Jessie T. Usher Talks A-Train's Full-Circle Moment & Death

The Boys star Jessie T. Usher (Survivor’s Remorse) had plenty to say about A-Train’s early demise, the reckless speedster’s full circle moment, and the Prime Video series unique ability to parody real-life situations, while still delivering a unique spin on the popular comic book franchise.

After five seasons, The Boys has come to an end, bringing Homelander’s (Antony Starr) reign of terror to an end. Ahead of the series finale, CassiusLife spoke with OG cast member Jessie T. Usher, whose character, A-Train, hit a speed bump in the form of his final encounter with the wannabe deity, ultimately meeting his demise.

Jessie T. Usher Reveals Exactly When He Found Out A-Train Was Going To Die

During our conversation, Usher explained that he knew A-Train’s fate “a lot sooner” while “the idea was still being workshopped around in the writer’s room.”

“This is a conversation, by the way, that started up towards the middle of season four. Middle of season four, I think I was maybe reading episode five, four, or six, one of those, ” Usher tells CassiusLife. “And I called Eric Kripke, and I was like, ‘What is going to happen to this dude?’ Because there’s nowhere for him to turn. He doesn’t really have any powerful allies. No one trusts him. The people who do trust him are in even worse scenarios than he, in worse predicaments than him.”

He continues, “This is like A-Train decides he’s leaving Vought. Where’s he going to go? What’s he going to do? And Eric said to me, ‘I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out next season.’ So I’m like already, I’m like, ‘That tells me right there. This is the beginning of the end.’ There’s literally no options for him. So he leaves. We don’t see him in the last episode of the fourth season. And when we come back to him in the fifth season, we see where he’s been this whole time and how involved he has been. But then Eric sort of calls me when he’s workshopping this idea that if A-Train were to come back into this world, this would be it. You know what I mean? He’s at the top of the list. Homelander wants him and Annie pretty much the most.”

A-Train’s Full-Circle Moment, That Led To His Death, Explained

Thankfully, A-Train didn’t go down without a fight, but we all knew he never really stood a chance against Homelander.

During the final encounter, we saw an A-Train who was no longer afraid to face the maniacal supe. But in true The Boys fashion, what doomed the world’s fastest man was his trying to be careful in the moment as he tried to flee. Rather than being reckless like when we first met him, as he plowed into Hughie’s (Jack Quaid) fiancée, Robin, in the first season, pushing Hughie on the path of vengeance.

Usher described the moment for A-Train as “reflective,” with his character not wanting to repeat the same mistake.

“I was just hoping that we had enough time to slow that moment down to show that it is a reflective moment. You know what I mean? It’s like you can go through all of this, but this was also an idea that was going through my mind. He could go through all of this, end up in this moment, recognize it as being the same, and then make the same mistake, which is hilarious,” Usher explained.

“And in the world of The Boys, that type of stuff does happen. But with this character, it’s more important to him that he doesn’t do that again. He’s finally accepted the fact that he’s going to dedicate his life to not making the same mistake again. So I just wanted that to have enough time to breathe on camera.”

He continues, “So that it didn’t just look like a whoopsie or a mistake or a misstep or anything like that. It’s like, nah, this is an innocent person. I’m going to deal with it. And if it means that it ends me, then that’s what it is, which is sort of the predicament, the mindset that he would’ve been in the beginning. I’m sure he’s dodging millions of people every day when he’s on his run, but hitting Robin is just kind of one of those things where he’s like, “Ah.” But moments before that, he had to have shrugged it off like, “Ah, sorry, I can’t stop. I got to go.” But now it’s just a very, very specific decided moment that’s just going through his brain before that. And I really liked playing around in that space because when you’re scared, and you’re running, and your heart’s beating super, super fast, the thoughts that come into your mind when you’re about to die are intense.

The Boys’ Ability As A Show To Hilariously Parody Life, While Still Being Unique

Finally, one of the greatest qualities of The Boys series is its ability to parody the real world and the insanity we face daily.

It’s not hard to see the parallels between Homelander and the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, and all of the other ridiculous moments that have happened in the country parodied in the show, some seeming more prophetic than others. For example, their unveiling of a golden statue of Homelander happened well before Trump did the same at his golf course in Doral.

Usher spoke about the show’s ability to incorporate real-life moments into the fictional world of The Boys comic universe while remaining entertaining and distinctive.

“I think the timing of the show was really, really great. I think the show’s voice was needed. We needed an outlet, we needed a form of expression, ” Usher said. “We have the Family Guys and the South Parks of the world, you know what I mean? But we were coming off the end of an era where superheroes were king. It’s like every movie in the theater was a superhero, everything, every television show was a superhero. We were just saturated. So here comes this show that’s going to feed two different things we, as a society, are kind of hungry for. It was like the death of the classic superhero genre, like this breath of fresh air, and then also this societal commentary where we feel like everyone wants to say something, but now we have this outlet that allows us to do it. And I think the timing was impeccable.”

He continued, “And then also it’s just the fact that we had incredible, incredible writers who were so in tune with society and the politics of the world, and just being able to articulate that through these wildly bizarre characters with a network that really just allowed us to do anything. Not anything, but a lot. Honestly, just like those things came together at the perfect time and every blue moon, the stars will align, and you’ll get a show like The Boys, but we’re very happy to be a part of it and have the timing that we had so that we could one day look back and feel like this show is a staple of this time.”

Seasons 1-5 of The Boys are streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

'The Boys' Exclusive: Jessie T. Usher Talks The "Beginning of The End" For A-Train, That Full-Circle Moment & The Show Parodying Real-Life Situations was originally published on cassiuslife.com