(Image Source: Prime Video)
The final episode of The Boys made one surprisingly hopeful change from the cynical comics. This might surprise some given the general dark tone of the Prime Video series. However, the grand finale of the show did give one of the leads a more unambiguously happy ending than the source material.
The final episode of The Boys Season 5, “Blood and Bone,” ended happily for most of the titular team. This was a major change from the comics, where Butcher killed most of his teammates. Hughie Campbell was the only one who survived to the end of the series. The comic ends with Hughie and Annie “Starlight” January reconciled after some turmoil, but that is about all the two finales have in common.
(Image Source: Dynamite Entertainment / Darick Robertson)
The Boys #72, “You Found Me,” opens six months after Hughie killed Billy Butcher to stop a genocide of superhumans. Hughie is shown using his CIA credentials to take care of some business. Some of it is sentimental, such as infiltrating a bridge dedication to write “MM F+F” in the wet cement in honor of his fallen friends. However, most of it is line with Butcher’s actions over the course of the series. This includes leaking a sex tape of CIA director Susan Rayner as she’s launching her bid for public office. Hughie also blackmails Vought-American executive James Stillwell with the threat of enacting Butcher’s genocide plan if superhumans are ever marketed as military solutions.
While The Boys sequel series “Dear Becca” implied that Hughie got out of covert ops after reconciling with Annie, this all undercuts Butcher’s assertion to Hughie in The Boys #71 that “you stayed yerself no matter what I done.”
The Boys show lets Hughie stay noble
By contrast, The Boys’ series finale “Blood and Bone” allows Hughie to more clearly retain his morality. In the final scene, Hughie is called by the newly reinstated President Robert Singer. Hughie is offered a job running the newly reformed Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs.
(Image Source: Prime Video)
Hughie turns down the job, saying he’s already got “a start-up venture.” This turns out to be his own independent electronics shop, like the one he worked at when the series opened. He’s still involved in the hero business, however, assisting a now-pregnant Starlight with her vigilantism outside of Vought’s control.
This change further cements Hughie’s status as the moral center of The Boys. Even with the show’s Hughie killing Butcher honestly rather than being goaded into it, he is still confirmed as a good man. It is a small thing, but better suits the less cynical tone of the Prime Video series.
