In the final episode of the first season of Prime’s “Gen V,” our young heroes were left defeated and imprisoned, seemingly left to rot as the world went on without them. Since then, we got Season 4 of “The Boys” last summer, ushering in the setup for the series’ final season and the progression of this new story. After the off-screen death of Andre (Chance Perdomo, who passed away before Season 2 began production), who died trying to free himself and his friends, Emma (Elizabeth Broadway) and Jordan (London Thor, Derek Luh), are brought back to Godolkin University, forced to tell the press that they aren’t affiliated with either Andre, nor Marie (Jaz Sinclair).
Our heroine made her escape before Andre’s death, leaving her friends behind and taking to staying in motels, evading capture in small towns. With Dean Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn) now dead, another rises: Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater), a pious and brutal man who desires to weed out the weak at the university, desperate to mold the remaining students into an army that can rival The Seven. As Marie walks around America picking up snacks at gas stations and beating up Homelander (Antony Starr) supporters, she is tailed by Starlight (Erin Moriarty), who needs her help in uncovering a mystery that lies buried beneath the floors of God U.
More so than Season 1, “Gen V” is now directly intertwined with the showdown that will obviously commence in the final season of its predecessor. The underbellies of Godolkin’s already rotten core are even more frightening than one could imagine, and beneath those horrors lie ones that are unfathomable not only to our central characters but also to the audience. These horrors, which will inevitably break open this world as we know it, are also tethered to one of our heroes more than we could have expected.
At its core, this season examines its protagonist, Marie, who still crackles as the show’s fierce breathing heart. Her connection to the secrets being kept beneath Godolkin’s halls and its new Dean grows as the season progresses, ultimately becoming a defining aspect of the show, cracking open the foundation of not only Marie’s birth, but her existence. In spite of what should have been a deadly blast from Homelander in the Season 1 finale, it became clear that Marie harnessed a power that she and viewers had not previously been shown. These powers have sat dormant within her, and desperate to bring them up from the surface is Dean Cipher, who attempts to push her beyond her means, amplifying her powers but simultaneously putting Marie and those she loves in danger.
With each bombshell, Sinclair plays Marie with ease, allowing the character to become a younger version of herself when reconnecting with people who knew her now-deceased parents, while harnessing a fierceness that grows with each episode and makes her appear as someone long grown-up. While this cast has always had chemistry, each of the young actors here has improved with Season 2, making for an ensemble that runs like a well-oiled yet tender machine. Each of them melds together perfectly, perfectly portraying a broken family that is desperate to bind itself together again, despite their foes doing everything in their power to separate them.
A welcome addition to the core group this season is Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), who was only featured briefly in Season 1 as Andre’s father. His presence here is increased tenfold, operating as not only an older mentor for our young protagonists but the series’s new emotional clutch in the wake of Andre’s death. Kept in the dark about the why and how that led to this, we watch as Polarity is broken apart by this loss, which is directly tied to the powers that he and his son once shared. Forced to reckon not only with his son’s death but with his declining health, Thomas harnesses a tender yet fierce melancholy, fully aware of his declining health but still desperate to uncover the mystery of his son’s death.
This leads to a job at Godolkin, hopeful to get closer to uncovering these mysteries while also helping Andre’s friends figure out the secrets kept by Cipher. This storyline, along with others, often makes Season 2 of “Gen V” feel more like a detective show. We watch as characters trade fight scenes for sequences spent digging through university archives, and the show’s high-tension moments aren’t dependent on CGI, but on characters revealing secrets to each other over hushed whispers and declarations. While some may not enjoy this shift in tone, it helps the series grow into one that may eventually surpass “The Boys.”
Although this series was never as politically charged as its parent show, this season explores how young people’s bodies and minds are co-opted by their elders and molded to become talking heads for a cause that is unjust and that they don’t truly believe in. Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Sam (Asa Germann), last seen as “villains” in the final moments of Season 4 of “The Boys,” have become some of this universe’s most engaging characters. With them are, of course, our clear-cut heroes, who band together to attempt to rehabilitate these broken souls.
Each character at play here is one whose childhood was stripped away from them. Finally, the series delves deeper into what this means for these characters going forward, and how we push children in our technologically driven society to see themselves as products that can be sold to a broader audience, rather than as individuals who can exist beyond the bounds of consumption. While the children outside of this fictional world are pushed further into a jaded adulthood, “Gen V” makes it clear that what these fictional heroes desperately need is to look back and attempt to heal the broken children that lie within them.
