Editor's note: The below contains major spoilers for the Season 3 finale of The Boys.
With Season 3 of the hit Prime Video series The Boys finally premiering the finale this week, we've been following along with the ongoing misadventures of our favorite irreverent, disturbing, and often downright nasty supes who couldn't be further from heroic — as well as the team of motley outcasts the show is named for, who are determined to hold them accountable for previous and current slights against humanity, seemingly at all costs. Although a lot happened in the finale — including deaths, fakeout deaths, and Butcher's health now on a timetable thanks to all that Temp-V — there's one aspect in which the show seems even more primed to venture away from its comics source material.
In the Season 3 finale, Homelander (Antony Starr) makes a surprising move in introducing Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) to the rest of the world, officially, as his son. When a protestor inadvertently hits Ryan with a can, Homelander lashes out the hard way, resulting to straight-up murder in front of his supporters — only to be met with applause started by none other than Todd (Matthew Gorman), the new boyfriend of MM's (Laz Alonso) ex-wife Monique (Frances Turner). But as Ryan looks around at his father's unabashed fans, a slow smile emerges on his face — which sets up the possibility of a very interesting trajectory for the fledging supe heading into Season 4.
When Collider first spoke to showrunner Eric Kripke about the series, The Boys hadn't yet been renewed for a fourth season, but on the heels of the announcement that the show is officially coming back, we had the chance to circle back and find out what that finale moment means for not just Homelander and Ryan — but also Butcher (Karl Urban). According to Kripke:
"... moving forward, Ryan is a really important part of it. Both Butcher and Homelander have very good reasons to fight over Ryan, because the stakes could not be higher. If Ryan goes Homelander's way and then there's two Homelanders in the world, then that's a nightmare for the planet. If Butcher can get Ryan into the light, then that's probably actually the best weapon they have against Homelander. It's always been a show about family, and so much of Season 3 was about fathers, so I think it makes sense that Season 4 is about sons."
Granted, Butcher is also on a ticking clock now thanks to the reveal that his use of Temp-V has led to some serious health problems — the kind that mean he only has between 12 and 18 months left to live. With the possibility that Ryan could be swayed over to Homelander's side looming overhead, not to mention his own expiration date, Kripke revealed that this could prompt the de facto leader of The Boys to make some pretty risky moves in Season 4:
"That guy has a very, very driven set of goals that on his best day he was obsessed with, to an incredibly unhealthy degree. Now that he feels that his time is running out, and he might only have one more swing at this, my guess is that pushes him so far further down the road towards immorality because he's feeling his mortality. For a character like that, that's really dangerous."
All three seasons of The Boys are now available to stream on Prime Video. No release date has yet been confirmed for the upcoming Season 4.