Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers for the Season 5, Episode 2 premiere of “The Boys,” currently streaming on Prime Video.
The final season of “The Boys” kicks things off with a bang by killing off one of the original superheroes.
After turning around and defecting from Vought Corporation to help the Boys last season, A-Train (Jesse T. Asher) is killed by Homelander (Antony Starr) in the final moments of the season 5 premiere. A-Train selflessly saves Huey (Jack Quaid) while fighting Homelander at Vought’s “Freedom Camp” and speeds away. However, he narrowly avoids a bystander during his dash and crashes into the woods. Homelander catches up to the speedster and snaps his neck. This was a surprisingly heroic, full-circle ending for A-Train, who was introduced in the series premiere by killing Huey’s girlfriend, Robin, while driving at high speed while drunk. This began Huey’s revenge quest against Vought’s spies.
Season 5 begins with Huey, Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso) imprisoned in one of Vought’s concentration camps, where Homelander executes them. Annie (Erin Moriarty), Butcher (Karl Urban), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) infiltrate the camp and reunite to free them. However, Homelander is waiting at the camp, and a battle begins. He now effectively rules the country under martial law, rounding up anyone who speaks out against him.
Homelander’s propaganda mouthpiece Ashley (Colby Minifie) also graduated from CEO of Vought Corporation to vice president of the United States. They have destroyed most of the country’s government institutions and terrorize Vought’s fellow spies The Deep (Chase Crawford) and Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell). Homelander is assisted by the highly intelligent Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) as his chief strategist and Firecracker (Valory Curry) on a pro-Vought talk show.
Episode 2 kicks things up even further by bringing back the super-killer virus introduced in the spin-off ‘Gen V’. The virus may be the key to finally defeating Homelander, but that means killing all the supers in the world at the same time. The Boys test it by killing a new super named Rockhard, a parody of the Marvel movie The Thing, and Homelander injuring Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), who wakes up from his frozen state. The two-part premiere ends with The Boys facing a tough moral decision about whether to weaponize the virus. Homelander then loses an ally (and father figure) when Soldier Boy is hospitalized.
“The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke told Variety that in the premiere, Fukuhara finally got to speak her lines after playing the mute Kimiko for more than four seasons when it came to killing off A-Train.
Jasper Savage/Prime Video
At the end of episode 1, we say goodbye to the A train. Was his death always intended to be a full-circle moment that brings us back to the series premiere?
We talked for a really long time about taking the A train, at least until the third episode. But the writers made the right point and said, “Eric, you keep saying no one is safe. Put your money where your mouth is. You have to drop off someone really important in the first episode, so people are going to spend the rest of the season really feeling like no one is safe.”
And they were right. A-Train had a really great redemption arc, and a lot of it was Jesse’s work. He made this character so sensitive and human and soulful. He is the villain who starts the entire story in motion and ends his escape by saving Huey. My favorite moment is when he ducks out of the way of this woman. On the other hand, when we first see him, he runs through Robin without a second thought. Well, the last time we saw him, he saved this woman’s life. Because he cares more about other people and their lives. It’s a really nice signpost of what kind of hero he became.
Another big surprise was finally hearing Karen Fukuhara speak as Kimiko. How did she feel about not having lines throughout the series?
she was excited. I was really happy that we finally got to actually talk, even though we hadn’t talked for four seasons. The first time we had to wire her a microphone. It was exciting, but it was also a process of being like, “So what exactly does she sound like?” It’s unexpectedly difficult when a character who’s been so well-known and ingrained with viewers for four seasons suddenly starts communicating in a completely different way. What do you think it’s Kimiko consistently? To be honest, it took about a minute. We had to figure out what she sounded like through trial and error. What was her vocabulary? What words would she use? Looking back on it now, it seems obvious, but in the end, we arrived at the question, “What does the audience think of Kimiko’s personality?” Well, sweet and deadly and totally fine.
I think she and I were both nervous about trying something so new so late in the game. But I think she did a great job. My favorite thing about her is that she doesn’t have a filter because she doesn’t need one. It makes me think about when she talked to Frenchie, what did she really say? Because he always translates very carefully. She’s probably saying the dirtiest things to him and he just goes, “Mmm, mm,” and doesn’t translate it one-on-one. It was really fun to finally hear her voice in person.
I loved seeing Deep become a full-fledged Manosphere podcast host. Is there any real-life podcaster he is based on?
Just an overview of the phenomenon as a whole, not someone in particular. We always half-jokingly say that the Deep is the Forrest Gump of bullshit entertainment trends. He manages to drift from one shitty, horrible corner of the entertainment industry to the next. He went from being a #MeToo asshole to belonging to this vile church and will write an autobiography about the vile church to use it for the manosphere. He’s just a terrible person, but the dialogue is fun to write. Some of this crap they say, hey, it blows my mind: Basically, to sum it all up, it’s actually not manly to play with or have sex with women. Just looking through the mirror is crazy. I encourage our viewers to do a Google search for perineal sunbathing when they’re alone and see how well the manosphere actually supports it. My favorite part about that commercial is the very small print at the bottom that says, “WARNING: Prolonged exposure may cause anal cancer.” Our editor wrote it and it’s very funny.
Jasper Savage/Prime
When it was revealed that Ashley had a psychic talking tumor in the back of her head, I was immediately reminded of Voldemort and Professor Quirrell from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Could that have been the inspiration for her strange new superpower?
No, I mean, when I was talking to Stefan Fleet, our visual effects supervisor, we were trying to figure out how on earth are we going to do this? We started looking at some of the Harry Potter stuff, but it wasn’t an inspiration in the writers’ room. Instead, how can we give her the most power possible? The highest power is a metaphor for what the character is actually experiencing. She has a conscience in the back of her mind that she keeps pushing away, but it’s there. It keeps coming out. We knew that was going to be her big conflict this season. Will she be able to extinguish the small moral spark within herself to take on this role? Now, let’s literally put a face to that conscience. Let’s talk about how she literally has two sides.
Looking back, my biggest inspiration was the mayor from The Nightmare Before Christmas. We talked a lot about the character. It’s a politician and she literally has two faces, but one face is actually very good and the other face is her. It will be a buddy story like this. Will these two be able to get together? It was just awesome, and Colby’s ability to pull off physical comedy is getting crazier and crazier.
Where did the idea for the new Super Rock Hard come from?
One of the things this show does well is try to satirize superhero tropes. One of the tropes we hadn’t done yet was “The Thing,” a giant, bulky character made of stone. The reason we haven’t gotten into it is because we can’t afford it. These are giant CG characters. We were trying to find interesting characters from the superhero world that we could put an irreverent spin on. I came home one morning and thought to myself: “Let’s increase the weight so much that it gets so big that it loses the ability to move. So all it really needs is two eyes that you can plug into this sculpture that we’ve created and pull it apart, like a moving Scooby-Doo painting.” Jessica Chou, who wrote the episode, came up with the idea of using Stephen Hawking’s automated voice. That’s the only way he speaks and he’s so dirty and disgusting. He was a really strange character.
Will this season set up next year’s prequel “Vought Rising”? Do fans need to have watched season 5 to understand the new show?
There are certainly references to “Vought Rising.” Vought Rising characters will appear later in the season. However, the goal was to provide enough content to get people excited about “Vought Rising” and not force viewing. You don’t have to have seen The Boys to watch Vought Rising. It’s its own story. You don’t need to do any homework to enjoy this series, as we work hard to balance each series as its own animal.
Will this season plant the seeds for the Mexico-set spin-off that is also in the works?
We are currently developing a script. Amazon read it and we received glowing comments. This is really good news. There’s still work to be done, but they seem to be working on it, which is great. Gareth Dunnett-Alcocer wrote a really funny and clever script. Because it takes place in Mexico City, the focus is very different and unique from VCU’s other shows. It’s a perspective I don’t have. It’s a very specific Latin American perspective on superheroes, international politics, and their own national politics. That’s a very interesting thing that none of the white men writing on this show could do, but Gareth puts a very interesting and authentic spin on it.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
