The Boys season four has been kinda divisive, with the show going to more depraved lengths it ever has ben before and with the tone being significantly less cheery. A lot of characters are at their lowest, whether that’s Starlight having an identity crisis and reckoning with her attitude as a kid or Hughie having to face his dad’s mortality – it’s a bleak time. And having a truly bleak time is Billy Butcher, who is not only nearing death because of his brain tumour but is also having hallucinations that are making him more violent than ever whilst he reckons with his moral compass and a bizarre power that we’re yet to crack. This theory about The Boys’ Butcher suggests his power might actually be enough to defeat Homelander once and for all.

What actually is Butcher’s power in The Boys?

Erm, it’s unclear. We know he’s got some power from his abuse of Compound V, and has some sort of swirly black tentacle thing inside him that’s clouding his body and interacting with the tumour. There was a clue in the farm episode though about what the power might actually be.

When Butcher massacred Ezekiel, he had no clue how he tore the supe apart. But one hint at the farm suggests maybe we know what did. The rabbit Butcher finds has tentacles bursting out of it – and considering the swirly black thing going on inside Butcher’s body seems similar fans think maybe he has a tentacle power brewing.

One other theory on what power Butcher might have on The Boys stems from the show seemingly setting him up as this universe’s answer to Sentry from Marvel. Sentry is a character who is constantly battling his own psyche and warring with whether to be the evil Void or heroic Sentry – and now we know Butcher has Joe Kessler as the manifestation as the darkest side of his psyche.