Across The Boys’ five-season run, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and Mother’s Milk aka MM (Laz Alonso) have repeatedly fought over the best way to lead the eponymous supe-hunting organization. The extremely aggressive and abrasive Butcher is the group’s de facto leader, while the more methodical Milk often handles operations after Butcher recklessly pushes things too far. But in a virtual junket ahead of season 5, Alonso tells Polygon that the power struggle is even more complicated off-screen.
“What you don’t see on camera is, there is one member of The Boys who every season has been trying to be the leader, and that’s Jack Quaid,” Alonso says. “Every season he pitches himself to [showrunner Eric] Kripke and us: ‘You know, guys, I really think that Hughie should be the leader of The Boys this season.’ And every season he fails miserably.”
Alonso says Quaid was visibly upset in season 4 when Milk took the reins of The Boys while Butcher was dying of cancer. But Quaid made one last pitch for the show’s final season, which opens with MM, Hughie, and Frenchie (Tomer Capone) locked in a “Freedom Camp.”
“He invited Tomer and I to lunch to discuss how in prison camp he’s going to be the leader of The Boys and we’re going to listen to him,” Alonso says. “We never went to lunch with him. We left him unread in the group chat. It’s so hilarious. He’s done everything in his power every season to establish him as the leader and we love him for it. It became a joke. We respect him, we love him as a leader, but it became, Let’s not make him the leader just because he wants to be.”
Butcher is back in charge this season after curing his cancer by taking Compound V and becoming a supe himself. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to defeat Homelander (Antony Starr).
“Butcher has been saying since season 3 that supes are an existential crisis, and now I guess everybody else has finally caught up to the fact that he was right,” Urban tells Polygon. “Homelander’s about to turn himself into an immortal god, humanity is under threat, and the only thing that’s standing in the way is The Boys. This season, Butcher is driven, and almost every week he comes up with a new plan and he just pivots if that doesn’t work.”
For better and worse, Butcher and MM are finally in agreement. Rather than trying to talk Butcher off the ledge, Alonso says MM has given in to cynicism after watching Homelander take control of the United States.
“It kind of hurts to see someone so evil keep winning,” Alonso says. “They keep getting opportunities to continue to make the world suffer. When does it end? I think that’s why [MM] buys into Butcher’s way of looking at it. It’s scorched earth. There’s no way out except to just end it by any means necessary.”
Milk sent his ex-wife and daughter away to protect them at the end of season 4, but turned down the chance to run away with them so he could keep fighting, even if it’s likely to kill him.
“MM has always used his daughter and his wife as his anchor for being heroic, and I think this season is probably the first time where he realizes that making it home to your loved ones may not be the biggest way of being a hero,” Alonso says. “It kept him alive, but now he’s gotten to the point where he’s realizing that there’s so much at stake that their lives are more important than his, and anything is worth the risk.”
The Boys season 5 premieres April 8 on Prime Video.
