Half a Year Later, The Boys Fans Are Still Haunted by One Season 3 Moment
Viewers call the very last shot of The Boys Season 3 "the most disturbing thing the show has ever given us."
The Boys season 3 finale did not go the way fans expected. Though Butcher and the Boys had a perfectly good plan for eliminating Homelander, the presence of Ryan and Butcher's flawed decision-making ruined it. Despite everything going wrong in the finale and many distressing scenes happening, one particular moment was the most troubling for some fans. Ryan's smile at the very end of the final episode gave fans chills.
In the Amazon Prime show, Ryan is a much more significant character than in the comic series. His arc in the comics is actually very short. In both the comics and adaptation, Ryan is a result of Homelander (or his clone) raping Becca Butcher. However, in the comics, the superpowerful boy was never even given a name since he died before his first birthday.
The Amazon Prime series, however, went another route and gradually developed Ryan into a significant character and even a possible antagonist in the upcoming season 4. In season 1, we see Ryan as an innocent boy living a simple life with his mother. But both Butcher and Homelander turning up on their doorstep complicated things.
After Homelander helped – or rather made – him unlock his Supe powers, Ryan accidentally killed his mother and Stormfront. It made Butcher distance himself from the boy, which allowed Homelander to connect with his son. So Ryan taking the side of his biological father was a question of time.
The last shot of the season 3 finale seems to be the moment Ryan turns dark. It follows a horrible scene of Homelander publicly killing a person who insulted the Supe and the crowd cheering such a cruel act.
"I was kind of shocked to see Ryan smile on the end but at the same time it makes sense, he has just realized that he and his father can get away with pretty much anything," one of the fans explained on Reddit.
The fact that Ryan's chilling smile is not a performance of a terrified child is confirmed by the music used in the shot, which refers to the moment Hughie crushed his room in season 1. It acts as a symbol of childlike innocence being destroyed by hatred.