The Boys finale may have come out last week, but that hasn’t stopped fans from continuing to dig into every little detail.
With season four coming to a close, only one more chapter in the story of Homelander and Billy Butcher remains.
In the final episode, we see a massive step being taken towards that showdown, with Butcher officially going over the deep end.
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The British supe-killing menace finally gives in to the tumour in his brain, manifesting in a Jeffrey Dean-Morgan hallucination-y form, telling him to kill all supes.
By giving in, Butcher unlocks nascent supe powers that had popped out a few times in the season, shown by horrible tentacles coming out of his chest.
This change in Karl Urban’s character is emphatically shown, with Butcher showing up and finding the super-powered Vice President Victoria Neumann alongside the titular Boys.
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What happens next is an utterly gruesome kill, in which Butcher’s tentacles hit all the Boys out the way and proceed to pull Neumann in half.
Her guts and blood explode on top of Hughie, and it’s an absolutely shocking moment that signifies that a now-genocidal Butcher may be as much a problem in season five as Homelander.
And fans reckon though they’ve figured out why Butcher was so quick to tear her in half.
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One fan posted on the subreddit r/TheBoys to say: “Y’all remember Susan from S1 or S2? It wouldn’t surprise me if he had revenge for Neuman for what she did to Susan.”
Susan was a CIA contact of Butcher’s that he was incredibly close to, who died after Neumann used her supe power to pop her head.
They also pointed to a courtroom scene in season two in which an insider was set to reveal the secrets of Vought to a senate hearing.
The theory pointed to that, and said that they think if it had gone ahead, Butcher and his wife Becca may have gotten Ryan back in season two.
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And many were convinced, commenting that they were now sure that this had played a role.
Neumann had been convinced to change by Hughie at the end of the finale, however, fans seemed to think this ignored what she’d done in the past.
One commented: “That's the thing with me, I love Neumann but I can't ever condone her ways and path to glory, she killed so many people in cold blood and didn't hesitate on anyone except Hughie and while it did show there's a sliver of humanity in her and a nice person inside, she's unhinged when it comes to killing.”
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Another said: “Thank god somebody understands, Neuman is 100% untrustworthy, she threw Stan Edgar under the bus, gave her own daughter compound V and aligns with Homelander in season three.”
One fan even went as far as to say: “Neuman was a coward and a puppet who betrayed everyone close to her.
"I hate to say it, but Butcher did the right thing.”
Michael Slavin