The Boys Season 4 Finale Changed One Scene To Put The Spotlight On Karl Urban

The hit Prime Video series "The Boys" is deeply satirical and full of shocking laughs, but it's also pretty emotionally heavy at times too. The characters suffer tremendous losses at almost every turn, and it doesn't matter whether they're one of the series' heroes, villains, or they fit somewhere in the middle. It turns some of the characters into real monsters, but thanks to some careful writing and powerhouse performances, it's hard not to still care about them somewhat. While season 4 gets a bit bogged down in the misery of it all, there are some truly incredible performances that help hold it aloft. The villainous Homelander is expertly played by Antony Starr, who is one of the best in the business at playing emotionally disturbed killers, but his chief nemesis is portrayed with just as much nuance and skill. Karl Urban, who plays the conflicted on-and-off again leader of The Boys, Billy Butcher, has given consistently great performances throughout the series, but in the season 4 finale he really gives us the goods. In fact, the acting was so great that it actually pushed showrunner Eric Kripke and the production team to change one scene in order to better highlight Urban's performance.

Season 4 is kind of a bummer, but things have to get to their darkest place in order for the final season to have stakes, right? When it comes to Butcher, the stakes couldn't be higher because he's dying and also basically turning into this universe's version of Venom, which is terrifying. Whether or not the series takes Butcher to his ultimate, truly depressing comic book fate has yet to be seen, but if it happens, at least we know that Urban will knock our socks off.

In a post on the website formerly known as Twitter, Kripke revealed that during the scene where Butcher is telling Hughie (Jack Quaid) goodbye and gets him to promise to both apologize to The Boys for him and visit a topless steakhouse in Nevada, originally the plan was to cut between Butcher in the hospital and Hughie on the other end of the phone, but Urban was just too good to cut away from:

"So this Butcher scene KILLED me. Originally, we planned to cut back & forth between him & Hughie. But @KarlUrban was so heartbreakingly great, we just held on him. He's delivering top shelf, Emmy winning work here consistently."

In the scene, we slowly get closer to Butcher as he tells Hughie about the steakhouse in typically crass Butcher fashion, explaining that his dead younger brother thought the idea of the place was the funniest thing ever. Everything having to do with Butcher's brother Lenny is beyond tragic, so Butcher gets a far away look in his eyes as he tells the story, his grief and love for his brother both overwhelming him. He knows he's dying himself and that his hopes for his own future are dashed, so he passes those hopes on to Hughie, who has sort of become a surrogate younger brother for Butcher. Even though Butcher has done some truly terrible things, Urban's performance makes it hard to totally hate him.

What's happening to Butcher is certainly pretty sad, but it's also largely the result of his own bad choices. He chose to continue taking Temp V even after he knew that it could cause permanent damage, and it's arguable that every bad choice he's ever made has led him here. Meanwhile, Hughie has done the best he can to do the right thing in the face of impossible odds. Season 4 sees Hughie have his personal business made very public when girlfriend Annie's abortion is turned into a political weapon, then his father dies in the most traumatizing way possible, then he's sexually assaulted not once but twice! There has been quite a bit of appreciation for the actors playing the villains in the series (let's face it, that's where Butcher is now), but not enough love for the guy tasked with playing the most human character of all. Quaid is forced to be silly and funny and awkward pretty much constantly while also having to react to these huge emotional beats. If fans didn't care about Hughie, "The Boys" simply wouldn't work. 

Don't get me wrong — Urban and Starr and the other actors playing baddies are all giving tremendous performances that deserve accolades. I just wanted to point out that Quaid has to center all of the big performances and has done a phenomenal job. Here's hoping there's no more heartbreak for him in season 5, though the odds aren't good.