The Boys made an art form out of creating satirical parodies of famous superheroes. It starts with obvious questions like, "What if Superman were evil?" Or "What if Aquaman was attracted to fish?". By the fourth season, it's pushing against every question a superhero society could inspire. It's easy to pin down most of the show's parody characters. Whether they're riffing on a comic book icon or a real person, they're rarely subtle. Oddly enough, Butcher used to be a more obvious reference, but his new developments changed his theme.
The Boys is rocketing toward a dynamic finale. The show has grown so much over the past few years, escalating from a personal narrative to a massive scale with the fate of the world at stake. The next season will be the end of the show. It's exciting to see a series eagerly approaching its finale with a clear plan as to how they'll cap things off. Stories like The Boys only work with a diabolical ending, and the end of season four feels appropriately explosive.
The Boys Season 4 Ending, Explained
The latest season finale sets up the darkest era of this controversial superhero satire.
Who is Billy Butcher based on in the comics?
Billy Butcher is a parody of the Punisher in The Boys comic. In both versions, he's a vigilante in a black leather trench coat. Butcher solves all of his problems with violence and seeks to kill every member of the group he despises. Butcher seeks revenge for the death of a loved one and goes to absurd extremes to carry out his goals. He's a mortal man in a world of superheroes, gifted only with the enhanced physicality and skills of a trained killer. The comparison is fairly perfect. Butcher is Frank Castle, but he's also much worse than his inspiration. Castle is a killer, but there's a consistent thread of supporting characters who warn him that he'll eventually cross an unforgivable line. Butcher intends to cross that line from the moment he starts his journey. When he enacts a genocide on the supes he despises, he quickly becomes the antagonist. It's no shock that writer Garth Ennis would center his comic around a Punisher expy. Ennis wrote Frank Castle for almost a decade. He appears to be the only comic book character that Ennis has any fondness for. Butcher is still a monster, but his fate is at least treated with the kind of cool violence that Ennis reserves for his favorites.
How does Billy Butcher change in The Boys season four?
Billy Butcher has been an excellent character throughout Eric Kripke's adaptation of The Boys. Season four finds him removed from his position of power. The CIA fires him, his friends can't trust him, and he's rapidly dying of cancer. In season three, Billy briefly picked up the habit of using V24, a temporary form of Compound V. Unfortunately, even short-term use results in terrible cancer. Billy spends the season trying to tie up his affairs before he shuffles off his moral coil. Butcher's primary goal is to save Ryan, the superhuman son his wife gave birth to after Homelander raped her. Ryan teeters between his two potential father figures. He hates and fears Homelander. His better nature constantly pushes him away from his biological father. Ryan comes so close to abandoning the monster that shares his DNA, but it all falls apart. On some level, Ryan loves the power of his relationship with his dad. He enjoys getting to do whatever he wants, exercising the same unstoppable authority that Homelander embodies.
Butcher also swings between two voices, though both of his are in his head. While he slowly wastes away, Butcher sometimes sees his late wife. She's the angel on his shoulder, just as she was when she was alive. She forces him to stay true to his last promise to her, keeping him on the path to saving Ryan. While Butcher is mourning the loss of everything good in his life, he starts running into his old friend, Joe Kessler. Kessler wants Butcher to return to his old ways and dedicate all of his resources to killing Homelander. He doesn't want him to stop there, either. His message is that every supe must die. When Butcher finds the opportunity to make that happen in the form of the virus from Gen V, Kessler sees it as a miracle. Butcher is conflicted, forcing him to realize he's talking to two ghosts. Becca is his emotional trauma, but Kessler is his physical sickness. He explicitly states that the tumors in Butcher's body are sentient, enhanced by a shot of Compound V with which Butcher tried desperately to cure himself. Kessler is also, somewhat obviously, the voice of Butcher from the comics.
Butcher overcomes Kessler at first. He learns that the virus can only be strong enough to kill Homelander if it's also contagious enough to kill every supe on Earth. Butcher can't do that; he can't betray his late wife or his surrogate son. Grace Mallory arranges one last meeting with Ryan. She brings him in to see Butcher. Things go well at first. It goes sideways when Mallory tries to confront young Ryan with the truth. He knows his biological dad isn't perfect, but he can't believe that the world's most popular superhero is secretly a mass murderer. Mallory shows her hand, explaining her intention to train Ryan to use him as an asset against the tyrannical Homelander. Ryan lashes out and kills Mallory. Butcher gives up. He gives Kessler the nod and lets him take over. Butcher is now a sort of combined organism. The tumors inside him talk to him, using Kessler as an avatar. He's two minds in one body, sharing space in a symbiotic relationship. When he attacks an old enemy to reclaim the virus, he does so with black tendrils that burst forth from his torso. As Butcher leaves The Boys season four, he becomes okay with being the bad guy because he knows there's something worse out there. He's a lethal protector. Billy Butcher is Venom now.
How could Billy Butcher be different in The Boys season five?
Billy Butcher followed Eddie Brock's path with impressive accuracy. He lost his job and every relationship he's ever had. He came down with terminal cancer. He starts interacting with a terrible influence that only he can hear. He starts killing people in ways he has no meaningful control over. He even has a specific grudge against a single superhero. The connection is far deeper than the relatively incidental fact that Butcher's new trump card is essentially any given Venom attack from a Marvel vs. Capcom title. What's left for Butcher to do? Unfortunately, he's following his comic book source material as well. Butcher's prepared to make his villainous turn. He wants to eliminate the supe population with his virus. As the season ends, he and Annie are the only members of the Boys who aren't in Homelander's clutches. He's in a newfound position of power, becoming what he hated most, and setting out to destroy himself along with his enemies. It's hard to imagine the new Butcher being anything less than the final antagonist of the show.
The Boys very cleverly stakes its claim on a central theme before allowing Butcher to step out of the shadows and declare himself its enemy. Fans knew that Karl Urban's charming scoundrel would eventually go the way of his comic counterpart, leaving his villainous turn slightly less impactful. They added a lot of newfound surprise by giving Butcher the trappings of a beloved anti-hero. Billy Butcher became The Boys' answer to Venom, but fans will have to wait until the final season to see his last dance.
The Boys: The Fate Of Each Character In The Comics
The Boys already has an ending for their characters in the comics, which could hint towards what awaits those in the live-action series.