The Boys Season 4 Ending Explained: Does Soldier Boy Return?
The Boys season 4 finale sets up a bleak future for show's final season.
This article contains spoilers for The Boys season 4 finale.
The Boys season 4 went from a political super-satire to a momentous building block towards the universe’s end game when creator Eric Kripke announced that season 5 would be the final set of episodes for the Prime Video stalwart. So many of our favorite characters have grown and started heading toward the final part of their arcs this year, and many of us could see that this season was going to serve as a set-up for what’s to come more than anything.
The Boys’ season 4 finale dropped the hammer down on the titular vigilante group in the grandest way possible. Homelander (Antony Starr) is effectively unopposed now that Senator Calhoun (David Andrews) is President of the United States by the end of the hour. The Boys have been taken into custody by Vought’s supers while Butcher (Karl Urban) has enacted his solo mission to commit mass genocide on the super-abled. Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) doesn’t know whether to go with his dad or Butcher after feeling like both men are using him and taking advantage of his powers.
Here is what happens in The Boys season 4 finale.
Homelander’s Millionth Emotional Breakdown
Homelander’s fragile emotional state has deteriorated to the point where the most powerful man on the planet has an emotional breakdown or a good cry in almost every episode of season 4. With Butcher battling for Ryan’s allegiance, Homelander’s ego continues to get hit with fastballs to the skull. He’s been able to hide his anger and resentment towards Ryan for the most part, but after seeing a framed photo his son kept in his backpack of Butcher and Becca (Shantel VanSanten) after a trip to Butcher’s house, Homelander throws a suped-up temper tantrum at Vought Tower.
Homelander threatens Ryan to come to him and remember that he is his father, not Butcher. Ryan’s courageous decision to run away from Homelander and get some air is the catalyst for almost everything that happens in the rest of the episode. Homelander appears on Vought cable news with Vice President-Elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) and host Firecracker (Valorie Curry) where he decides to drop Neuman’s facade in front of the world, revealing the politician’s identity as a super-powered individual. This is his first step to draw a line between supers and the rest of the planet, and it destroys Neuman’s sense of self and purpose in the process.
The Plot to Take Down President-Elect Robert Singer Takes a Turn
Much of this episode revolves around a new villain’s plan to kill President-Elect Robert Singer (Jim Beaver).* A shapeshifter with the ability to transform into anybody and even take their memories makes Annie (Erin Moriarty) her victim at the end of episode seven, “The Insider.” By getting close to Hughie (Jack Quaid) the shapeshifter can infiltrate the Boys’ and kill Singer when the opportunity imminently presents itself.
*Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, Prime Video removed the original title of this episode, “Assassination Run,” and added a disclaimer that reads, in part: “The Boys is a fictitious series that was filmed in 2023, and any scene or plotline similarities to these real-world events are coincidental and unintentional. Amazon, Sony Pictures Television and the producers of The Boys reject, in the strongest terms, real-world violence of any kind.”
The Boys take Singer and a group of Secret Service agents deep underground in an attempt to protect him from the assassin, but Hughie finally puts the pieces together that his girlfriend may be acting a little differently than normal. With the shapeshifter inside of the bunker with the President-Elect, she puts Singer in her crosshairs and begins her attack. Fortunately, the real Annie is able to escape the prison the shapeshifter placed her in, careening in to save the day at the last moment. With Singer safe for the time being, it feels like Hughie and the gang just might still be able to maintain leverage over Homelander in the political sphere.
Hughie and Neuman’s Alliance
With Homelander throwing Neuman under the bus, the Vice President-Elect feels hopeless and doesn’t know who to turn to if not her former co-worker, Hughie. She phones him to come to an agreement in which she’ll help the Boys defeat Homelander so long as they protect her daughter from what’s to come. There’s one member of the group who isn’t in on this plan, though, and you probably wouldn’t be surprised who it is.
Laying on his deathbed, Butcher and Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) plead their case to Ryan. They ask the adolescent super to use his powers to protect the world from Homelander, but Ryan ends up just feeling trapped and used by two different sides of the same fight. After critically hurting Grace and fleeing without any signs of where he’s going to turn next, Ryan represents Butcher’s last gasp of breath leaving his body . . . or so we’re supposed to think.
Butcher Goes Rogue
With the Boys and Neuman huddled together to organize their next move against Homelander, Butcher shows up at the compound seeking blood and vengeance against all supers. Remember when Butcher tore apart Ezekiel (Shaun Benson) midseason in his trailer, seemingly revealing that whatever is growing inside of Butcher has a mind of its own?
Well, Butcher might have finally figured out how to use his new friend inside of him. Combining the power of Compound V and the tumor that was supposed to be his demise, tentacles flair from his chest, ripping Neuman in half and destroying the hopes of the Boys to use her head-popping prowess for their own liberation from Vought. Butcher leaves the rest of his ragtag team in shambles, unknowingly completing Sister Sage’s (Susan Heyward) plan to rid the White House of both Neuman and Singer.
Make America Super Again
Homelander is sitting in his wreckage and moping next to his pillow when Sage walks in with a celebratory balloon. Cable news playing in the background reveals that Singer is being arrested for his “conspiracy” to kill Neuman and is immediately taken off the presidential ticket. This is the best thing that could have happened to Homelander, as Singer’s replacement, Speaker of the House Calhoun, calls him to inform him of his plans to let supers take over the country in all decision-making.
Homelander should have trusted Sage, something audiences suspected but didn’t know how to explain. Now it’s become crystal clear that Sage suspected Homelander’s ego and fragility would lead to him backstabbing Neuman. This was the critical plot point that placed Neuman in Butcher’s crosshairs and ended her life. With Singer being recorded pleading with the Boys that Neuman should have been assassinated earlier, this was all the evidence Sage needed to put Homelander in charge of the United States through puppet President Calhoun.
With Homelander setting martial law in place and wielding unlimited power, Hughie and the rest of the non-supers are taken forcefully into custody by Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) and Kate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips). Starlight and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) are left as the only supers working against the government now, leaving them as two vital keys to saving the world in season 5.
Soldier Boy Returns
The final scene of the season teases one of the show’s biggest comebacks: Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). Homelander and Soldier Boy battled it out in season 3 only for the O.G. super to be put back in a box tucked away from society. With supers being placed at the top of the political totem pole entering season 5, it looks like father and son might be on the same team for the ultimate battle of supers versus non-supers.
Only Butcher can stop the super supremacy now, equipped with nothing but his imaginary memories of Joe Kessler (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and the virus that will kill Homelader and everyone like him. This finale exquisitely builds tension for the final season and let fans know that the battle for the planet will come down to Butcher and Homelander. We wouldn’t want it any other way!
All eight episodes of The Boys season 4 are available to stream on Prime Video now.
Written by
Shawn is a University of Washington graduate in English Language and Literature. He has been a freelance writer for SUPERJUMP, FanFare, and An Injustice! Mag. He…