Theory: Ryan is the key to the series's end, but not in the way people are thinking...

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I like that theory because if all supes are going to go extinct that means Homelander along with Ryan should also.

That's some wild stuff (in a good way).

It really does seem like they are setting up a Ryan v. Homelander situation. You can feel a shift with Homelander becoming more and more resentful of Ryan, both as a "human", as someone that has a relationship with Butcher, and as the new younger replacement of Homelander.

I feel like Homelander could easily snap and kill Ryan and say "See, I'm still the number one".

i noticed the headless cookie jar too and also saw it as a reference to his dog in the comics and that it was some sort of foreshadowing but i didnt really think too hard about what for

I think the show always wants us to finish a season yelling, “What the fuck!?”

The only reason I stand by Ryan killing Homelander, is because outside a supe virus, his laser eyes are one of the only things that could do it. 

It’s crazy because I was leaning towards Ryan being the one to kill Homelander, but to say that Ryan’s death being the final straw, especially considering Butcher’s promise to Becca, is far better storytelling!

If Ryan dies I bet his hallucination of Becca will torment him to insanity

What’s 12 more years? He can always start again, make another kid!

I could see it. I was initially against it despite also thinking Ryan wasn't going to be worth saving until this season made it almost clear he doesn't want to be as apahetic and sadistic as Homelander, nor does he actually want his mom's ex-husband to die.

Hell, Homelander's outburst in the third episode had me think he would be open to doing the equivalent of a "supe spanking."

What’s cool about The Boys is that there’s no way any other show would do something like that. Killing off a kid that we’ve grown with for a while and who actually has a real heart unlike Homelander.

But with this show it’s totally plausible, and would probably happen in a very gory, shock-value kind of way.

This could also be the scene that the director said he can't believe they got away with. A father murdering their own preteen/teenage son would be an insane thing to get past execs. I could see this.

The alternate popular theory that Ryan kills Homelander draws from a similar parallel: Homelander compares himself to Caesar during his conversation with Sister Sage.

He's referring to Julius Caesar. In real life, one of his most famous assassins was Brutus, who was rumored to be his illegitimate son.

But it's not just that.

1 - Julius' rise to power threatened to transform the Republic into a Monarchial Dictatorship (mirroring Homelander's vision of a Supe-led America).

2 - He created the Triumvirate by allying himself with two of the most powerful people in Rome, Pompey and Crassus (Neuman and Sage).

3 - Caesar was noted to be a very charismatic and powerful public speaker who was able to incite loyalty and stir crowds (Homelander's crazy loyalists).

4 - Caesar was a warrior who fought directly on the battlefield and was very generous to veterans and soldiers (Homelander is cruel and lazy but he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty at the end of the day and is relatively fair to those who support his cause).

3 - It was members of the Senate (i.e. The Seven) who were previously loyal to and worked with him politically that conspired to assassinate him later when they felt that he was growing too powerful.

I'm more inclined to subscribe to this theory than the one you wrote for a simple reason: Ryan's death would be extremely contrived. Becca is dead. Billy is dying. Homelander is definitely dying. The show is clearly setting up for Ryan ultimately being on the side of good in the end and has bent over backwards to keep him alive. He is the keystone character that every person on every side is trying to protect: Grace is basically his adoptive mom, Stormfront was enamored with him, Homelander sees himself in him, Billy sees him as the last remnant of the only thing he ever loved (Becca), The Boys have sworn to protect him, even Vought (Edgar, Vogelbaum, Madelyn) recognized that they messed up with John and Ryan was their chance to make up for it.

nahhh u cooked OP.

this might be THE theory of the season that I’ve seen.

i can genuinely see this happening either at the end of season 4 or midway thru season 5

I agree. If Homelander does kill Ryan, I could see it tying Hughie and Butcher’s story together nicely. We’ve been watching Hughie regress and become more violent, reflecting some of Butcher’s attitudes. Apart from Hughie being more aggressive with his mom arriving out of nowhere and now becoming more used to killing people, he’s also making a lot of compromises like working with A-Train to achieve his goal. It feels like his character is one or two deaths away from his tipping point and becoming like Butcher (personally, I think either Starlight or his parents.)

If Ryan is killed off, Butcher could use his remaining time to try to ‘save’ Hughie from becoming like him (assuming he doesn’t get cured.)

I could definitely see this happening. I haven’t seen the comics so I’m not sure if it’s explored there but I’m interested in the worm like shape we’ve seen twice now with regular V. First with head poppers daughter which just looked like the drug taking effect and now again with Butcher but this time much later and smaller, seeming almost alive. After the blackout and subsequent violent death of the stretchy guy combined with his vivid hallucinations I wonder if he’s slowly gaining full powers. Perhaps V is actually just a parasite or some kind. Took longer to take root in butcher because of the temp v abuse.

I totally agree. I've been thinking this ever since he crashed Ryan's first save. Homelander loves his son, but as an accessory to him. I don't think he can handle Ryan having his own agency, or god forbid becoming more popular than him. I think it's telling that he immediately went to "kill off his humanity" after Ryan betrayed him by going to see Butcher.

I expect him to snap and accidentally kill Ryan in a fit of rage at the end of the season. It would definitely be a shocker, and really reinforce Homelander's insanity. Interesting angle for Butcher too.

I won't go deep with the dog thing, but before the last episode I was thinking that Homelander was going to kill Ryan anyway.
1. The kid will never act as Homelander would want. Sooner or later he will have a Soldier Boy "disappointment" reaction
2. He is his only weakness
3. Ryan's death will be rewrite by Vaught and will get more empathy from people to Homelander
4. HL thinks he is a God and his ego is over the top. This kind of profile doesn't need a child

I love this plot idea, but I think there’s even more to it.

I think that Sage’s more hidden agenda will prop up Ryan as the Chosen One meant to defeat Homelander, which will be the catalyst for Homelander killing his own son.

This could effectively turn the entire world against him in one fell swoop, as well as sending Butcher into a genocidal spiral. But then it would become even more morally fraught, because I think most supes would also be against Homelander by that point, making Butcher’s plan feel even less justified.

I remember the original comic writer asked that of all the characters, only butcher should be kept the same as in the comics. If the show plans on honouring that, then this seems like the most likely path the show will take, as butcher will need an excuse to go full genocide on the supes.

That...wasn't black Noir. It was Jack Jupiter.

Who isn't known to the show yet.

Butcher literally guts him for it.

I’d fuck with this

Ryan kills Butcher and Homelander because he’s tired of the fighting then goes to be a Jesuit priest for the rest of his life.

Cool theory, but I believe in the comics it was Jack from Jupiter who killed Terror, not Black Noir.

Noir killed terror? I thought that was Jack

Now that I do think abt it, I vaguely remember hearing abt that but I never as knew it was canon

I felt homelander will see Ryan as a weakness that is still keeping him human. The angry, confident personality split in the mirror would eventually come to realisation and he’d see no need to pander to him anymore. “I don’t need love, not even from you”. And that’s when we see butcher unleash whatever he has inside him or something else.

This is my suspicion as well. Not the Terror stuff, I know very little about the comics, but if we are to get a version of Butcher bent on annihilating all supes then Ryan needs to be taken out of the picture. And if he’s killed by Homelander specifically it would absolutely send Butcher into a spiral.

I definitely see Ryan's death in the future. What is suspect is that somehow Homelander and Butcher will each blame the other for his death, leading to the final showdown.

Maybe The Boys recruit Ryan for some operation and he's killed by a Supe. Homelander will blame Butcher's influence for this, and Butcher will blame whatever Supe killed him.

If Trump is inspiring Homelander's current character arc, then yeah. I saw this a couple posts down and its very interesting timing

Just a few things regarding the comics reference:

Jack from Jupiter kills Terror, not Black Noir. Terror's death causes Butcher to have something like a blackout or PTSD episode where he just guts Jack repeatedly while saying "Why'd you kill me dog?" This sets up something that Butcher references a bit later when he says that sometimes he doesn't even feel like he's there, sometimes he just does things and feels like he's watching himself do them. Terror's death doesn't really change Butcher's plans or behavior, though, it just triggers an episode that causes him to kill Jack.

With that clarification, though, I don't think your theory is bad at all. I think you just need to take a look at the fight between Butcher and Ezekiel. They've already laid the groundwork for Butcher to start having blackout episodes, except in this case those blackouts allow him to tap into the V in his system. Taking your observation about the headless dog being associated with Ryan, it's perfectly possible that Ryan's death (or his perceived death, since studios get a little nervous around child murder) could be the trigger for Butcher to tap into whatever happens when his Compound V/brain lesions/hallucinations all come together.

I think Ryan will kill them both, for the max shock value downer ending. With Vought now in full control of him

Your theory makes much more sense tho

LET HIM COOOK

I think the show will end with butcher making the choice not to use the virus that kills all superheroes , choosing to sacrifice himself instead and let them live

To be honest, I don’t think we need a big moment to push Butcher over the edge. He’s already way far over the edge, in my opinion

Very much possible. They did similar thing when nobody knew who the head popper was. MM asks about who it can be, and the camera cuts to Neuman.

Homelander forces Ryan to get the V virus to test it out.

This is such a good theory....

No disrespect but this subreddit has a weird obsession will Ryan being killed by Homelander

Jack kills his dog not noir

I like this theory. The show's got guts, let's see if they kill off the kid. It'd be wild.

this is exactly what i want to happen in god of war, kratos thinks atreus dies and goes crazy on the norse gods but since atreus is loki he is still alive but kratos is unaware of it

My theory is that in an effort to toughen Ryan up, Homelander will resort to using Cate and her mind powers to remove remorse, thereby creating someone thats even worse than Homelander. Just like how Soldier Boy was already pretty bad and Homelander was worse, Ryan will end up becoming even worse than Homelander. Perhaps they're then forced to kill Ryan and that causes Butcher to snap

I was thinking a similar thing but believe it all the more considering that detail about Ripper in the books. I also think the second or last episode will have Butcher killing a fully redeemed A-Train to demonstrate how far gone he is in regards to “all supes must die”

Fits with the building tension between Homelander and Ryan, due to the relationship between Ryan and Butcher.

I think butchers new V power is when he dies he explodes. Explains what happened to stretchy perv strong. Homelander kills butcher but butcher kills homelander.