The Boys Series Finale Is More Faithful To The Comics Than You Thought

Contains spoilers for "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 8 – "Blood and Bone"

The bold final season of "The Boys" is over, and fans of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book will notice that the show's ending is suspiciously familiar. While both entities have been distinct for a long time now, with many differences between "The Boys" comic and show, the series finale still manages to be surprisngly faithful to the source material. 

Both versions feature an Oval Office showdown involving Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Homelander (Antony Starr), and a third powerful supe. In the comics, the third party is Black Noir, while Ryan Butcher (Cameron Crovetti) assists Billy on the show as Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) largely watches from the sidelines. The battle also ends with Butcher using his crowbar to pry open the head of the supe he holds responsible for Becca Butcher's (Shantel VanSanten) death — Noir in the comic, Homelander on the show. 

It doesn't stop there. Both stories go on for a while after Homelander's defeat. Their climactic moment is a big tower showdown between Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid) and Butcher over the latter's late-game plan to release the supe virus. Hughie kills Butcher in both versions, but it's made clear that Butcher isn't too keen to use deadly force on his comrade, and doesn't really mind the outcome.

Of course, the two versions of the ending have plenty of differences, too. The comic features a full-on supe rebellion and the White House is surrounded by the military before Butcher walks in for the final confrontation. The physical fight at the Oval Office is strictly between Black Noir and Homelander. It happens after "The Boys" changes everything with a Black Noir moment that reveals Noir is a Homelander clone who's been messing with the original's mind by committing atrocities in his name. Homelander is far from a sniveling coward, actually initiating the fight. Butcher is merely present, and delivers the crowbar coup de grâce after Homelander is dead and Noir severely injured.

Likewise, the final confrontation between Butcher and Hughie is different on the page. The comic Butcher has already assassinated the rest of the Boys. The face-off takes place at the top of the Empire State Building, and leans more into their history and dynamic than the show does. In the comic, it's made explicitly clear that Butcher understands he's too far gone and genuinely wants Hughie to stop him, while the show keeps things more ambiguous.

Despite all this, the two endings are definite spiritual siblings. It's impressive that the show manages — or even bothers — to pay such homage to the source material after steering so far from it for so long.