The Boys has come to an end, and so has Homelander (Antony Starr) and Butcher’s (Karl Urban) scorched-Earth battle, but who came out on top? Warning: Spoilers for The Boys series finale ahead!
While there were certainly some winners at the end of the series, Homelander and Butcher weren’t among them, at least not fully, as both men ultimately fell before the final curtain call. The beginning of the finale saw the titular vigilante group infiltrate the White House as Homelander was about to deliver a speech to the American public, pronouncing himself a god. Starlight (Erin Moriarty) flew The Deep (Chace Crawford) out of the building, ultimately sending him into the water, where he met a brutal demise involving a giant octopus’s tentacle.
Meanwhile, Hughie (Jack Quaid) and MM (Laz Alonso) dealt with Oh Father (Daveed Diggs), on whom they used a ball gag, which ultimately exploded the supe’s head when he tried using his sonic voice. Butcher headed for the Oval Office with Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) in tow, where she tried using her newfound power to blast Homelander and depower him.
Struggling to find the right amount of intensity, Butcher did his best to fight Homelander and keep him staying put long enough to blast him, and that was when Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) flew in, teaming up with Butcher to distract Homelander long enough for Kimiko to get the job done. Ultimately, Kimiko had a vision of Frenchie (Tomer Capone), who told her it wasn’t rage that would help her find the will to use the power, but the love she had in her heart.
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The vision helped Kimiko dispatch the blast, and Butcher, Homelander, and Ryan were all left powerless, allowing Butcher to face off with Homelander in a fair fight. Homelander was reduced to begging after the fight turned into blows. But the pleas fell on deaf ears as Butcher moved in to deliver a gruesome final blow with a crowbar through Homelander’s forehead, pulling it back to crack open his skull, assuring everyone that the former supe is dead for good.
When the Boys went off to celebrate their victory, Butcher tried to reconnect with Ryan, unsuccessfully, and upon turning to his pup Terror, discovered the dog had died, presumably of natural causes. This left him disillusioned, and Butcher set off to dispatch the virus he’d helped create to take down all supes forever, but Hughie uncovered what was going on and was forced to shoot his friend to prevent that from happening.
While Butcher’s death was less upsetting, it brought the team together one final time before we saw Kimiko visit Marseilles, MM reunite with his wife and daughter alongside Ryan, who had seemingly been adopted by his family, and then Annie and Hughie preparing for the arrival of a baby, living as civilians but still implementing help where they can.
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Below, showrunner Eric Kripke breaks down Homelander’s demise and why Butcher had to be the one to deliver the skull-crunching blow. He also reveals the reason for Hughie and Annie’s baby name choice.
When it came to Homelander’s death, it wasn’t this massive, scorched Earth battle, but a fight contained to the Oval Office. Was the intent of that to show off Homelander’s fear of death, the powerlessness he experiences, or the humiliation of it unfolding on live TV?
Eric Kripke: I feel like the best climaxes and the best finales are the ones that have a personal intimacy and rawness. Whenever we did, for instance, Supernatural, the [deaths] that were just about the characters, and their fighting. That Oval Office scene took two weeks to shoot, but that always meant more and impacted me as a viewer way more than some big thing that was just about explosions. It’s just not interesting to me. The things that I love most about that final fight, beyond the unbelievable choreography that John Koyama did — I mean, just stunning work — are the emotional beats.
It’s Kimiko, releasing the idea that she’s this monster and weapon, but finally accepting she’s a loving person, and that that helped save the world, Ryan coming in, and then Butcher seeing a powerless Homelander and how absolutely pathetic he is… [He’s] just this burbling, desperate p*ssy, and we really wanted to make the point that most autocrats and dictators, when faced with that final gun, behave that way. Saddam Hussein getting pulled out of the spider hole, look up what happened to Mussolini, and they immediately flipped from being like these brutal, powerful men to these huge, pathetic losers. I think that was the point we wanted to make with Homelander.
Homelander has terrorized everyone on this show. Why was it Billy to deliver that final skull-opening blow, which I can still hear in my head?
I think that was a series of produce and meat getting ripped in half, by Wade Barnett, our sound genius, but yeah, it had to be Butcher. It was Butcher’s white whale all along, and I think it would have been so unsatisfying if it were anyone but Butcher, you know? So that was his moment to have. We really spent a lot of time in the break making sure that everyone got a moment. Hughie gets to use his technical prowess one last time, and Annie gets to deal with the Deep, MM gets to use Chekhov’s ball gag, and obviously, Kimiko, Ryan, and Butcher [take down Homelander]. We built it so you could cheer for everyone, but that final moment had to be Butcher.
At the end, it’s revealed that Hughie and Annie’s future baby is named Robin, presumably after Hughie’s girlfriend, who was killed in the series premiere. What was the decision behind that choice?
David Reed and Judalina Neira, who wrote the episode, pitched that idea, and I loved it. I thought it felt like the right full-circle moment. They’re standing outside an electronics store near the curb. He’s wearing the green jacket, and she’s wearing white and gold. It just felt like it was a nice way to bring everything together. Annie’s not threatened by that, and she wants to pay respect to Robin just as Hughie does, and I think it shows a renewal, it shows hope.
The Boys, Seasons 1-5, Streaming now, Prime Video
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