The Boys from Amazon features Karl Urban's Billy Butcher as one of the main characters. A man incredibly jaded by his past, he's very bitter towards superheroes (otherwise known as 'supes') — after all, Homelander assaulted his wife and caused her commit suicide (at least, as far as Billy knows). That, or she was murdered by Homelander so she wouldn't talk. Either way, it's pretty bad.
Understandably, Billy is on a revenge crusade against superheroes and the further he goes, the further his moral compass seems to skew. Although he 100% believes he's doing the right thing, he definitely utilizes some questionable methods to reach his end goal of getting superheroes back under control. Throughout the series, he leaves us as appalled as some of even the worst characters do.
Here are the worst things he does. It's not a list for the faint of heart, especially as he's supposedly one of the good characters.
10 Roped Hughie Into The Boys
Starting off light, he ropes Hughie into the Boys and upends his life. Hughie's girlfriend Robin is killed by A-Train when he literally runs through her on the street, and Billy sees an opportunity to poison someone else against the supes and get help. Although it's completely understandable that he needs assistance on his crusade, he took advantage of a grieving Hughie in a very vulnerable position.
9 ...And Everyone Else, It seems
Hughie's not the only one, though. It seems that Billy is used to roping people into the Boys that don't necessarily want to be there. They understand that he has good intentions (kind of) and that his cause is a worthy one, but often, they don't want to participate in the blackmail and murder that comes with being part of the Boys. Does Billy care if they want to be there or not? Of course he doesn't! Not as long as they're helping, whether they want to or not.
8 Used Hughie To Spy On The Seven
Billy uses Hughie to start spying on the Seven. Since Hughie begins the series with an 'in', so to speak, looking for an apology and settlement after A-Train killed his girlfriend, he has Hughie plant bugs all over the place and generally integrate himself as much as he can with Vought International in a way Billy never could.
Sure, it's a solid plan, but it seriously endangers Hughie who would be murdered if caught.
7 And Threatened Him For Having Doubts
Hughie only starts to have doubts when he meets Annie January, otherwise known as Starlight. The most recent addition to the Seven, she doesn't agree with some of the terrible things they're doing and Hughie wants to recruit her to help. At the very least, he doesn't want to hurt her.
This doesn't matter to Billy, who thinks all supes are the same. He threatens Hughie when he starts to genuinely date Starlight, going as far as to crash one of their dates and threatening to spill Hughie's deepest, darkest secret to his new girlfriend. The bro code doesn't exist with this one, despite how loyal he is to the Boys.
6 Didn't Think Too Hard About The Consequences For Anyone Else Either
It wasn't just Hughie that all of this endangered. When Hyghie is found out by Homelander, the leader of the supes seems to want to hurt or kill Starlight in revenge and she's saved only by Queen Maeve, who has sympathy for her plight. No doubt, Billy wouldn't have cared, but this is supremely unfair to Starlight who had no idea what the Boys were doing but was being brutally used by them nonetheless.
5 Shot Starlight
Starlight eventually becomes confused by all of this and turns away from Hughie and the Boys. She eventually tries to take Hughie to the police, at least having the moral decency to know she can't turn him over to the Seven without him dying at their hands, but Billy prevents her by shooting her.
Okay, it's not all that bad — she's only hurt long enough for Hughie to get away. But Billy has indirectly put Starlight through enough. Did he have to shoot her?
4 Kidnapped Translucent
One of the first things Billy does in the entire series is kidnap Translucent and keep him caged up while trying to find ways to penetrate his skin. Billy is utterly inhumane in what he does, even though he has no proof Translucent is actually bad and was wronged personally by Homelander — not the invisible superhero. Still, he's relentless in his pursuit to find out exactly how to kill him, and seems to have no problem stripping away any of his human rights.
Did Translucent deserve it? Probably. But Billy certainly had no moral qualms with doing that to a person.
3 Blackmailed Popclaw (And Let Someone Die)
Popclaw is A-Train's secret girlfriend and when Billy needs to find out about Compound V — the chemical that makes superheroes as powerful as they are — he has no problem bugging her apartment, watching her kill a man (and letting it happen for the sake of footage), and blackmailing her with the resulting video. Popclaw isn't perfect, but she was definitely horrified by murdering someone and didn't seem to have a bad heart.
Blackmailing her resulted in her being murdered by A-Train, but you can bet Billy didn't feel bad about it at all.
2 Killed Mesmer
Mesmer had superpowers, but he didn't seem to be as bad all the rest. Actually, he seemed tied up in personal problems. He did hand evidence over to Homelander about the Boys, but it seemed that he just wanted to do good and wasn't fully clued up on the situation.
Did Billy care about the intentions? Hell no. He found Mesmer and beat him bloody until the guy was dead.
1 Blew Up A Baby
The show ends with Billy showing up to kill Homelander's lover, the head of Vought International, and then Homelander does it to prove a point. Her baby son is crying in the same room, but does that stop Billy from blowing up the place to kill Homelander? No. He's even smiling slightly as he does it.
Homelander gets out in time and takes Billy with him, but that poor baby is left to Billy's blast.