This post contains major spoilers for The Boys‘ season five premiere. If you’d rather Homelander laser eyes you than see them, read our non-spoiler review of the show’s final season instead. If not, then join us as we dive into The Boys season five with Eric Kripke.
Showrunner Eric Kripke was always going to have to say goodbye to the entire cast and crew of The Boys after the series’ final year. But season five’s premiere showed he had to say goodbye to one major member of the show immediately, as Jessie T. Usher’s A-Train met his death in the first episode. Why kill him off? What was it like telling his longtime star he wouldn’t make it? And how does he feel now that the highly anticipated last season is finally here? We asked Kripke about all of that and more when Nerdist spoke to him on the eve of The Boys fifth season debut.
Nerdist: You’ve talked previously about how you’ve been thinking about the end of the show for a long time. You started working on the final season at least two years ago. Now that it’s finally here and ready for the world to see, how are you feeling?
Eric Kripke: Mostly, I feel anxious. I’m not mentally healthy enough to feel things like a sense of accomplishment or pride. Mostly, I’m just anxious. I want people to really like it. I want people to say, “That didn’t suck,” and, “This does not make me hate the show or like the show any less.” Finales are hard, man. They do this thing where people judge the series retroactively. Or, at the very least, the legacy of the series is based on how you stick the landing. So I at least want it to be good enough that it doesn’t change the viewer’s attitude about the show. If they like the show, I want them to keep liking the show and not say, “Oh, I’ve decided the show sucks.” That’s my main goal.
Before we get into some of the bigger moments from the season five premiere, what quieter moment from the episode do you hope viewers really notice?
Kripke: It’s not so much a quiet moment, but it’s the one I find the most touching. When A-Train basically allows himself to be captured by dodging that woman because he just refuses to run through her. And to me, it’s a quick moment, but it’s just such a moving signpost of who he was when we first met him to who he is now in our last interaction with him. I find it really heartbreaking, but really heroic.
Well, we can get into that scene now. I think his death clearly sets the tone for what we should expect during the final season, but why Reggie versus another major character?
Kripke: I think we had known early on that A-Train was going to probably be the first on the list because of the story, honestly. Homelander felt so betrayed by A-Train that barring killing Butcher or Annie in the first episode, which while that would’ve been shocking, was probably not the right thing to do for the final season, that A- Train would’ve been the person Homelander most wanted to take down. And it felt like we could really give A-Train the proper sendoff.
So many of these things fall into place just as you’re breaking the story. We need him to rescue them, or we need to really get them out of a tight corner. How are we going to do it? Well, we’re going to have A-Train rescue them. Well, that puts him in front of Homelander. So these things start to take on a life of their own.
I want to come back to Butcher, but I do want to ask, did saying goodbye to Jessie T. Usher so early in the season help prepare you for saying goodbye to the entire cast and crew?
Kripke: It’s a great question, but no, it’s really hard. It’s a really hard phone call to say, “Your number’s up in the first episode.” And without spoiling too much, that was not the only time that season I had to make that call. And it was hard every single time, like, “Sorry, you’re not making it to the end of the season. You’re going to pack up and leave Toronto.” It’s like telling people they’re on Survivor. It was not fun because you create such a relationship and bond with these people. They genuinely become your family that it’s hard to tell them that their role is over.
Somebody who I don’t expect to survive this season survived this episode, Butcher. Homelander tells Butcher he will miss having him as the only person who ever challenged him right before Butcher survives yet another encounter. So does Homelander even really want to kill Butcher? Or is a worthy opponent the only thing that makes Homelander happy at this point?
Kripke: Homelander has genuinely mixed feelings about killing Butcher. He’s the only person who’s ever challenged [Homelander]. He has a weird affection for Butcher that I don’t think is reciprocated by the way.
One thing I like about the episode, and the fantastic job Paul Grellong did writing it, is this whole time Homelander seems just desperate for people’s devotion. “People aren’t devoted to me. They need to be devoted to me in their hearts. The people who work with me at the studio, they’re not devoted to me.” But Butcher is, in a dark homicidal way. But nevertheless, I don’t think Homelander notices the difference that much. He’s just really into people that are obsessed with him. And so I think he likes Butcher for that. He knows that eventually there needs to be a final reckoning, but he wants that to come, really, on both of their terms.
Huey wears his emotions like Macbeth. He can’t hide them, whereas Laz Alonso’s performance as Mother’s Milk is always a lot more reserved and quiet. So if Huey represents hope, what does Mother’s Milk represent at this point in the story? Is it acceptance, resignation, despair, or something else entirely?
Kripke: It’s something like cynicism and resignation. He says it. He’s accepted that he’s already dead and that there’s no future for him after this war. That doesn’t mean he’s not going to fight the war or win the war. He just doesn’t expect to survive it. And a lot of the concern this season is, “All right, so what happens when this war is over? Do we expect to have a happy ending?” And then [Mother’s Milk] decided that he won’t and can’t. So it gives him a cynicism and an ability to play dirty, with a lack of morality than he’s ever had. Which puts him much closer to Butcher’s point of view.
No series has taken on the rise of fascism, anti-intellectualism, and downright stupidity during this period of American history more directly or better than The Boys. Now that it is ending, have you thought about how it might end up being an important show historically because of how it directly addressed this era?
Kripke: I haven’t. I’m way too insecure as a writer and not particularly up my own ass to ever make statements like, “I think it’ll serve as a statement.” I’m just trying to work out my own feelings and frustrations, and the writers’ feelings and frustrations. And if I can make people laugh and think a little bit about the world they live in, then that’s for sure the most I could ever hope for.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He thinks it’s 50/50 Frenchie dies this season. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post THE BOYS’ Eric Kripke Teases Major Character Deaths in Season 5 (Interview) appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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