Ennis’ Butcher is ruthless in his quest to kill Homelander, and after a string of shocking events leads to the laser-eyed supe’s death, Butcher realizes that the void left by Becca’s demise can never be healed. Instead of taking a step back, Butcher plans to do the unimaginable: he decides to detonate a remote strain of Compound V that flows through the veins of every supe, where this explosion would exterminate millions (including innocent civilians) without discrimination. After the boys try to stop him, Butcher turns on his friends, killing everyone in the group except Hughie. During a tense confrontation on the roof between the two, they fall, leading to Butcher being paralyzed and goading Hughie into killing him. Although initially refusing to do so, Hughie stabs Butcher with an iron pipe, bringing the tale of a singularly unwell, grief-stricken man to a grisly end.
While “The Boys” has strayed away from comic book canon in its treatment of characters — such as the show’s handling of Black Noir — it is unlikely that any variation of Butcher’s comic book fate will play out in the series. If anything, season 4 seems to be nudging Butcher towards a different path, where he appears to be leaning towards making decisions that are considerate of the people around him. Yes, Butcher is still dangerous and a wild card who can flip any situation around with his devil-may-care brutality, but for the first time, he is afraid of hurting the people he cares about.
A good example would be when Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) asks Butcher to swipe her files from the CIA database that Hughie (Jack Quaid) has access to. However, he doesn’t do it at the last minute, deciding to not betray his friend.
