This story contains spoilers for The Boys on Prime Video and the comics.
The Boys Season 3 is rapidly approaching its finale, and it looks like there could be a whole lot of bloodshed on the horizon. While any number of our series regulars could be on the chopping back before the finale, all eyes are on Jack Quaid’s Hughie Campbell as he goes down a troubling path of addiction and self-inflated masculinity. Now, fans are asking whether we’ll be going into The Boys Season 4 without the series’ golden boy.
Will Hughie Die In The Season 3 Finale?
Since Hughie and Starlight (Erin Moriarty) first hooked up, the former has felt a sense of inadequacy dating a Supe. This has boiled over in Season 3 thanks to the V24 serum that gives you temporary powers. Leaning into the darker side of addiction, Butcher and Hughie are becoming increasingly obsessed with their new-found powers.
Episode 7 hammers home that something is wrong with Butcher and Hughie, but it’s doubtful that The Boys would kill off Billy Butcher just yet. When Hughie says to Butcher that his brain is “leaking,” it mirrors a scene in Episode 6 where Hughie fishes some black goo from his ear. It originally looked like this could’ve been a side effect of Soldier Boy’s radioactive qualities, but now, it’s clear it’s a reaction to V24.
In "Here Comes a Candle to Light You to Bed", Starlight attempts to give Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) her powers back by securing Compound V from Vought Tower. While rummaging through some paperwork, Starlight finds notes on V24 and a warning that it can be deadly in three to five doses – turning your brain into “f*****g Swiss cheese.” The episode ends with Starlight relaying this information to Butcher, who decides not to tell Hughie about these potentially lethal doses.
Episode 7 also makes comparisons between Hughie and Lenny Butcher (Jack Fulton). Giving Billy Butcher his own tragic backstory, we finally get to see what happened to his younger brother when Butcher is under Mindstorm’s (Ryan Blakely) control. Like in real life, Lenny takes his own life with a gun, but not before reiterating that anyone who gets close to Butcher dies. Saying Hughie is next, Lenny adds, “When he dies, and he will, then no one can stop you.” Butcher wakes from his vision and mistakes Hughie for Lenny.
There has been a lot of foreshadowing that Hughie isn’t long for this world, with a recurring mantra of him trying to “save” Starlight. Even though Starlight says she doesn’t need saving, it's this arrogance from Hughie that could see him perish during an inevitable showdown between Homelander and Starlight. In Episode 7, Homelander warns Starlight that if she doesn’t take back everything she said, he’ll do the same to Hughie that he did to Supersonic. Homelander ominously says “You walk, that’s next,” before Starlight reveals she’s been streaming him to her 190 million followers and steps into the elevator… walking away.
Does Hughie Die In The Comics?
Kripke and co. play fast and loose with the comics. Away from Soldier Boy being revamped from Homelander’s lapdog who is abused to get into The Seven, the arc of Hughie taking V24 is different from the source material. In Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comics of the same name, The Boys start taking Compound V almost immediately, while Butcher injects Hughie on their first mission against Teenage Kix.
Although Hughie is angry at Butcher, he soon comes to accept his powers (which are permanent) of improved strength and durability. There’s also a heightened sense of intelligence, which differs drastically to his TV counterpart. When jacked on V24, TV Hughie has strength and the ability to teleport.
The Boys’ comics come to a close in bloody style when Billy Butcher is revealed as the big bad and goes on a killing spree in his quest for vengeance against Supes. In 2012’s “The Bloody Doors Off” comic, Butcher kills Frenchie, Mother’s Milk, and the Female (Kimiko), before taking on Hughie in a final battle atop the Empire State building. Butcher falsely claims he’s killed Hughie’s family and forces Hughie to drive a metal pipe through his chest.
Jump forward to 2020’s “Dear Becky” comic, Hughie and Starlight are trying to live their lives when he’s sent the diary of Billy Butcher – documenting his life before the death of his wife, Becky. Along with Starlight, Hughie Campbell is one of the few characters to survive the comics, so to kill him in Season 3 would be a major departure.
Can Hughie Break the Cycle?
Butcher is a master manipulator in both the comics and the series, and knowing he’ll need all the help he can get to take down Homelander, Hughie is just another pawn in this game. The threat of Homelander is likely a contributing factor to why Hughie continues to take V24, and although Homelander was nearly bested in “Herogasm”, it took a trio of Butcher, Hughie, and Soldier Boy to hold him down. Whether killed in battle with Vought’s bad product or a V24 overdose, it’s not looking good for Hughie.
Namely, it's hard to see what's next for Hughie and Starlight. If either of these died in a finale fight, it would catapult the series into its own endgame. If it worked for Game of Thrones with Season 3’s Red Wedding, it can work here. Flipping the whole thing on its head, at least Episode 7 ends with Starlight promising to save Hughie… even if he doesn’t want her to. With so much of the comics still to go through, and Quaid’s status as The Boys’ very own Jon Snow, chances are, we haven’t seen the last of Wee Hughie just yet.