Like a lot of things, the finale retroactively makes how and when they introduced Temp V look like a poor decision.
It put Butcher on a level where he was able to kill supes with his bare hands, and he had perhaps the single chance to take out Homelander, but he threw it away because Soldier Boy knocking Butcher's wife's kid out of the way was worth throwing away that entire opportunity and his top priority.
The cost is now he's on the clock unless taking Permanent V is able to convert him fully or some other out, but he's otherwise even worse off than season 1 as a regular human.
Hughie's case is almost as bad because Temp V turned out to only serve a subplot for him to stay being the show's beta male punching bag. Polar opposite to Butcher, Temp V actually made Hughie grow as a character, only for the writing room to declare that as being "toxic," so now he's back to being Starbucks Skeletor's guy who turns up the dimmer switches in the room.
Season 1 was the best for me as well because of the incredible odds staked against The Boys being normal humans against not only the most powerful supes on the planet, but perhaps the most powerful corporation in the world backing those supes up. So the introduction of Temp V should have had much more impact, taking the overarching narrative to the next level just like it would for the characters taking it. Instead, it was like Annie's light show where it teased a lot of potential, only to fall on its ass, along with all the pieces being left pretty much where they were from the start but kind of worse since we saw all that growth and potential get thrown in the gutter.
pretty much everyone agrees that the leviathan arc in supernatural was the worst, including jarod and jensen. i didn't 100% like the last season and the last episode was a lot to take in (you kinda hate it at first but after ruminating on it you end up being okay with it) but there were some genuinely good seasons in there. but yeah, when you have 15 seasons there are going to be plenty of bad episodes.
Seeing Jensen Ackles in this actually made me go back to do a rewatch from the beginning for old times sake, and so far on season 1 it reminded me of what a fun show it is to just have on in between things. However, I definitely remember the leviathan arc after thinking for a moment and that was pretty rough, although it doesn't help that the idea of "Leviathan" = regular guys in skin suits until they CGI'd them as a reveal was plain disappointing given the namesake. It's a shame that despite coming out after Buffy, they never really bothered with the practical effects in Supernatural because it could look stupidly bad even during its time.
Making Homelander = to Maeve was so fucking stupid. Honestly hate that more than the fact that the season was almost a complete waste of time.
First season made it seem like they were setting it up for the rest of the 7 to team up against Homelander, which still had the odds stacked in Homelander's favor but gave a plausible way of defeating him while staying true to the story.
Instead, they just weakened Homelander out of nowhere because of shitty writers feels its more important to make a character a gay character a Mary Sue because wokeness than actually write a good story
The best justification for that stint that I've read is that Homelander was holding back because he didn't want to wreck Maeve as a callback to him saying he'd harvest her eggs. But hypothetically if that was the case, then they needed to first sell him holding back a lot better, and two, it still doesn't remotely excuse that she could make him bleed or stab him in the ear with a pen.
Is one plan going to be to Translucent Homelander's ear canal? Not only did they mess around with power levels for plot to an insane degree, but they inadvertently created a really dumb gap in his armor in the process. The finale left everything totally uneven to where nothing really matters anymore so long as the plot precedes any previously established logic.
