Warning: The following article contains sensitive content regarding suicide and death
To even contemplate ranking deaths on The Boys is an uphill battle, but someone has to do it. Since its inception, superhero series satirizing DC and Marvel has set the bar for the most gruesome and bloody deaths on television.
But the key to ranking such disturbing fare doesn’t just have to do with blood and guts. Not only does a demise make the list for its visceral nature, but also for its emotional violence. The Boys doesn’t discriminate between the two, which is how we have come to decide that these deaths are the worst of the worst the Amazon Prime series has to offer.
10. Popclaw
Farewell, Popclaw (Brittany Allen). We hardly knew ye. Introduced in season 1 as a — respectfully — lower tier supe, the character was tragic from start to finish. So named because of the single talons she can produce from her forearms, she was considered a C-list celebrity for her appearances in what appeared to be straight-to-video films. The saddest part of Popclaw’s story is that she just wanted to be loved, and that led straight to her demise.
After imploring A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) to make their relationship public, the speedster continually kept her at arm’s length. Under immense pressure as one of The Seven, A-Train buckles to take Compound V. As The Boys zero in on this scandal, A-Train believes that Popclaw is at fault and decides that she has to go. As a recovering addict, A-Train manipulates her into traveling to Mexico, where he kills her by injecting her with several needles. This death is not only uncomfortable to watch due to its sensitive subject matter, but also brutally heartbreaking.
9. Translucent
Translucent’s (Alex Hassell) death doesn’t feel particularly noteworthy because he was one of the more revolting members of The Seven – and that’s saying something – but he still splatters Hughie (Jack Quaid) with his guts. After coming after the Boys, they capture Translucent and reach the inevitable conclusion. When they realize they are very much in danger of being murdered by Homelander (Antony Starr), it’s clear that the supe has to go. After figuring out that the only way to kill him is to blow him up from the inside, Hughie ultimately presses the trigger in a baptism in blood.
8. Stormfront
Aya Cash’s memorable character Stormfront doesn’t die onscreen, but that almost makes it worse. The big bad of season 2, Stormfront is revealed to be the first successful supe. She was the wife of Vought creator and an unequivocal Nazi. You can’t get worse than that, but still, her death is emotionally jarring.
After the Girls scar her beyond recognition, Stormfront can’t take care of herself. Only later does Homelander learn she has died by suicide. Fans don’t see the act itself, but Homelander’s resulting breakdown only adds to the upsetting nature of her death and shows how much she changed him.
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7. Alastair Adana
In one of The Boys’ more obvious pop culture references, Alastair Adana (Goran Visnjic) is the leader of The Church of the Collective. A religious cult obsessed with Fresca, this Church has some ties to celebrity religions that keep popping up in the news. Just like the popping of Adana’s head.
The Boys typically turns to exploding its characters, but Adana’s death was also accompanied by a surprising twist. Adana was killed by secret supe, Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), whose power was the convenient head exploding ability. Adana’s death wraps up the Church of the Collective storyline nicely, while also setting up a cliffhanger that has ramifications for seasons to come.
6. Madelyn Stillwell
You can only try to manipulate Homelander for so long before there are consequences. The former head of Vought and unofficial minder of the temperamental Seven leader, Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue), was too arrogant for her own good. Thinking Homelander was easy to control, she batted him around like a cat tracking a mouse before the supe got the better of her.
In the season 1 finale, Homelander comes to her house, and after a tense scene, kills with his laser beam eyes. This scene confirms how unhinged Homelander is and that defeating him won’t be easy. If this is how he treats someone he cares about, there is no telling what he will do to the characters that want to see him dead.
5. Black Noir
The more we got to know Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell), the more we came to love him. It didn’t matter that he had no dialogue to speak of. His comic timing and mysterious backstory were enough to endear him to any viewer. But anyone connected to Homelander is not long for this world, and eventually, Black Noir bites the dust.
After discovering he wasn’t born a super but made, he goes down a dark path that ends with Homelander disemboweling him. The reason that this death stands out is because The Boys know how to twist the knife. Season 3 reveals that Black Noir wasn’t always the mute supe we knew him had. There was a time when he took off his mask and had a personality before Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) got to him. Black Noir was another tragic story of what superpowers do to your soul.
4. Termite’s Lover
At the start of season 3, The Boys’ showrunner Erik Kripke wanted to blow audiences away, and he accomplished that mission. Always intent on pushing the envelope, the production decided to use the idea of an Ant-Man-type superhero, and the rest is history.
In the season premiere, Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) go to a party just in time to see one of the worst things imaginable. After doing massive amounts of cocaine, the supe known as Termite (Brett Geddes) shrinks down to get intimate with his partner. One thing leads to another, and while inside him, Termite sneezes, which causes him to blast to normal size. The results, as you can expect, were not ideal.
3. Rebecca
The end of Butcher’s saga to find his missing wife, Rebecca (Shantel VanSanten), ends the only way it could — in tragedy. Her death doesn’t just end her story brutally, but sets two others on a path of self-destruction. After begging Butcher to protect her son, Ryan, who was fathered non-consensually by Homelander, Butcher does his best to stay true to his word.
But his loathing for supes gets the better of him. He has become too damaged by his experiences, and after seeing Ryan accidentally kill his mother with his laser eyes, he gets even worse. Watching Rebecca choke on her own blood is a level of nauseating that The Boys don’t back away from. But it also happens to destroy Butcher as well as send Ryan right into the waiting arms of Homelander.
2. The Whale
As many mistakes as The Deep (Chace Crawford) has made during his tenure on The Seven, sometimes you still find yourself empathizing with him. No more so than during the utter evisceration of one of his best friends, the whale. The Boys has demonstrated aquatic death before, but nothing quite on this scale. Kripke blamed writer Craig Rosenberg for the bloody turn of events when he told Entertainment Weekly of the scene.
“I think [Rosenberg] specifically wanted to top the dolphin. I was initially reluctant, but he argued that there are only so many more times the Deep can kill marine life through his sheer incompetence, so let’s go out big. Through his persistence and passion for the idea, he won me over. So please send all your hate mail to him.”
Desperate to impress Homelander, The Deep rides on the back of a whale to stop Butcher and Hughie. Of course, Butcher has no interest in the sanctity of life and drives his speedboat right into the whale’s guts. Thankfully, no animals were harmed in the making of this episode.
1. Robin
The death that started it all, there is no topping the devastating death of Hughie’s girlfriend, Robin (Jess Salgueiro). In the inciting incident, A-Train kills Robin by accidentally running through her. This is a terrible consequence of what could really happen if someone through someone at that speed. There one moment and gone the next, Hughie is left holding her hands as the rest of her body liquifies. Even more disheartening is A-Train’s lack of remorse. Later confessing he swallowed one of her teeth, this death is the first civilian casualty on a long list.