The Boys Creator Eric Kripke Defends Decision To Kill [Spoiler] In Series Finale

Dog lovers who tuned into "The Boys" Season 5 finale probably didn't come out of the episode thinking it was pawsome. That's because Terror, an adorable English bulldog, passes away, sending Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) on a warpath to kill all supes. With that in mind, what inspired series creator Eric Kripke to commit the cardinal sin of killing a dog?

"I always felt like that was a perfect trigger," Kripke told The Hollywood Reporter. "That dog represented the last of [Billy's] humanity, and so if that dog was going to die, Butcher's humanity was going to die with it. What I'll tell people is that we gave Terror in the show a gentle, sweet, peaceful death, and it was not like that in the comics."

Terror experiences a much grislier fate in "The Boys" comics, so things could have been far worse had the show's creators stayed faithful to the source material. That said, how did fans of Amazon Prime's acclaimed superhero series react to Terror's passing?

"The Boys" is full of shocking deaths and gruesome moments, so many fans probably went into the finale expecting Terror to meet a violent end. Given what could have been, many viewers seem content that the English bulldog was given a relatively peaceful send-off.

"I'm relieved that he died of natural causes," one fan wrote. "It was set up early that he was old and was taking pills for a medical condition. It's still sad but to me it's comforting to know that he wasn't murdered like in the comics."

"Terror is literally the only character in the show that had a decent life from beginning to end," another fan added.

Of course, Terror isn't the only character who meets an unfortunate end in the final episode of "The Boys." The other deaths involve exploding heads, gunshot wounds, and people being impaled by tentacles, making Terror's passing seem relatively mild in comparison.