The Boys Just Set Up Butcher's Endgame in a Big Way

Spoilers for this week's episode of The Boys AND for The Boys comic books below! The latest episode of Amazon Prime Video's Emmy nominated The Boys featured a key scene for viewers, one that sets up the entire endgame of the series. In the most recent episode, Butcher and Queen Maeve share a drunken fling together in The Boys' office, where Karl Urban's character drops a key piece of dialogue that makes it clear where the show is headed, and fans of the Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson comic series probably won't be too surprised by that direction.

When Maeve is talking to Butcher about having used the Temporary Compound V, she makes the remark that she thought she hated Homelander, realizing in that moment how much Butcher despises him. To this Butcher makes a remark on the Temp V and how easy it made taking down the supe Gunpowder. Maeve says "It must have felt good," prompting Butcher to reply, "I hated every second....The V just made me more...me." This leads to the big revelation, Butcher then adds:

"With great power comes the absolute certainty that you'll turn into a right c-nt. I mean, that's the thing, right? You're all just people. All the V does is amp up all that sh-t that's already inside. Your lot? You're just a bunch of walking Nuclear erections. You know? And it's not just Homelander, I mean, you f-cking all got to go."

This is Butcher in a vulnerable state, putting his entire longform plan out on the table, every supe has to die before he'll feel fulfilled, something that reflects the comic book version of Butcher to a T. As readers of the comics know well, once Butcher completes his mission in killing Homelander there's still several issues left in the series, so where did the story go from there? He went after every other person in the world that had V in their system, thinking he would potentially be preventing a future Homelander from happening again down the line. The real tragedy is that this leads to him killing allies and friends, including trying to take out every other member of The Boys and ultimately, himself.

The Boys seems like it's setting the stage for this to happen in the end of the series as well, not only in terms of Butcher's plan but Homelander's inevitable slide into total madness. Series creator Eric Kripke even revealed as much in a recent interview, telling the WGA blog:

" You could track the meta-mythology of the series essentially as the slow unraveling of Homelander. So the writers know—and Antony [Starrr] is a big part of this as well—that, eventually, whenever the series reaches its climax, this guy is going to go full sociopath, and he has to be stopped before some kind of apocalyptic event. That's what we're building towards."

The first five episodes of The Boys Season 3 are now streaming on Prime Video. New episodes are scheduled for release every Friday with only three remaining.