The news that The Boys will end with Season 5 may have hit Prime Video execs the hardest.

Showrunner Eric Kripke made the final-season declaration on social media Tuesday morning, writing, “The Boys Season 4 Premiere Week is a good time to announce: Season 5 will be the Final Season! Always my plan, I just had to be cagey till I got the final OK from Vought. Thrilled to bring the story to a gory, epic, moist climax. Watch Season 4 in TWO DAYS, cause the end has begun!”

The Boys, of course, is one of Prime Video’s most successful shows in terms of popularity, media attention and franchise-building. So did the streamer push back and try to change Kripke’s mind about concluding the series?

“I would say they did lovingly,” Kripke tells TVLine with a laugh. “There was no like, ‘You have to keep this show going.’ It was more of like a very friendly and respectful like, ‘Are you sure Season 5 is the last season? Are you sure you don’t want to do more?’”

“But we were already, like, barreling towards this,” Kripke continues. “The truth is we knew that it was going to be a five-season story for years now. I mean, probably since writing the beginning of Season 3, we knew, and so we were already laying down track that was always heading in this direction. Honestly, they’ve been great about letting us end it on our own terms. I’m really grateful.”

And in exchange, did Kripke have to promise Prime Video a couple more spinoffs of The Boys, which has already launched the offshoots Gen V and The Boys Presents: Diabolical, and is eyeing a potential Spanish-language, Mexico City-set expansion?

“No, no,” Kripke replies with a laugh, jokingly adding that he had to hand over “just one pint of blood and a promise that I would forever be a Prime customer.”

The Boys’ penultimate fourth season premieres this Thursday, June 13, with its first three episodes.