The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has a reputation for pulling off scenes in the show that arguably no one can think of. The prosthetic whale in season 2, for example.
But, in his words, he admits he was hesitant in season 5 regarding killing off the speedster A-Train, played by Jessie T. Usher.
Spoiler Alert
This jaw-dropping twist came at the start of the final season, even so, at the hands of Homelander himself, who had been searching for him for betraying him.
“I was initially resistant to killing him off that early,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “It was a little scary to kill him off so soon.”
Kripke explained he was hesitant due to a separate storyline he was working on for A-train.
“We had actually broken out [an alternate storyline] that was like, ‘Where is he now? What is he doing? And how can he help The Boys?’ — all that stuff was in process, so it’s not like we didn’t have it. We knew that he was going to be the first big death. At the time, I think we were thinking maybe episode three.”
However, the writers of The Boys were not okay with it, pushing Kripke to stick to what has been his powerful tool on the show: shock value.
“And it was the writers who really campaigned for it — it’s their fault. They campaigned. They were like, ‘You keep saying that nobody’s safe and that it’s going to be a season where anything can happen at any time.’
He continued, “So with all due respect, put your fucking money where your mouth is and show that you’re willing to drop a major character in the first episode. Because if you do that, then for the rest of the season, no one is going to feel safe.’ And I thought it was a winning argument.”
The Boys upcoming final season episode 3 will drop on April 15.
