The Boys season 5 has begun in a smashing fashion, quite literally. The opening two episodes, which premiered this week, show a major character dying and one almost dying as Butcher and the boys face off against Homelander and his regime. Ahead of the show’s premiere, Jessie T Usher, who plays the speedster A Train on the show, sat down with Hindustan Times, to decode his character arc and the amazing run of the show.
‘Expected A Train’s end to be sooner’
The fifth season of The Boys is also its final. “It’s bittersweet,” admits Jessie. He confesses that he never expected his character to make it this far in the show. “I expected A Train’s end to come before we even got to season five, before the heart transplant (arc) and things of that sort. So, I’m just happy to be here.”
Jessie says he feels proud of the show’s longevity and how it has sustained its quality over the years. “It’s just rare that you find something like this that works for so long, so it’s really difficult to say goodbye. But to reach a fifth season, knowing that we intended to have five seasons from the beginning, is such an amazing feeling and such an incredible experience for all of us. It’s gonna be tough to say goodbye to that, but we will always be able to look back and be extremely proud of what we’ve done on this show,” he says.
‘Portraying A-Train’s redemption was fulfilling’
A-Train, Jessie’s character, began as one of the bad guys, or at least an anti-hero. But by the fifth season, he is firmly on the side of the good guys, fighting Homelander, his former team captain. Talking about his character’s journey, he says, “It was A Train pretending to be super for a long time and then eventually choosing to do the superhero thing, and put other people first and actually make an attempt at saving lives and doing good.”
The actor says he was surprised by the level of fulfilment he found in portraying that arc. “I didn’t expect it to feel the way that it did in those moments, in those scenes. It was actually really nice and refreshing to have those moments, even if they were brief or small. It just felt like a long time coming. We’ve been wearing this mask for so long, and he’s been deeply hating himself for quite a while. And now he is the person that he’s been pretending to be for a long time. So it was great to see him come out of that shell and be himself. It was very fulfilling,” he explains.
About The Boys season 5
The Boys season 5 also stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capone, Karen Fukuhara, Colby Minifie, and Jensen Ackles. The first two episodes of the final season premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 8, with weekly release after that till the finale on May 20.
