Let’s recap where Butcher is at season 4’s onset. In season 3 of “The Boys,” he took a temporary form of Compound V to gain superpowers and fight Homelander hand-to-hand. But when the time came to kill him, he blinked. The Temp V left Butcher with terminal brain cancer and about 18 months left to live, so his revenge is now on a timetable. “I want to do one thing right with the time I got left,” he tells the other Boys in the trailer. Meanwhile, “Gen V” season 1 featured a manufactured virus that kills supes. The season ended with Butcher investigating the lab where the virus was made. Going off the season 4 trailer, he’s found some samples and calls the virus, “The answer to all our prayers.”

All of this, mixed with Homelander prepping for war, means Butcher will be pushed to even further extremes than before. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s new character Joe Kessler (in the comics, a CIA analyst and ally of the Boys) is also pushing Butcher to take action “before the Supes start rounding us up and dumping us off in camps.”

It’s likely that the virus is a simplified version of Butcher’s supe-genocide plan from the comics (using a worldwide sonic signal to detonate Compound V particles). “The Boys” creator Eric Kripke has said in the past the show will likely have five seasons. (Though, granted, he backtracked in October 2023 and once said his show “Supernatural” would have five seasons too, when it ultimately ran for 15.) Season 4 being the march to war, followed by season 5 adapting the comic’s last two volumes — with Homelander’s death at the midpoint and Butcher’s plan taking up the last few episodes — would be a solid structure.