RECAP: ‘Gen V’ Season 2 Episodes 1-3

After what seems like forever, Gen V Season 2 is finally here. At least, Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3 are finally here. The season premiere of The Boys spin-off starts rather strongly. The characters are played and written with more depth than ever, while an intriguing primary story arc is set for the season. Without further ado, let’s jump in, because there’s a lot to discuss.

The first episode of Gen V Season 2, titled “New Year, New U,” directed by Steve Boyum and written by Ellie Monahan, immediately starts the proceedings off with a bang. In the year 1967, Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater) frantically runs down a laboratory hallway trying to prevent a set of scientists from testing a new blue serum, similar to Compound V, on themselves.

As Thomas bursts into the room, it appears that nothing is amiss. That is, until the serum takes hold. One of the scientists catches on fire, another pukes blood, and worst of all, one has a giant tentacled monster sprout from his anus. The lab, whose door is adorned with the words “Odessa Project”, catches fire. With that, we have our first gratuitous gore scene of the season.

Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3 wastes little time in upping the ante. 

Cut to the present day. Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh) is in a Vought Corporation-operated prison cell. Suddenly, they’re handcuffed and escorted out into a van where Emma Meyer/Little Cricket (Lizze Broadway) is waiting. The two are initially happy to see each other.

Still, their happy reunion gives way to rage and confusion when they’re dropped in front of Godolkin University once again, where Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) is waiting for them. She claims that she helped them get released, under the condition that they read out a speech that exonerates the University for what happened to them, as well as helps support an anti-human, Supes-first agenda.

Before she can deliver the details, Cate questions where Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo) is. Jordan angrily tells her to read their mind, where Cate discovers the horrible truth, elaborated on later in the episode: Andre died over-exerting himself trying unsuccessfully to help Emma and Jordan escape.

Cate is, naturally, shell-shocked, a feeling that might hit close to home for the audience, as Chance Perdomo’s tragic passing in real life has left a large hole in the heart of the series. Showrunner Michele Fazekas was given a no-win scenario here in working around Perdomo’s passing, and she handled it as well as she possibly could’ve. 

Jordan, Emma, and Cate all face major decisions. 

Inside Godolkin, Emma and Jordan give dead-eyed recitations of the speech they’ve been forced to deliver. After they finish, we’re introduced to Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater). His powers unknown, his intentions certainly aren’t, as he gives a sinister speech of his own, framing what happened to the cast in the previous season as a violent anti-Supe conspiracy. During this speech, Jordan seems to remember seeing Cipher from the window in their cell when they were imprisoned.

If Cipher’s intentions were in doubt, consider the next scene, where he threatens Cate, who is under his control, by holding her hand right above the blades of a blender. Cipher is an intriguing villain, mostly bolstered by Linklater hamming up the menace of the character. After the previous season’s villain’s subtlety, this is a nice change of pace.

Distraught at the situation she and Jordan have been put in, Emma tries to speak to Andre’s father, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas). Polarity dismisses her, so Emma goes and does what any college kid facing issues does- goes and gets drunk at a frat party. There, she sees Sam (Asa Germann). Expecting an apology from him, Sam, his feelings dulled by Cate’s powers, instead is incredibly rude to her, making her feel so small that, when she goes to the bathroom, she actually shrinks down without throwing up. There’s an interesting development for her power set.

Gen V reminds us that these are college students. So, sometimes, they’re messy. 

Unfortunately, Emma is unable to grow big again, so she grabs the clothes off a mini Hula Girl and, well, leans into the party. It’s not long before she’s being tossed around like a mini ping pong ball. I like moments like this that let Gen V have some fun with the “superheroes in college” in premise.

Less fun is the journey that Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) is undergoing. She’s wandering the country, looking for her sister Annabeth. When she sees a group of Starlighters – anti-Vought protesters – being harassed by a group of MAGA-like aggressors, she uses her blood powers to knock the aggressors out. 

Her act of kindness puts her on the radar of Dogknott (Zach McGowan), a Supe with an animalistic sense of tracking by smell. Oh, and he’s also apparently sexually attracted to dogs? This character feels like half-baked leftovers from The Boys. Speaking of The Boys, Marie is eventually tracked to her motel hideout by Dogknott who is subdued by Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty). She explains to Marie that she needs her to re-enter Godolkin to investigate a project known as “Odessa” that Thomas Godolkin spearheaded, the same one we saw in the intro. 

This scene feels egregious, serving little purpose other than to connect to Gen V‘s predecessor. There are other, better ways to introduce the main plot thread of Odessa and this wasn’t it. Thankfully, the episode ends on a stronger note when the rest of the crew confront Marie. She reveals that she was able to escape, but couldn’t come back for her friends, which angers them.

Marie’s side story is best when it comes to an end and she’s reunited with friends. 

Thankfully, there’s someone else to take the animosity, as Cate shows up. Reading Marie’s mind, she fearfully tells Marie she needs to tell Vought everything she knows. As she approaches Cate, Jordan unleashes their force field power, knocking Cate unconscious. As Cate starts to bleed out, Marie can’t seem to help her. 

As the premiere episode, one couldn’t ask for much better than “New Year, New U”. Even with the tacky Starlight appearance, Gen V  successfully sets a new status quo and hits the ground running with it. Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3″ continues with Justice Never Forgets”, directed by Boyum once again and written by Jessica Chou. The second episode maintains the momentum of the previous. After the meaty premiere, there’s considerably less to go over here, so let’s get through the key points.

In a very Gen V Season 1 turn of events, Marie is being forced to act as an influencer, attributing her absence at the school to a vague mental health struggle and ensuring viewers that she’s thrilled to be back at Godolkin. Marie tries to keep up this facade when she goes to visit Cipher. He’s more interested in laying the cards on the table, revealing that he knows that she knows he was at the facility she was imprisoned in. Moreover, he drops another bombshell: Cate is alive, and he suspects anti-Supe activists of leaving her in the comatose state she’s in. 

Gen V Season 2 delivers greater, more sinister villains. 

Linklater continues to nail this highly unlikable characters, and his true motivations are a more enticing mystery than the actual big mystery in play. What’s not a mystery is that Cate is not okay. In rough shape in the hospital, an unconscious Cate is visited by a tearful Sam. The somber nature of the visit turns to terror when Cate’s hand accidentally touches a nurse.

Seemingly possessed by Cate, the nurse cries out that she needs Emma, only to start bleeding from the eyes, turning rage-filled, and stabbing a fellow nurse. She’s about to gouge the other nurse’s eyes out when security arrives to pull her off. Jordan’s attack on Cate has left her deeply, deeply disturbed. So what will possibly happen when she wakes up?

For something a little lighter, Jordan and Marie succumb to their feelings for one another once again. Marie makes it awkward whenever, mid-intimacy, she tells Jordan she loves them. Marie and Jordan’s burgeoning romance was one of the best parts of the first season. Their awkward, palpable chemistry only seems to grow and I hope their relationship remains a focus this season. 

Characters from The Boys appear in varying levels of success. 

Elsewhere, Sam attends a frat ritual, where famous alumnus The Deep (Chace Crawford) stands over the proceedings. This seems like a more natural integration of a The Boys character than Starlight, as it makes sense that a dirtbag like The Deep would still be hanging out at his alma mater. When Sam asks him if he’ll be able to alert Homelander to figuring out what happened with Cate, The Deep assures him that Homelander (Anthony Starr) is on it. Knowing The Deep’s low standing in the organization, it’s dubious as to whether or not this is actually true.

The biggest bombshell this episode arrives when Polarity and Emma make a huge discovery in the Odessa case. Polarity has taken a job as a faculty member in order to deeper investigate whatever Odessa is, making Emma his TA. While investigating the archives, they open up a secret passageway filled with Nazi and KKK memorabilia, not uncommon for the Vought Corporation. What is more shocking is the discovery of a file for Odessa, that seems to suggest none other than Marie Moreau is involved. Emma is so shocked by this news that she grows huge without over-consumption, another development in her powers.

Elsewhere on Godolkin Campus, the student body are celebrating. Before Marie, Sam, or Jordan can question what’s happened, Firecracker (Valorie Curry), another good cameo from The Boys, announces that Dogknott has found the perpetrator that injured Cate. This is none other than one of the Starlighters Marie saved, brutally murdered by Dogknott for a crime he didn’t commit.

Gen V navigates a socio-political storyline. 

As a pit forms in Marie’s stomach, Cate wakes up. This scene is a harrowing note to end the episode on, drawing a large parallel with the radicalization of today’s youths into blindly following dangerous, hateful ideologies, in the show’s case anti-humanism. Undoubtedly this is an example of Gen V doing socio-political commentary right.

The final episode of Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3 has a lot less going on than the previous two, so the recap here will be a lot more truncated. The episode, entitled “H is for Human”, is directed by Karen Gaviola and written by Cameron Squires. The focus of “H is for Human” is mostly just on getting us to know the struggles of the main characters a bit deeper, and on that front it succeeds. 

Cate, having awoken, harbors a grudge towards her former friends, but, as advised by Cipher, is forced to go along with the lie that Starlighters attacked her. Emma, meanwhile, befriends two Starlighter activists on campus and vows to help them with their crusade. On Sam’s end, he tries to deal with the mental strain of not having Cate being able to take his pain away. 

The cast is better than ever in Season 2. 

As stated earlier, this episode primarily focuses on exploring characters’ feelings about their current situation, which doesn’t lend itself to extensive recapping. Nevertheless, two major events happen in this episode. The first is that Marie tracks down her aunt, not only finding out that her parents were in the mysterious Odessa program to try to have a baby, which turned out to be Marie, but also that Marie’s sister Annabeth was living with her aunt for the past few years. Marie’s hurt turns to confusion when she realizes that her aunt has no idea where Annabeth is.

Meanwhile, Jordan, who is #1 in the rankings at Godolkin, is feeling like a token, as they’re being forced to use corny language to self-identify that isn’t reflective of their experience. Through this personal turmoil, Jordan musters up the courage to tell Marie that they love her back. This courage extends to a speech Jordan gives, where they drops the bombshell that not only did Andre die trying to break them out of prison, but that they are the one that attacked Cate.

And with that, Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3 get things off to a pretty great start. The cast is better than ever, an enticing mystery has developed, and the things are getting more dangerous than ever for our protagonists. This seems like only the beginning for what should be an incredibly exciting season, but more than anything, it just feels really good to be back in The Boys universe.

Gen V Season 2 Episodes 1-3 are out now on Prime Video.