Fans Are Asking — Why Did Hughie Kill [SPOILER] in 'The Boys' Series Finale?

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Season 5, Episode 8 of The Boys.

As anyone who has seen even a single episode of The Boys expected, the series finale was an absolute bloodbath. However, one of the deaths came from a rather surprising source.

Instead of longtime enemies killing each other, it was sweet Hughie who shot his longtime ally, Butcher. Although the two men have certainly had their ups and downs, no one thought either would ever actually murder the other one.

Now, confused fans are asking why Hughie killed Butcher in the show's final episode.

As Butcher admitted, he didn't really leave Hughie much of a choice. Butcher had put the Supe-killing virus in Vought's sprinkler system and was about to press a button that would activate it. The result would be that the virus spreads in the world, and all Supes would die.

Not only was Hughie never a fan of Butcher's plan to commit mass murder, but it's also worth remembering that Hughie's girlfriend, Starlight, is a Supe, and she would've died from the virus as well.

In Hughie's defense, he did try to get the button away from Butcher before he could press it, but Butcher overpowered him. Seemingly wanting Hughie to kill him, Butcher even warned that he was determined to release the virus, and no one could change his mind.

Interestingly, in a scene that shows us Butcher's thought process, it seems that he did actually reconsider his plan at the very last second. Looking at Hughie, he was reminded of his brother — and his humanity.

However, Hughie obviously couldn't read Butcher's mind and was unaware that there was still hope for his friend to have a change of heart, so he took advantage of Butcher being distracted and shot him dead.

Surprisingly, a lot of fans actually agreed with Butcher's reasoning and felt that Hughie should have let his ally continue with his plan. Butcher had explained that if he didn't kill all Supes, there would be another just like Homelander one day, and the same cycle would repeat itself in the future.

Apparently, many viewers agreed with that assessment. In fact, many claimed that Butcher was thinking about the greater good, while Hughie was selfishly trying to protect Starlight.

On the other hand, some fans believed that Butcher was never going to follow through with the Supe genocide. Rather, he wanted Hughie to step in and kill him, as he felt he had nothing left to live for.

He had finally killed Homelander, a goal that had kept him fighting for his life all this time. Yet, he seemingly felt empty after his victory. Furthermore, Terror had just died, and Ryan wanted nothing to do with Butcher, likely making him feel that he didn't have a future to look forward to.

Unfortunately, it seems that The Boys missed the opportunity to flesh out that character arc. As this Reddit user pointed out, "I quite like the parallel. No amount of power would be enough for Homelander. No amount of vengeance would be enough for Butcher."

If only the script had taken an extra few minutes to shine a light on that development.