Warning: The following article contains spoilers for The Boys Season 4, Episode 6, “Dirty Business.”
The Boys Season 4, Episode 6, “Dirty Business,” confirms what many of us already suspected: Joe Kessler is a figment of Billy Butcher’s imagination. So, why is Butcher hallucinating Kessler in The Boys Season 4?
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Billy Butcher’s Joe Kessler Hallucinations, Explained
The Boys Season 4, Episode 6 drops the truth about Joe Kessler late in proceedings. When Billy Butcher’s vision of his late wife, Becca, begs him not to unleash a Supe-killing virus on the world, Kessler snarls, “Shut your f—king cake hole, b—h!” In doing so, Butcher’s old CIA buddy outs himself as a hallucination, just like Becca.
According to Kessler, he’s the personification of the darker impulses of Billy’s “festering, f—ked up brain.” “Joe” also reveals that the real Kessler died years ago after Butcher left him to his fate on a Panjshir Valley battlefield. To hammer the point home, “Dirty Business” then runs a montage of Butcher and Kessler’s scenes together in Season 4, only this time, Kessler’s nowhere to be seen.
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Why is Butcher hallucinating Kessler? For the same reason that he’s seeing Becca: because he’s suffering from a next-level head injury. As Kessler puts it: “[Y]ou’ve got a big, old, fat, V-ed brain tumor […] which is why you’re seeing me.”
Interestingly, despite acknowledging that he and Butcher are essentially one and the same, Kessler still takes credit for killing Ezekiel in The Boys Season 4, Episode 4. While this could imply the parasite-like tumor in Butcher’s noggin is self-aware, it’s probably just the Kessler hallucination’s way of emphasizing how in sync he is with Billy’s deepest desires.
Is Kessler a Hallucination in The Boys Comics?
No, Joe (or rather, Howard) Kessler is a real person in The Boys comics, not a series of hallucinations Butcher experiences. As envisioned by writer/artist team Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, the comics’ Kessler is also Butcher’s whipping boy, rather than his one-time brother-in-arms. The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke addressed Kessler’s different characterization in the show in a recent Variety interview.
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“I mean, the truth is [actor] Jeffrey Dean [Morgan] is probably only Kessler in name only,” Kripke said. “In the comic, he’s this simpering weak person for Butcher to basically just beat up on. The character we had talked about was every person in Butcher’s life seems to try to hold him back. Everyone’s just like, ‘No, you’re going too far. You’re insane. Don’t go that far.’ And we said, ‘Well, he should be friends with someone who, instead of holding him back, is actively pushing him forward.'”
The Boys Season 4 is currently streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes dropping Thursdays.
Published: Jul 4, 2024 12:00 pm