Every episode of The Boys, Prime Video’s ultraviolent, savagely satirical superhero series, offers an abundance of gross moments. Some involve violence. Some involve sex. And others feature characters crossing moral, personal, and ethical boundaries. But even for a show in which no one’s hands are ever fully clean — literally or figuratively — some characters behave worse than others.
The Boys’s penultimate season comes to a close with several unpredictable twists (make sure to watch through the credits) and a lot of predictable gore and mayhem. So who finishes on top? The answer may surprise you (if you haven’t watched the episode yet; if you have, it’s no surprise at all). But before putting a bow on the fourth season, let’s rank the characters’ grossness one final time.
19.
Kimiko (tie)
19.
Frenchie (tie)
It perhaps says everything you need to know about The Boys that, as the season ends, the heartwarming relationship is between a recovering-junkie criminal and a mass-murderer refugee from a violent revolutionary sect. Yet it’s downright sweet to see them — finally — kiss at the end of four seasons of tension after Kimiko reveals she has had feelings for her best friend all along. It’s a beautiful happy ending for the couple. Or it would be if the episode didn’t keep going.
18.
Hughie (tie)
18.
Starlight (tie)
If The Boys’s other (super)power couple ranks slightly higher, it’s for two reasons: (1) They have been together for a while, so there’s less novelty to their relationship, and (2) most of their interactions in this episode involve Starlight being disgusted by Hughie unwittingly having a lot of sex (including “butt stuffâ€) with the murderous shape-shifter posing as her. Still, their resilience as a couple is pretty inspiring. “You are getting tested for every fucking disease known to mankind†may not sound like an expression of affection in any other context, but here it’s synonymous with “I love you forever.†What’s more, they’re united in their vision for a less violent world despite all the violence they have witnessed and administered, a vision that seemingly has no place in the universe of The Boys.
17.
Mother’s Milk
Marvin’s keeping it together for the sake of the team and, by extension, the entire world. A meltdown here and there aside, he has risen to the occasion every time this season has tested his leadership skills. He’s a rock.
16.
Zoe
Shut down immediately after baring her tentacles, Victoria’s daughter is mostly along for the ride in this finale, though we know what she’s capable of. And living at the Red River Institute seems likely to bring out the worst in her.
15.
Victoria
Also likely to bring out the worst in any kid: seeing their mother brutally murdered before their eyes. Victoria may be driven by fear or a lack of other options, but she makes an earnest effort to return to the light after she’s outed as a supe on national television and realizes the full awfulness of Homelander’s plan. True, she probably should have considered this before, but, as with Hughie, let’s focus on the Politician Formerly Known as the Head Popper’s potential for redemption, a potential that will forever remain unrealized following her murder at the hands (protuberances?) of the superpowered Butcher. RIP.
14.
Ashley II (tie)
14.
Simpering Vought Writer (tie)
Also RIP the other Ashley and the writer who, to save his life (literally), can’t quite convince the Deep that he thinks he’s awesome. To be fair, it’s a big ask. Though there’s a ceiling on how un-gross anyone working for Vought can be, they’re innocent(ish) victims of Homelander’s bloody purge.
13.
Adam Bourke
There’s no reason to think Vought’s go-to director has had a change of heart just because the studio shelved Saving A-Train, ostensibly because this move will be more profitable than releasing it. (They’ve Zaslaved it, in other words.) But he is, in his own scummy way, fighting on the side of artistic integrity. #RELEASETHEBOURKECUTAGAIN!
12.
Dakota Bob
Typical Dakota Bob, playing both sides of an issue and keeping the truth from the American people to grab power. These Washington fat cats, right? They just want to line their pockets while fighting off a Vought-aligned cabal doing its best to turn the United States into a fascist dictatorship under Homelander’s iron fist. Whoever said both parties are the same sure got it right!
11.
Grace Mallory
Spending time with Ryan immediately melts Grace’s icy exterior. It’s really nice to see. Still, Ryan’s not wrong when he says she’s using him, just like his father did, and she could be a little gentler in laying out the ugly side of Ryan’s origin story. (Though there may not be a gentle way to say “Your mom not only didn’t love your dad, he raped her and kept her in sexual bondage.â€) Still, she deserves a better fate, or at least a less messy one.
10.
Ashley
Most weeks, Ashley does well on this chart because of her seemingly complete moral bankruptcy and willingness to do anything to stay ahead. But at some point during her time at Vought, staying ahead turned into staying alive. She may not be “good†exactly, but many of her actions aren’t of her own choosing anymore. In this episode, it’s actual physical repulsiveness that secures her a fairly lofty perch. Fearing for her life, she shoots up with Compound V, and though we get only a glimpse of the side effects, they look pretty nasty. No Dave Matthews chill-out mix will fix this.
9.
Ghost of Joe Kessler
It’s probably not fair to blame the late Joe Kessler too much for his genocidal designs since, as he likes to point out, he’s really just Butcher’s worst instincts made flesh (sort of). That doesn’t mean he’s not a nasty character, though. (Ghost Becca remains conspicuously absent.)
8.
Sage
Similarly, Sage isn’t directly responsible for any of the bloodshed and mayhem in the season finale. But she’s 100 percent indirectly responsible, as she’s eager to point out when she says, “This is the plan.†“Buckle up for Phase Two†sounds pretty ominous too.
7.
Firecracker
Beyond her usual thinly veiled (and sometimes not-at-all-veiled racism) and Homelander worship, Firecracker’s worsening medical condition promises a lot of nastiness to come. Those adjustments she made to provide Homelander with (sometimes cilantro-accented) milk seem to be backfiring. Wherever this goes next season won’t be pretty, but for now, it’s just ominous coughs and rumblings of trouble to come.
6.
Ryan
A couple of characters cross moral Rubicons in this episode, including Ryan. He may just be a confused kid, unsure of what to do about his emerging superpowers and torn between his two father figures, but he’s capable of making choices. Here, he chooses violence. And not the ordinary face-smashing kind expected of The Boys — he kills Grace, a maternal figure who just wants the best for him (as long as “the best†aligns with her agenda). The look Ryan shoots Butcher while standing over her body is eerily reminiscent of Homelander’s who-are-you-to-question-my-actions-puny-mortal face and locks in Butcher’s decision to kill the world’s supes no matter the cost, even if that includes his own life.
5.
Black Noir II
The second, more talkative Black Noir has started to develop a “murder boner†after killing. All that shyness about bloodshed and reluctance to take lives? Out the window.
4.
The Deep
For the Deep, crushing insecurity and casual violence have always gone hand in hand, and this episode does nothing to change that. He forces someone to kiss his ass, then kills them, serving both impulses at once. But deep down, he knows the only way he can get anything resembling respect is with threats of violence. Even with his days of cephalopod bestiality behind him (presumably), he remains a layer cake of awfulness.
3.
The Shapeshifter
But does the Deep’s awfulness have as many layers as the shape-shifting assassin? Weirdly, no. Not only have they spent quite a while pretending to be Starlight and sleeping with Hughie under false pretenses, they’ve also taken the opportunity to manipulate his emotions. By mid-episode, Hughie believes he’s getting married to the woman of his dreams, only to learn the real woman of his dreams was being imprisoned in chains and is now angry and deeply confused by his accidental infidelity. But it goes deeper: The Shapeshifter revels in messing with Hughie’s emotions and in taunting the real Starlight about everything they’ve done (and how often and using what orifices). Then there’s this: They have access to their victims’ memories and feelings and are happy to weaponize them, which increases the vileness considerably. Also, it looks disgusting when their powers start to fade and their skin starts to fall off. They’re tough to top. And yet …
2.
Homelander
Homelander commits fewer violent acts than usual in this episode, but it doesn’t matter. All the chaos is his fault (even if Sage masterminded the particulars). The world is on the verge of collapsing into totalitarianism because one troubled, self-hating man has too much power, too many people who refuse to tell him “no,†a spectacle-and-propaganda-driven media that prop him up, and a gullible populace eager to believe whatever lies come out of his mouth. (Are we still talking about The Boys?)
1.
Butcher
Yet it’s Butcher who tops the final grossness ranking of the season. He has always been a morally dubious sort willing to break some eggs to make whatever omelet he feels needs to be made. Still, he has remained a hero even if the label has often felt like an odd fit. But killing Victoria as she attempts to repent, however great her crimes, changes that, maybe forever. Despite all we’ve seen him do, we expect better of Butcher, which makes this all the more repellent. Well, that and the tentacles emerging from his body. They’re really nasty too.