Ryan's character arc holds the key to keeping Billy Butcher's story intact for The Boys season 3 to mirror the original Wildstorm and Dynamite Entertainment comics. With filming currently underway, Season 3 of The Boys is shaping up to be the most carnage-filled yet. Homelander in the throes of a psychotic break, Black Noir comatose, and Neuman outed as the cranium combusting assassin means there will be no shortage of brutality on display from the much-vaunted Amazon adaptation.
One storyline change at the end of The Boys season 2 has many assuming the Amazon showrunners are altering Billy Butcher's original narrative. In The Boys comics, Billy replaces Homelander as the de-facto bad guy after his friends become Supers, and he sets about killing them out of disgust. However, in the Amazon Original, Billy seemingly overrides his loathing of "Supes" to save Ryan from Homelander and comfort the boy after his mother's death.
Yet Ryan will still play a key role in keeping Billy Butcher's path to villainy on track. Despite Billy's act of kindness in saving the boy, his decision to rehome him into the CIA will ultimately lead to Butcher becoming evil. Ryan's time in government captivity will mirror Homelander's psyche-warping upbringing, eventually pitting him against Butcher and realigning his narrative with the comics in the process.
When Butcher saves Ryan in The Boys season 2 finale, it hints at a big deviation from The Boys' source material in which Billy outgrows his loathing of superpowers. However, this momentary kindness will prove to be a red-herring from The Boys showrunners, who immediately reversed Butcher's good deed by having Billy place Ryan in the CIA's care. For the first time in the show, Ryan will be alone, racked with guilt from killing Becca, and most likely experimented on by the government. These events will coax psychopathy out of Ryan, already foreshadowed in his penchant for violence, mirroring his father Homelander's descent into darkness at the hands of Vought.
Ryan revealing a dark nature only suppressed by his mother's love will likely force Butcher to take action against the boy. Whereas in the original comics, Butcher never wavered in his hate for superheroes, in the Amazon series Billy Butcher will break down after seeing how cruel Ryan has become despite his help in season 2. This will slam the door on Butcher's redemptive character arc and instead re-open the option for him to become the ultimate villain of The Boys as he once again becomes entrenched in the view that no "Supe" is redeemable.
The final pointer that Ryan will ultimately serve as a convoluted plot device to highlight Butcher's fall is the looming specter of Compound V's liberal use in season 3. The Boys season 2 makes several overt references to the fact that The Boys cannot compete with The Seven unless they have powers of their own, with only Butcher vehemently opposing the notion. This again harks back to the comics' original plan, where The Boys inject Compound V and gain their own powers to combat Homelander's increasing threat. Season 3 of The Boys will poise this critical event on a knife-edge, with Butcher likely to confront Ryan once he has already taken compound V as a last resort against Homelander. These new powers will allow Butcher to kill Ryan (who was previously invulnerable) and cement him as a central villain by the end of the season. The creation of Ryan's character by The Boys showrunners allowed them to eke out every second of Butcher's (and Karl Urban's) charisma as a protagonist, but it is the destruction of Ryan's character at the hands of Billy that will realign The Boys season 3 with Garth Ennis' original storyline.