The Boys Season 5 Reveals Just How Powerful Billy Butcher Is Now
Contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 2 – "Teenage Kix"
The ending of "The Boys" Season 4 made it clear that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is more dangerous than ever. He now has cancer-themed superpowers that manifest as vicious tentacles that are able to tear a supe as powerful as Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) apart, which indicated that he's easily one of the strongest characters on "The Boys." However, the full extent of his powers was still up for debate.
The first two episodes of "The Boys" Season 5 fix this issue. During the messy Freedom Camp 47 rescue mission, Butcher easily subdues the telekinetic Cindy (Ess Hödlmoser), who's one of the most powerful supes we've seen on the show — and would have killed her with barely any effort without interference from Homelander (Antony Starr). We also see Butcher take a blast from Homelander's eye beams, which send him flying but don't seem to cause any lasting damage.
In the second episode of Season 5, Butcher easily negates Soldier Boy's (Jensen Ackles) power charge by hitting him with a car. For this, he uses just one of his many tentacles, which implies pretty significant super strength. We also see Butcher show extreme fine motor control with his tentacles, indicating that his strength and durability come with a hefty side order of finesse.
Butcher's powers fit his personality and role on the show
When "The Boys" made the decision to keep the majority of the titular team human instead of giving them Compound V powers like in the comics, it could have severely limited their ability to go toe to toe against supes. However, the show soon revealed that the approach was an asset, not a limitation. This way, every supe confrontation was a puzzle box, simply because head-on fights weren't an option. What's more, when the show eventually decided to start tinkering with giving them powers, it had the option to be far more creative than the run-of-the-mill super strength and toughness the Boys have in the comics.
Though they don't include flight, Billy Butcher's Temp V superpowers in "The Boys" Season 3 are heavily coded as a gritty mirror of Homelander's own, up to and including those infamous eye beams. This befits his image as the supe's key adversary. Likewise, Butcher's cancer tentacle powers are incredibly fitting for his overarching role on the show: A morally dark grey figure who's able to unnerve just about anyone by simply standing there and looking ominous.
Granted, it's still unclear how Butcher's new powers would fare in a direct one-on-one confrontation with Homelander. The latter's super speed and overall toughness would probably come out on top at this stage — but Butcher's game has never been about power alone, has it?
"The Boys" Season 5 is streaming on Prime Video.