Note: This story contains spoilers for “The Boys” Season 5, Episode 1.
“The Boys” boss Eric Kripke and his cast unpacked A-Train/Reggie Franklin’s (Jessie T. Usher) tragic premiere death, sharing that no one is safe from harm in the series’ fifth and final season.
“Heading into the writers room, we knew that A-Train was going to go early,” Kripke told TheWrap. “There was a lot of debate at the time of does he go in Episode 2 or 3 or Episode 1? I was actually a little reluctant to kill him in Episode 1, but the writers sort of convinced me.”
He continued: “They said, like, ‘Look, you need to set up that this season’s dangerous and that you’re willing to kill people as early as the first episode, and then you just will never know what to expect from that point forward.’ And they were right.”
That’s right, “The Boys” is going full-on “Game of Thrones” up in here. Don’t hold on to your favorites too tightly, as it looks like no human or supe is safe. A-Train’s death takes place at the end of Episode 1. A-Train has been on the run with his family, trying to evade Vought’s capture, but he pulls one last favor for The Boys to help Starlight break Hughie (Jack Quaid), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) out of one of Vought’s “Freedom Camps,” which detains anti-Homelanders. But Homelander was ahead of The Boys and ended up meeting the group right when they were putting their plan into action.
Just as Homelander is about laser beam Hughie, A-Train swoops and pushes Hughie out of his deadly gaze, revealing himself to Homelander. A-Train immediately takes off running with Homelander following right behind. While on the run, A-Train sees a woman in his path, and in an effort to not run through her — like he did Hughie’s now-dead girlfriend in Season 1 — he quickly dodges her, but it throws him off tracks and sends him flying through a forest. Bloodied and wounded, but with his spirit still in tact, A-Train faces Homelander for one last time — this time with no fear in his heart.
“What was I so afraid of? You are f—kin’ nothin,’ ” A-Train tells the crazed caped supe as he laughs in his face. “Really. You’re just an empty f—kin’ suit. Take away these powers and what are you? Pathetic. Weak, sniveling f—kin’ loser.”
Whew, even Homelander was shook. He snapped A-Train’s neck anyway, but it left the all powerful supe with something to think about at night.
“Because it’s the truth,” Antony Starr said. Nobody puffs their feathers up and reacts as strongly as when someone nails a truth that they don’t want to have seen … The result isn’t good for A-Train but in a way, it’s a powerful moment when you expose someone’s deep-seated fears and vulnerabilities. People don’t like that.”
Usher said he kept A-Train’s death a secret from his castmates for about a year.
“I never said anything. So before it was even written, the idea was being shopped around in the writers room,” Usher said. “Eric called me one day, and he’s like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking. We need something that gets us into this fifth season in a very impactful way that’s going to be long-lasting. And people are going to feel just how heavy this is from the very beginning, and we think we’re going to do it with A-Train.”
Usher, who agreed that it was time for the character’s journey to end.
“I was very satisfied with A-Train’s end. And this is a conversation that Eric and I had mid-Season 4,” Usher explained. “There’s no corner of the Earth where you can be completely safe from Vought; he knows that. And he feels very bad about the position that his family is in because of the mistakes that he’s made … That was the only answer that we had.”
He added: “So I asked [Kripke] in Season 4, I’m like, ‘Yo, what are we going to do? Because I feel like, you know he’s running out of options. He’s running out of places to go.’ And Eric literally said to me, ‘Honestly, I’m not I’m not sure yet, but we’ll deal with it in Season 5. So a lot of people didn’t even notice, but A-Train is not in the final episode of Season 4, because he would have died.”
For longtime “The Boys” fans, the end of A-Train’s story is a callback to how we first met the speedy supe. Kripke said the idea to finish A-Train’s story in the same way it started came up in the writers room.
“In terms of that sort of full-circle moment that came out of the break [from the series,” Kripke said. “We believed A-Train could outrun Homelander, so he needs to screw up somehow. And so like, does he trip? Does he make a mistake? And we were like, ‘Well, but he needs to go out like a hero, and he’s earned that, and we don’t want him to trip or make a mistake. So how do we get him to slow down?’ And then I forget whose idea it was, but in the room, someone said, ‘Well, the first time we saw him, he carelessly ran through a woman. So what if the last time we see him, he very carefully avoids her?’ And I was like, ‘Of course. That’s amazing.’ It’s such a perfect signpost from the beginning to the end to really show how that character has changed and grown.”
“The only thing that can really clear his name, and make sure everybody’s safe, is to sacrifice himself,” Usher added. It is the right thing to do. And I’m proud of him. I’m proud of him for making that decision.”
“The Boys” Season 5 releases new episodes Wednesdays on Prime Video.
