“The Boys” Kicks Off Final Season with the Death of a Key Character: 'It Was a Long Time Coming'
“The Boys” Kicks Off Final Season with the Death of a Key Character: 'It Was a Long Time Coming'
Julia MooreWed, April 8, 2026 at 5:22 PM UTC
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Cast of 'The Boys'Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
Warning: this post contains spoilers for The Boys season 5, now streaming on Prime Video.
The first two episodes of The Boys season 5 dropped on Wednesday, April 8, and saw a major character die
The death was "a long time coming," according to the actor, who has been on the series since season 1
New episodes of the final season of The Boys drop Wednesdays on Prime Video
Goodbye, A-Train.
The fifth and final season of The Boys kicked off with a bang on Wednesday, April 8, as the first two episodes premiered on Prime Video and brought the first shocking death of the season: Jessie T. Usher's A-Train, who has been around since the show's premiere.
Homelander (Antony Starr) strangled A-Train in the first episode, but the demise wasn't as jarring to Usher as it might have been for fans.
"It was a long time coming," Usher told TVLine. "I felt like we were just waiting to see how it was going to happen. He had no allies, he had no one that he can depend on or manipulate or even ask a favor from who would put their life on the line to keep things going for him."
A-Train kept making decisions that "dug his hole a little bit deeper," Usher, 34, said, which prompted him to ask creator Eric Kripke what his vision was for the character. He said he didn't "see a reasonable way out" for A-Train — and didn't "see him surviving."
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Jessie T. Usher as A-Train in "The Boys" season 5Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
To that, Kripke told him, "'To be honest with you, I don't know. We're not going to deal with it in season 4, we're going to just deal with it in season 5.' In that moment, I knew that that was the start of the end."
Usher told the outlet he's just "happy" his character "made it this far into the show" and that he "made such an impact and such a difference on the trajectory of the story." It was a bonus to get to see A-Train "confront his monster face to face," Usher added of Homelander.
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Like Usher, Starr, 50, was satisfied with the arc for A-Train. "One thing I love about this show is that it's never been afraid of taking big swings and risks, and unapologetically so," Starr told the outlet.
A-Train dying is exactly "one of those moments," he said. "I know certain people are not going to be happy about that, but it makes for good TV."
Susan Heyward as Sister Sage and Jessie T. Usher as A-Train in "The Boys"Credit: Amazon MGM Studios
During a March appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Boys star Jack Quaid teased that fans should expect a lot of character deaths in the final season. He said it's "not going to be a fairytale ending in any regard," but emphasized that it really is the end of the show.
"There are characters, I won't say who, but [they] meet their end, and it's crazy. It's really, really nuts. And it was emotional," Quaid, 33, said.
"I'm covered in blood a lot on the show. And it was so weird to be covered in blood and various goos and then just also be emotional about that. Like, 'I'm really gonna miss this,'" he continued of his experience saying goodbye to the series after seven years. "It's just been the honor of my life. I truly love this show and everyone involved."
It's "Homelander's world" in season 5 of The Boys, per the official synopsis, and everyone is "completely subject to his erratic, egomaniacal whims."
"Hughie, Mother’s Milk and Frenchie are imprisoned in a 'Freedom Camp.' Annie struggles to mount a resistance against the overwhelming Supe force. Kimiko is nowhere to be found. But when Butcher reappears, ready and willing to use a virus that will wipe all Supes off the map, he sets in motion a chain of events that will forever change the world and everyone in it. It’s the climax, people. Big stuff’s gonna happen."
New episodes of The Boys drop Wednesdays on Prime Video.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
