[Editor’s note: This episode recap, like all episode recaps published by The A.V. Club, contains spoilers.]
To say Gen V, the spinoff series of The Boys, the Eric Kripke-developed adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic book, is off to a bloody start may be an understatement. Because boy does its opening scene offer us plenty of blood. Pools of it.
But I guess that would come with the territory when your main audience surrogate character is a blood bender who first finds out about her power upon getting her period and then proceeds to, in quick succession, accidentally kill both her parents—all while her little sister is watching.
Told you: bloody.
We are, in case you’re wondering, “8 Years Ago.” Namely, the year A-Train first joined The Seven. That made him the first Black man to be so recruited (as Elisabeth Shue’s Madelyn Stillwell tells the news, the choice is proof that “we live in a post-racism world.”) This is all table-setting for the actual premise of Gen V, which is set at Godolkin University, the place where Supes go to study, i.e. where you either learn how to weaponize your powers to fight crime or work instead to exploit them for a Hollywood gig.
Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) is desperate to go to God U. She’s still dealing with nightmares of what she did to her parents and she hopes getting into the school will give her the second chance she knows she deserves. Also, she’s intent on becoming the first Black woman to be recruited into The Seven. As atonement, perhaps. But also because that way she’ll finally be out of the near-prison-like foster system she’s been in for years.
She’s ecstatic when she gets in. All she has to do is not fuck up that opportunity. And if this were any other show, we’d follow as Marie giddily makes her way through her first week at God U, making friends and enjoying her classes. Instead, in true The Boys fashion, Marie soon finds her idea of God U curdling before her eyes as her powers, her anxiety, her background, and eventually a string of not-so-great decisions put her at the center of a conspiracy that’s a lot bigger than she could fathom.
But first she has to deal with some very college-freshman issues—namely, meeting a quirky roommate (a must in any and all college-set TV shows) and scrambling to get into the courses she wants (in this case the course taught by Rich Brink Brinkerhoff, author of The Hero Inside All Of Us). Her roommate is Emma (Lizze Broadway), who’s made a name for herself as Little Cricket online, showing off fighting prowess while being only half-inch sized. Emma has no aspirations to be a crime-fighting supe; she’s happy to be part of the performing-arts arm of God U.
She also serves as the mouthpiece through which Gen V introduces us to the university’s “Golden Boy.” Luke Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is a Homelander in the making. He’s ranked No. 1 in the college and is clearly beloved by Rich, who’s already arranged for him to be recruited into The Seven. They even mocked up a costume for him that will allow Luke to forgo always needing to fight naked. Oh, sorry. I forgot to mention: Golden Boy’s power is basically of the Johnny Storm/Flame On variety: He goes fiery all over (except for his neck and head, presumably, so we can still see his facial features as he furrows his brow when fighting off opponents). He’s adored by the entire college (and fan-girled by Marie herself) and has a picture-perfect girlfriend (Maddie Phillips’s Cate, a mind empath who needs Rogue-ish gloves to constrain her power) to finish off the good-boy persona.
Serving as Luke’s BFF is Andre (Chance Perdomo), a metal bender who’s all too happy sucking and fucking his way through college. He does not have the drive and ambition of their friend Jordan Li, Rich’s TA who’s ranked No. 2 in the college. A gender-shifter played by Derek Luh and London Thor, Jordan is quietly, perhaps, the smartest of the bunch. Even if the first we met them is when Marie tries to plead her case about getting into Rich’s Intro class. No dice, Jordan tells her: She got rejected, and that’s final.
Okay, that brings us to the two nighttime events that will change Marie’s life at God U.
The first one finds her helping armed officers contain an unnamed young man (whom Marie is told is on meth, though…who’d trust any kind of cops with that info?) who was maybe escaping a facility (“The Woods”) that looks very much like a prison for supes. It’s a moment that allows Marie to prove to herself (and to Andre, who saw her) that she may be worth inviting out for drinks. Which he does.
Enter: the second fateful night which we may as well call “Maybe don’t do Molly on a school night/maybe don’t try to impress chicks with your metal bending skills in crowded spaces where you may inadvertently slash someone’s throat.” For yes, Marie begrudgingly joins Andre, Luke, Cate, and Jordan on a night out that ends in, you guessed it, bloodshed. But while the golden kids run away (smartly knowing that’s what’s best for themselves), Marie stays behind and miraculously saves the young woman who was hit by Andre’s metal party trick. She goes viral and, to judge by Emma’s excitement, that may well mean she can finally enroll in Rich’s class and begin her journey toward becoming a crime-fighting supe.
Alas, that’s not how her story goes. She’s expelled instead, made to take the blame for Andre’s mishap. Only once she musters up the courage to give Rich a piece of her mind, she finds, instead, Golden Boy burning him to smithereens (gasp!) and ends up becoming his target. That leads to plenty of questions (more of that in a second), a big fight between Golden Boy and Jordan, and former’s self-immolation shortly after he whispers something in Andre’s ear. (Side note: Jordan’s gender-shifting is kind of cool in full fight mode. I also love that we got a close-up of them kicking Golden Boy in the dick. Classic The Boys!)
It’s all super disorienting, especially for Marie, but also for us. Didn’t we just get a lecture about how heroes go for sacrifices and not glory (the day after Luke told her that “being a hero is not what you think,” no less)? Is being an ethical hero really that hard? I mean, wasn’t Luke, as his supe name told us, the Golden Boy of God U? What did he have against Rich, and how is it connected to the young boy who appeared to Luke in a maybe-not-dream wherein he told Luke that the Woods were, in fact, real? Is that where the young boy is now? Where Luke once was? Is Jordan really in on it? Was Andre? And where does this leave Marie now? There’s...a lot to mull over.
Stray observations
- Did you know Prime Video set up an actual website for Godolkin University? And yes, it’s all just as intentionally cringeworthy as the recruitment video we see looped all over the campus in this episode. How many times do you think it took Shelley Conn to say “as the unique culturally rich challenge agent that you are” without cracking a smile? Also, the fact that they teach “Hero Ethics” and “Understanding Branding” is just perfect.
- Is there anything harder to get right via CGI than fire? Water, maybe. Still, I’m happy we’ve dispensed with Golden Boy so we don’t have to witness more of his body fire in the episodes to come.
- There are few things I love more than weirdly specific pop-culture digs in genre fare, and “Zach Braff is directing” (about a superhero dramedy dealing with grief and TV sitcoms) and the knowledge that there’s a TV series called So You Think You Have Super Talent in the Voughtverse (The Boysverse? The Sevenverse?) delivered on that account this episode.
- Hi, it’s me, the one other person who has also not seen the 1995 David Caruso vehicle Jade.
- Do we like “Coagula” better than “Bloody Marie”?
- And yes, I already foresee that Emma, a.k.a. “Little Cricket,” will be a quote-spouting sensation. (“And he’s uncut!” followed quickly by “Wait, is Black Amish a thing?” were my favorites this episode.)
- Speaking of…was that the most explicit sex scene involving a bite-sized person since Talk To Her? And does citing an Almodóvar movie in a Gen V recap wholly brand me as a film snob with a penchant for genre fare?
- Speaking of: so much dick talk (and dick showing) in this episode! Given how many sex kinks we’ve seen explored in The Boys, it makes sense horny college kids would also find ways of lusting after each other’s powers (though how having a half-inch girl hang off your hard dick gets you off is…well, beyond me).
- Here’s a random thought that came to me and that I don’t quite know what to do with: Both Marie and Emma’s powers require them to self-harm. With cutting on the one hand and self-induced vomiting on the other, it’s clear both characters are playing into real problems afflicting young college girls. Will the show address this at all or will both of these power-activating behaviors play merely as attempts to distinguish these characters from the kind of supes that, as Rich Brink tells Marie, have plenty of four-quadrant appeal?
- Shall we start the betting as to what happened with Marie’s sister? My money is on... she’s still alive and maybe has powers of her own?