Even by the high standards that The Boys sets for itself, season 4 was particularly shocking, with plenty of big characters being killed off in horrifically gruesome ways. The Boys packs plenty of surprises into the eight episodes of its latest season, and the stage is now set for an immense fifth and final outing. While season 5 is still a long way off, The Boys has given fans enough chaotic violence to digest.

Season 4 sees Homelander and Neuman edging closer to the White House as the Boys desperately seek a weapon capable of taking them down. Naturally, there is a substantial amount of collateral damage, with minor characters being strangled, beaten, shot with lasers and even cooked alive. Amid this carnival of violent delights, The Boys also killed off a few huge characters, whose deaths will send shock waves through the show. Gen V season 2 will now have to pick up the pieces after a seismic season of its parent show.

16Marty

Marty Was Effectively Dead As Soon As Homelander Arrived

Out of all the deaths in season 4 of The Boys, Marty’s was the least surprising. As soon as Homelander killed Frank, it became clear that nobody was leaving the laboratory alive. It was only a question of how long Homelander would drag out their suffering. In Marty’s case, he was also subjected to intense public humiliation, as Homelander forced him to masturbate in front of his colleagues. Still, it says a lot about the standard of violence in The Boys that the least shocking death of the season involves a man’s genitalia being obliterated by a laser.

15Also Ashley

The Boys Gets Rid Of The Spare

The entire joke of “Also Ashley” is that she’s hilariously inconsequential, just another faceless member of the corporate bureaucracy at Vought willing to facilitate the company’s horrific crimes for a paycheck. Throughout the show, she has often stood beside and slightly behind Ashley to make her look and feel more important than she really is. Whenever the stress of the job gets to Ashley, she can turn to her left and belittle Also Ashley to regain her sense of control. It comes as no surprise that she is one of the names on Homelander’s hit list who gets dispassionately slaughtered.

14Koy

Ryan’s First Save Doesn’t Go According To Plan

There’s something very ominous about the moment in Koy’s training session with Ryan when he says “I can take it.” He may have been able to take a real push from a human stunt performer, but he certainly can’t take being launched into the side of a building. As he sticks to the concrete wall like a freshly swatted fly, Homelander shifts into PR mode and hurries to assure everyone that everything has gone perfectly. Ryan, on the other hand, is shocked at his powers. His failure to control them, both physically and emotionally, defines his journey in season 4.

13Anika

Homelander Tries To Plug The Leak

Anika never has a major role in The Boys, but she became a fan-favorite after her awkward interactions with members of The Seven in Vought’s Crime Analytics department. Many people can relate to having an uncomfortable dynamic with bosses, and Anika has to deal with the additional wrinkle that any of her bosses could immediately rip her spine out of her body if they felt like it. The Boys sends her off with another awkward little meeting, as she admits to Homelander that Starlight called her. Homelander shoots a laser through her brain before she can reveal the details of their conversation.

12Ambrosius

Deep’s Cephalopod Girlfriend Never Makes It To The Tank Above His Bed

Ambrosius’ relationship with Deep adds some levity to his character. He sees himself as a dark, brooding poet who doesn’t get the respect he deserves, but everyone sees him as an annoying tool who has sex with sea creatures. Both perceptions are correct to a certain extent. Deep repeatedly promises Ambrosius that he will move her out of the closet, an apt metaphor for their love, and into the tank above his bed. Ultimately, he shatters Ambrosius’ tank and allows her to die, rather than being open about who he is.

11Splinter

Splinter’s Death Isn’t The Most Shocking Thing About Him

Splinter is one of the new supes in The Boys season 4. It’s always interesting to see the lame supes that never make it anywhere near The Seven, and Splinter spends his time at reactionary conspiracy theory conventions. His most jaw-dropping moment comes when Frenchie and Kimiko stumble upon his one-man orgy, with clones of himself all performing oral sex on one another. His death isn’t much of a surprise in the grand scheme of things, but it’s still a visually shocking scene, as his rapidly multiplying and fully naked clones attack the Boys.

10The Shifter

Starlight Returns For Revenge

The Shifter had the potential to be one of the most powerful characters in The Boys, but her journey was cut short when Starlight escaped to seek revenge. If the Shifter had managed to get away, she could have been a troubling adversary for season 5 of The Boys, especially as Homelander and Sage set their sights on political domination. It would be useful for them to have an ally who can morph into any world leader they want. Ultimately, she is killed by Starlight before she can show the full extent of her powers.

9Frank

Frank Gets One Of The Most Graphic Deaths In Season 4

Marty is not the only victim of Homelander’s trip to the laboratory. First, Homelander recounts a story from his childhood to Frank, who soon realizes that his time is up. As punishment for playing waste paper basketball while Homelander was placed in an incinerator as a child, Frank is forced to get into the furnace himself. The Boys isn’t the type of show to pull away from graphic depictions of violence, so it shows Frank’s skin peeling off and his charred corpse curling into a heap on the floor. This moment indicates how far Homelander is willing to go to purge himself of his human weaknesses.

8Webweaver

Webweaver Falls Victim To Homelander’s Mole Hunt

Webweaver is a parody of Spider-Man, but he’s stuck in the lowest tier of supes in The Boys. Webweaver never seemed like he was going to hang around for too long, but the manner of his death is still remarkable. After Firecracker accuses him of leaking information to the Boys, Webweaver has to confront Homelander in a windowless room. He’s effectively dead from this point on, but Homelander is much more violent with him than he was with Anika. Instead of dispassionately shooting a laser through his skull, he slowly tears him in half like a sheet of paper.

7Ezekiel

Ezekiel’s Death Feeds Into One Of Season 4’s Big Mysteries

Ezekiel is a hypocritical televangelist with the ability to stretch his body as if it’s made of elastic. He and Firecracker have a lot in common, since they’re both violent and prejudiced behind closed doors, but they act pious and try to appeal to Christian viewers in public. Ezekiel catches Butcher in his trailer at Firecracker’s marathon televised event. For a moment, it looks as though Ezekiel could choke him to death, but Butcher passes out and wakes up to see Ezekiel’s remains splattered all over the walls and ceiling. This shows that Butcher has some incredible powers that he can’t control, but those powers aren’t revealed until much later.

6Cameron Coleman

Ashley Sacrifices The VNN Anchor To Save Herself And A-Train

Cameron Coleman is an anchor on VNN, Vought’s propaganda arm which masquerades as an informative news network. He is often the company’s mouthpiece, spouting whatever lie they cook up to cover for their horrific crimes and the rogue actions of their supes. However, his loyalty gets him nowhere, as Ashley sells him out to divert attention away from herself and A-Train. The nature of Cameron’s death isn’t a shock, but it shows that Ashley has developed a ruthless streak, and that nobody is safe at Vought.

5Hugh

Hughie’s Father Can’t Handle Being Injected With Compound-V

Simon Pegg made his long awaited return to The Boys in season 4, but it looked for a while as if he might have the most boring storyline of any character. This quickly changes when Hughie’s mother Daphne injects him with Compound-V in a desperate attempt to rouse him from his coma. In one of the most shocking scenes in The Boys, Hugh struggles to control his newfound powers, and he ends up accidentally killing several people in the hospital. The image of Hugh standing waist-deep in the intestines of a patient almost overshadows the incredible nature of his death, as Hughie euthanizes his own father in an act of mercy.

4Tek Knight

Tek Knight Died As He Lived

Hughie idolized Tek Knight as a child, but the Tek-Cave is a little different to what he imagined. He wanders into a dark sex dungeon as Tek Knight’s butler hoses down the floor, and his former sidekick struggles to break free from the chains on the wall. Everything that happens in the Tek-Cave pushes the risqué humor of The Boys to its limit, and Tek Knight’s eventual death is no exception. The Batman/ Iron Man parody is a masochist, but he wouldn’t have anticipated his mild-mannered butler strangling him to death with a whip.

3Todd

Todd’s Death Sets The Tone For Season 4

Todd is one of Homelander’s most devoted fans, and he’s excited to meet the head of the Seven at a secret event with two other fans. When Homelander instructs Deep, A-Train and Black Noir to kill the men with baseball bats, it sets the tone for the shocking violence of season 4. This moment also shows that Homelander is done with playing the nice guy, and his lust for power is set to escalate even further. The brutality of using baseball bats is much more hands-on and personal than most of Homelander’s other kills, and this makes it even more shocking than the abstract, intangible violence of his lasers.

2Grace

Ryan Turns His Back On Butcher And Grace

Butcher’s character in season 4 is torn between his feverish pursuit of Homelander and his loyalty to the Boys. Although they spend a lot of time apart, Ryan endures a similar internal battle, as he reconsiders his relationship with Homelander. When Ryan pushes Grace away in the season finale, it represents his final decision to embrace his dark side, and Butcher does the same. Grace was a loving mother figure to Ryan for a long time, so his rejection of her and Butcher is a stunning twist. What Ryan does next will be a big question for The Boys season 5 to answer.

1Victoria Neuman

Season 4’s Most Unexpected Death Is A Game-Changer

Victoria Neuman is one of the main antagonists in The Boys, and her death in the season 4 finale changes the entire outlook of the show. With Neuman out of the picture, Homelander is still gaining power, and the new president is ready to turn the country into a police state run by supes. Neuman’s death also reveals the extent of Butcher’s powers. If he can tear one of the most powerful supes in the entire show apart without breaking a sweat, there’s no telling what else he could achieve after his dark turn in season 4 of The Boys.