Minor spoilers follow for The Boys season 4! The penultimate episode of The Boys season 4 has put the show’s characters in unique positions. Not only is Ryan fully questioning his dad Homelander thanks to Butcher, but Annie January/Starlight has been replaced by a shapeshifter ahead of the Presidential inauguration. But while all these major plot machinations were taking place, The Boys also brought back its best character in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo. When Ryan finds a present on the set of his Vought Christmas special that he quickly realizes is from Butcher, he opens it to find a framed photo of Butcher and Rebecca together. It’s a tender moment, one that reminds Ryan of who he is and how he was originally raised, but most importantly it brings back Terror the bulldog to The Boys.
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It’s been two full seasons of The Boys since we last saw Terror the Dog and for fans of The Boys comics, and fans of good boys in general, this is entirely too long. The last time we saw Terror he was staying with Butcher’s Aunt Judy, and was given a somber goodbye from Butcher as she would seemingly continue to watch him for the foreseeable future; we can only assume that is still the case.
Terror was a staple of The Boys comic books, but frankly The Boys TV series was never in a position to make him a cornerstone of its cast. As series creator Eric Kripke told EW back in 2019, the reason Terror wasn’t a big part of the show was a “boring and practical one,” mostly just the challenge of having an animal on set and always accounting for it in any given scene. The series eventually brought Terror in, but as Kripke revealed to EW after season 2, “shooting it was every bit the clusterf–k I thought it would be.”
“We got that dog based on its ability to hump on command and if you notice in the episode not once does it do it because it wouldn’t, of course, because it’s a dog and dogs don’t take direction,” the showrunner revealed. “Terror is a star but a really inconsiderate diva. I just saw the endless amount of frustrated dailies, hours and hours of footage of the dog just sitting there and people trying to cajole it to do something that he doesn’t want to do.”
Thank you Eric for giving us what we wanted, even if it was just a stationary dog in a photo that was probably photoshopped.
The Boys has already confirmed it will return for season 5, its final season, so the hope for the return of Terror will no doubt live on.
In The Boys season 4, Karl Urban stars once again as Billy Butcher, leader of The Boys, which also includes Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell, Laz Alonso as M.M., Tomer Capone as Frenchie, and Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko Miyashiro. Some of the “supes” featured in the series include Antony Starr as Homelander, Jessie T. Usher as A-Train, and Chace Crawford as The Deep. Other stars of The Boys include Colby Minifie as Ashley Barrett, CEO of Vought International, and Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman.
The world is on the brink. Victoria Neuman is closer than ever to the Oval Office and under the muscly thumb of Homelander, who is consolidating his power. Butcher, with only months to live, has lost Becca’s son as well as his job as The Boys’ leader. The rest of the team are fed up with his lies. With the stakes higher than ever, they have to find a way to work together and save the world before it’s too late.
