've kept from us, which tells me big things are going to happen, which makes me very excited to watch, as a fan. A lot of things are changing for Sage. She has a lot of, I feel like, positive momentum going into this finale. Before I ask you any teasers for what you can say, just your general reaction to when you first read the script. And did it come to you? Did Kripke come first and brace you for what you were about to read?_

Susan Heyward: He did not. I read the script, and immediately, for me, I had very strong feelings about what I felt was missing. And it's so great, that phrase, positive momentum. There were so many factors that led her to that particular moment that I felt like I wanted to make sure where she ends made sense... I wanted to make sure that everything that brought her to that moment was acknowledged, and that in the effort to surprise the audience, we didn't jump away from what we built. So I worked really hard with him to make sure, "Okay, if this is going to happen, if this is the way that it ends, we have to make sure we tie in what's come before." So that's all I can say about that.

ScreenRant: So, really quickly to clarify, though, you said you felt something was missing in the finale. Did that get added in eventually?

Susan Heyward: It did.

Check out more of our The Boys** coverage here:

The Boys Season 5's Most Heartbreaking Death Yet Addressed By Creator

Homelander's Shocking Massacre In The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 & Future Fallout Addressed By Star

Gen V Supes' First Return After Cancellation Revealed In The Boys Season 5 Episode 7 Teaser

The series finale of The Boys airs May 20 at 3:00 a.m. ET/12:00 a.m. PT on Prime Video. Ahead of streaming, a special one-night-only, 4DX theatrical screening of the finale will occur at select theaters on May 19 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

_ 270