“Gen V” has been highly anticipated since season 1 reinvigorated an already popular franchise and landed an almost perfect 97% critic score on RT. The first live-action spin-off in the world of “The Boys” had a core cast of mostly unknown but highly interesting powered individuals trying to solve a mystery at their twisted school for kids with abilities, almost Wednesday Addams style. Six months after season 1 aired, the series suffered a huge loss due to the tragic death of season 1 star, Chance Perdomo, who played master of magnetism, Andre. The tragedy shook the cast and crew to their core and is likely one of the reasons there was almost 2 years between seasons.
Finally, the gang at “Gen Z” have returned and they made sure that Andre’s character won’t be forgotten anytime soon. The show released three episodes to mark the premiere, a trend that Amazon Prime Video has maintained for both “Gen V” and it’s predecessor, “The Boys”. The 3 episodes are a significant part of the season, which for the VoughtVerse has been historically only 8 episodes. The first episode did an effective job of picking up where season 1 left off, while the next two episodes maintained the fast and strange pace of the premiere. Warning, beyond this point there are spoilers for anyone who is not up to date on “Gen V” and “The Boys”.
The first episode did an effective job of picking up where season 1 left off, while the next two episodes maintained the fast and strange pace of the premiere.”
The premiere episode starts off after a “FOR CHANCE” title card and then takes us back to Vought laboratories in 1967 where a young Dr. Godolkin (like the school name) is rushing to the lab to stop some of his colleagues from experimenting on themselves, but he makes it there a few seconds too late and the first test subjects of “Project Odessa” end up dying horrible deaths. Vought and company wanted to create an improved version of the original Homelander formula and weren’t scared to sacrifice some scientists to get there. After the extremely brutal flashback, the episodes cuts to a fresh promo for Godolkin U., acknowledging the scandal of season 1 with a new series villain, Dean Cipher, played by Hamish Linklater who recently starred as Abraham Lincoln in the “Manhunt” series on Apple TV+. Cipher is an enigmatic character off the bat and it’s not clear what his power is, but we have a few theories.
When the premiere finally gets back to the captives we saw in season 1, we only see Jordan (London Thor/Derek Luh) and Emma (Lizzie Broadway), who think they are both about to be executed. When the pair are suddenly released, they are shocked and disgusted to see Cate (Maddie Phillips), who wants gratitude because she freed them. Here it’s revealed that Marie (Jazz Sinclair) escaped, while Andre died trying to get the rest of the group free. Cate’s heartbroken reaction is powerful, as the actors must have been close behind the scenes. Every time a new character learns of Andre’s death during the course of the premiere, that loss is felt. When we catch up with Andre’s Dad, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) he is knee deep in grief. Although Emma manages to convince him to join their cause, his transition from no to yes isn’t shown on screen that clearly. Polarity does show off some powerful grief; the emotions are still very powerful all around whenever Andre comes up.
The premiere does an excellent job of jumping back and forth between Emma and Jordan in school and Marie, who is on the run but not too far away from the school. When Marie inevitably steps in to protect someone being harassed, she ends up having to use her powers, which ultimately leads a Vought Super Tracker to hunt her down. Starlight (Erin Moriarty) intervenes and saves Marie then implores her to go back to school so she can find out about “Project Odessa”, the same one from the flashback in the opening scene.
The first episode has all the same ingredients as a classic episode of “The Boys”, with the frat party standing out. Emma really comes into her own when she’s finally able to confront Sam (Asa Germann), who is cold as ice because he has been secretly having Cate numb any negative feelings that have come up since his brother died in season 1. Sam’s descent into madness over the 3 episodes is wonderful and sad at the same time. When he hallucinates puppets his reactions are all across the board and hilariously depressing. His hallucinatory moments seem to be inspired by “Avenue V”, the VoughtVerse’s answer to “Sesame Street”. Sam’s journey to find peace through emotional numbness is something that many people can relate to and really humanizes the superhuman character. Jordan and Marie’s relationship progresses awkwardly throughout the three episodes, which seems on brand for a couple of deeply traumatized teenagers.
The Project Odessa storyline takes an unexpected turn in episode 3 when we find out Marie is actually the only surviving test subject from Project Odessa and possibly the only one who can take down Homelander. Marie is confused because Starlight wanted her to stop Odessa which sparks off a really funny debate over whether they can trust Starlight. We’re not sure if Starlight will be involved in any other episode but the way it was left, it seems we’ll at least see her one more time before the series wraps up for the season.
The Deep’s (Chace Crawford) cameo at the frat from the party (Gamma Epsilon Delta or GED) is a nice interlude but it doesn’t add a lot to the story. Homelander is mentioned a few times and just his name carries weight amongst the most powerful members of the cast and the rando students at the school. We believe we’ll see Homelander at least once this season, but unlikely more than that.
Overall the three episode premiere gave all of us fans a lot of new material from the VoughtVerse and sets up multiple conflicts moving forward. The dialogue and humor were handled extremely smoothly while the world building didn’t detract from the characters and their confused emotions. “The Boys” is coming to an end, but it’s unclear how many seasons creators Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg and Eric Kripke have in mind for “Gen V”. “The Boys” universe is seemingly a priority for Amazon Prime Video, who also have a third live-auction series featuring Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) titled “Vought Rising” which is currently in production and likely to be released in 2026.
What do you think? Was “Gen V” season 2 worth the two year wait? Did they handle the loss of Chance Perdomo the best they could’ve? What are Cipher’s powers? Will Homelander be showing up soon? Will Project Odessa be bigger than Marie? How will this tie into the final season of “The Boys”? Is Sam going to have any more puppet massacre scenes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
