The Boys Season 5 Premiere Gives One Doomed Character A Death Worthy Of Anime
by Rafael Motamayor · /FilmThis article contains spoilers for the season 5 premiere of "The Boys."
"The Boys" season 5 has arrived, and Prime Video's bloody superhero satire has almost reached its endgame. Lines are drawn, the stakes have been set, and there's no going back from this war. Last season ended with our heroes dispersed and most of them imprisoned, and the bulk of the season 5 premiere deals with the attempt to rescue Hughie (Jack Quaid), Frenchie (Tomer Capone), and Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso) from their scheduled execution at a concentration and re-education camp for dissidents against Homelander's (Antony Starr) regime.
The raid is successful and the three characters are rescued by Butcher (Karl Urban), Starlight (Erin Moriarty), and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), but along the way, they do fight Homelander. Right as the megalomaniac supe is about to murder Hughie by lasering his face off, he's saved by an unexpected ally who dies shortly thereafter: A-Train (Jessie T. Usher).
It's a tragic death, and not one we saw coming in our predictions for "The Boys" character deaths. A-Train tries to run from Homelander, but trips and falls, which allows the nearly-invincible leader of The Seven to catch up to him.
Right before he dies, however, A-Train starts laughing. He mocks Homelander, finally realizing that the boogeyman he feared for many years is nothing but an insecure little boy. Right before Homelander can snap A-Train's neck, the speedster smiles.
That smile is important, because A-Train's death is straight out of "One Piece" and worthy of the mysterious Will of D on that show.
The Will of D, and facing death with a smile
One of the biggest mysteries of "One Piece" involves something called the "Will of D." Several characters in the legendary anime and manga have the middle initial D, and they tend to be pretty important characters to the plot. These characters share some traits, like clear defiance of the World Government (the ultimate villains in the show), and a tendency to die with a smile on their face.
Starting with the very first member of the "D Clan" we meet, Gol D. Roger, we've seen several characters with the middle initial D laugh when they're about to die, then smile in their final moments.
This is what happens in the season 5 premiere of "The Boys" right before A-Train dies. The moment Homelander catches up to him and it becomes clear he's not making it out alive, A-Train starts laughing. He's no longer afraid of Homelander, and he doesn't care about the fact that he's dying. He confronts his death, and laughs in its face. In his final moments, A-Train goes down like an anime legend. He mocks Homelander for being an insecure child, and decides he's no longer afraid of his former boss.
A-Train's redemption came full circle
A-Train has been on a redemption journey since season 4, after reckoning with the pain he's caused his family and deciding to do better. He even properly apologized to Hughie last season for killing Hughie's girlfriend Robin.
In the season 5 premiere, A-Train comes full circle in his redemption. It's not that he sacrifices himself, but he dies after coming out of hiding to try and save Hughie. "The Boys" started with Hughie and A-Train, with the killing of Hughie's girlfriend being what prompts his crusade against supes and him joining The Boys. Seeing A-Train, who had declined to help Starlight fight Homelander for fear of risking himself and his family, decide to risk it all specifically to save Hughie from Homelander is extremely poignant. What's more, the reason A-Train gets killed is that he trips and falls while avoiding colliding with and murdering an innocent woman while running from Homelander. That's right: A-Train dies by purposely avoiding the action that started his journey in the series in the first place.
What makes this redemption arc so good is that it's not about A-Train's death cleaning his slate or forgiving his past sins. Quite the opposite. A-Train's death and ultimate sacrifice is just the final act in a journey that began last season, a series of conscious efforts and choices to do a bit better than before. That doesn't take away from his past crimes, but he continuously tried to do better for the sake of helping, and for the sake of being a better man. In the end, that incremental improvement mattered. A-Train saved Hughie, he saved his own brother, and kept his brother safe from Homelander. He may not have been a hero, but at least A-Train died doing something heroic.
"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.