It’s safe to say that The Boys season three was the most insane journey the program has ever taken us on.
With the penis blowing up, Herogasm, The Deep’s obsession with octopuses, and Ashley giving A-Train Blue Hawk’s heart (too far), one has to wonder what else Eric Kripke, the show’s creator, is thinking of.
It appears that the filming for season four has finally concluded, so we won’t have to wait long to find out. So get ready.
We do know for a fact that the fourth season will have yet another scheme to murder Homelander—basically, Superman if he were a cunning little shit.
Since the start of the program, Butcher, The Boys, and now Annie have been trying to put an end to The Seven leader’s reign of terror, and while it appeared that they had him for a short while, he regrettably continues to exist.
Kripke, though, has declared that The Boys won’t stop until the blue-eyed Supe is permanently buried.
He stated to Metacritic that “there is no way the series ends without Homelander dying.” “I simply can’t bear to see that guy continue to exist in the universe. We must take action now!”
We’re not sure how many more seasons this plotting and failing to kill Homelander formula can last, but we do know that he has to die.
So the question is, who’s gonna be the one to finally off Homelander?
Here’s who we think are the potential candidates.
Victoria Neuman
Victoria Neuman might have teamed up with Homelander in The Boys season three, but now that he’s successfully helped her secure her place as Robert Singer’s vice-presidential candidate, we’re not sure how long this alliance will last.
The secret head-popping Supe is willing to kill anyone who stands in the way of her political campaign to the top — and with Homelander being, well, Homelander, he’s always going to pose a major threat.
Neuman’s head-popping powers are certainly deadly, but she managed to get her hands on something even more lethal during the show’s college-based spin-off series, Gen V.
In Gen V, it’s revealed that Dean Shetty’s hatred for Supes traces back to the Transoceanic Flight 37 in The Boys season one, where Homelander botched the mission to save the plane, killing Shetty’s husband and daughter in the process.
Fuelled by vengeance, Shetty has been working with Dr Cardosa to create an infectious virus that kills anyone with Compound V running through their veins.
When a concerned Marie informs Neuman about the Supe-slaying virus, she meets up with Cardosa to collect it… then blows his head off after he assures her he’s the only one who knows how to recreate it.
Given Neuman and her daughter are both Supes, it’s unlikely she’ll want to unleash the infectious virus into the world like Shetty had intended to do.
But who’s to say she can’t find a way to isolate Homelander to infect only him — or any other Supe who goes rogue, for that matter?
Or, perhaps one of The Boys will find out about the virus and take matters into their own hands…
Black Noir (2.0)
We know, we know: Homelander killed black Noir. It was a shocking turn of events, given the silent enigma remained loyal to his leader no matter (and we mean no matter) what.
Episode seven’s Looney-Tunes sketch solved that mystery by revealing The Seven’s previous leader, Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), was an even bigger dick than Homelander and Noir helped detain him, Captain America-style.
But when Noir admitted to knowing Soldier Boy was Homelander’s biological father all along, the latter gruesomely ripped out his insides and left him to die while his cartoon buddies comforted him.
This isn’t the end of Black Noir, though. Not entirely.
“It’s definitely not the last we’ve seen of Black Noir as a hero,” Kripke told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s just that the guy who was inside [the Noir suit] in season three, he’s gone. But we have Nathan [Mitchell] playing a really interesting and hilarious character who wears the suit next season.”
As fans of the comics will know, the show’s Black Noir isn’t the same as the one in the comics. Comic Noir is actually revealed to be a Homelander clone, created by Vought as a backup plan in case their star Supe were to go rogue.
The silent killer eventually murders Homelander, and he’s able to do so because he possesses the same lethal abilities as him.
Ryan
In season one, viewers found out that Homelander had raped Butcher’s wife, Becca (Shantel VanSanten), years before, causing her to disappear while pregnant.
Ryan, the result of that pregnancy, was revealed to be a natural-born Supe rather than having been injected with Compound V like the others.
Cameron Crovetti’s character possesses almost all the same lethal abilities as his dad, including heat vision and, more recently, flying. And this is why he’s the ideal opponent.
As previously mentioned, comic book Noir was able to kill Homelander because he was a clone and they shared the same powers. Ryan may not be a clone, but he and Homelander share the same DNA and similar abilities. Plus, he’s proven himself to be pretty deadly, even when that’s not been his intention.
Butcher
Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is certainly no angel, but it would be so satisfying to see him finally kill Homelander.
Butcher’s hatred and desire for vengeance on the monster who hurt his wife underpins the entire premise of The Boys.
The fact that his days are literally numbered after shooting up Temp V throughout season three means season four could well be the show’s final run.
The gritty Supe slayer has nothing to lose now, and he’ll likely be even more motivated to stop his wife’s son from becoming another Supe d-bag now that he’s sided with his old man.