The Boys Season 5 Revealed Who Homelander Was Punching In The Trailer

This article contains spoilers for "The Boys" season 5, episode 3, "Every One of You Sons of B*tches."

Both the first teaser for "The Boys" season 5 and the later trailer showed low-angle shots of Homelander (Antony Starr) beating someone down on the ground with several decisive punches. Homelander killing people is nothing new, but what stood out about the shots were his expressions. He looked uncertain or even pained, and reeled back slowly for each punch, as if throwing them was hurting a part of him too.

There aren't a lot of people who could make Homelander feel like that, nor resist him enough that he'd need to land several punches in a row. So, fans narrowed it down to a few suspects. One was Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), Homelander's biological father who is almost as strong as his son. Soldier Boy thinks his son is weak and too emotional, but Homelander still craves his affection. 

Another popular suspect was Homelander's own son, Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), who last season rejected his father. Ryan shares his dad's powers, such as heat vision, and eagle-eyed fans noticed Homelander's costume had a burn mark in the trailer shots. 

A third suspect was former superhero Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott). While Maeve hated Homelander, he had some affection and lust for her. Plus, Homelander punching her to death is how Maeve died in "The Boys" comics. But Maeve lost her powers and left "The Boys" at the end of season 3, making that more of an outside guess.

Well, "The Boys" fans didn't have to wait long this season to learn the truth. "Every One of You Sons of B*tches" features the trailer scene, and it is indeed Ryan who Homelander is beating. Homelander was never father of the year, but this makes him even worse.

As a narcissist, Homelander loves Ryan but sees his son as an extension of himself. Homelander had an awful childhood being raised in a lab and tortured by experiments to test his superhuman durability's limits, so a big part of him wanting to raise Ryan is to metaphorically rescue his childhood self by giving his own son a real family. Not an ignoble goal, but Homelander also had no clue how to be a good father and wanted to mold Ryan into a superhero who sees himself as above normal people — the same way Homelander does. 

Ryan spent his childhood being told his mother, Becca Butcher (Shantel VanSanten), had an affair with Homelander and he was the result. In the season 4 finale, he learned the truth: Homelander raped his mother. That's why her husband Billy (Karl Urban), our antihero lead, wants revenge on Homelander, and after learning that, so does Ryan.

In the season 5 teaser, Butcher is heard telling someone: "You wouldn't be the first to throw their life away in a war, but you would be the first to save the world doing it." This episode reveals that it was also Ryan who Butcher was speaking to; he's trying to convince his stepson to lure out Homelander so Butcher can use the supe-villing virus to kill Homelander (but which would also kill Ryan and Butcher). Instead, Ryan goes off alone to confront his father. 

When asking Ryan to sacrifice himself, Butcher says he isn't going to treat Ryan like a child anymore and shield him from what it'll take to defeat his father. Homelander proceeding to beat Ryan to pulp, like he's a capable opponent and not his own child, is a dark mirror of that sentiment.

Back in "The Boys" season 2 finale, "What I Know," Homelander took Ryan to the restaurant/entertainment center Planet Vought. Their confrontation in this episode happens at the same place, which is undergoing renovation to become "Planet Homelander."

Homelander initially thinks Ryan is there to apologize to him for running off. Ryan asks Homelander if he raped his mom, and Homelander is genuinely taken aback. Like many real rapists, he doesn't consider himself one. Homelander further excuses himself by claiming Becca "came onto [him]" then argues it was worth it because he got "a blessing" like Ryan.

Ryan starts the fight by lasering Homelander, but Homelander himself reacts like he didn't even feel it. The rest of the fight is mostly Ryan lunging at Homelander, who dodges and tries to talk his son down. (Note how when Ryan's punches or laser vision miss, he instead destroys a bunch of Homelander merch.) When Ryan punches Homelander in the face, giving him a bloody nose, that's when his dad gets serious.

Homelander slams Ryan into the ground, giving the typical abuser response of "Look at what you made me do." From there, he holds Ryan's hands down, smiling at him "it's ok, my sweet, sweet boy" — echoing what Homelander's oedipal mother figure Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) would call him. From there, Homelander punches Ryan at least a dozen times, the scene cutting away as he throws the last one.

Is that it for Ryan? The episode ends with Butcher finding Ryan. As the camera holds on Ryan's bloody, unmoving face, you think he might be dead, but then he breathes. We'll see what happens from here, but it feels like "The Boys" — unlike Homelander — pulled its punches here.

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.