Here we are a little over a year since we’ve seen anything from The Boys, so what better way to satisfy that itch for season four than with a spin-off? Gen V follows a young woman named Marie Moreau, entering her freshman year at Godolkin University. A specialized college for super-powered young adults looking to get into crime-fighting with The Seven or the performing arts and capitalizing on their powers. Marie wants to be a hero, but before that, she has to prove it on the ranked scale of her prestigious new school. So let’s see how her first week goes with episode one, “God U.”
1. Introduction
Gen V doesn’t stray far from the original series by drawing in the audience with an easy-going scene of a 12-year-old Marie and her sister watching “The Draft” and seeing A-Train gets drafted into The Seven. It’s a historic moment as he’s the first African American in The Seven, giving a sense of pride to Marie and her family. Still, the celebration is short-lived as she runs up the stairs into the bathroom, complaining of a stomach ache. It turns out to be her first period, but as she discovers this moment of womanhood, it starts to float, and her mom breaks down the door due to Marie’s screams during this scary scene. As soon as the door breaks through, it startles Marie, and the blood shoots through her mother’s carotid, killing her. Her father comes rushing after the sounds of screams and doors breaking and, unfortunately, has the same result as it startles Marie to cause his death. Leaving Marie and her sister as orphans, it jumps to the present-day, post-Starlight and Maeve leaving The Seven.
2. New Friends
Most (cause you know there will be more) of the cast is filled out quickly in this opening episode as we meet Marie’s fellow students who will make for a memorable first year at Godolkin University. Ranked #1 senior student is Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan, who is set to join the seven with his pyrokinesis powers and super strength. He’s not the cocky a-hole typecast you’d think of with a show like this but he’s definitely carrying more emotional baggage than he’s letting on, especially with some continuous nightmares about the woods. His best friend is a guy named Andre Anderson, another highly-ranked student with mental manipulation and super strength. This guy has a little more depth to him thus far with his willingness to jump into the line of fire to help out the campus police, but his powers do end up doing more harm than good in this episode. Emma Meyer is Marie’s roommate who can turn small and uses it mainly for her YouTube channel but is likely to be a guiding voice for Marie since she has no real-world experience due to her upbringing in an orphanage. Jordan Li is the #2 ranked student on campus with the ability to turn from a male to a female, also paired with super strength, durability, and energy beams for the respective genders. Cate Dunlap is Luke’s girlfriend and has mind control. She doesn’t get much screen time in the opener, but she will likely play a more significant role since she hangs with the cool kids.
3. Field Trip
Marie gets an invite from Andre to go on a “Field Trip” with him and the others to sneak off campus and get into some college-level shenanigans, which include doing drugs and getting into a club they probably shouldn’t be allowed in for either age or prestige. Emma convinces her to get in with the more popular students and rub shoulders with Golden Boy to help get tips on getting ranked. (Marie’s goal is to be the first African-American woman in The Seven). Although hesitant at first, she does and ends up having a good time…until Andre messes up. While using his mental manipulation powers on a little swan, someone bumps into him, and it goes through a random woman’s neck. All the students freeze, imagining their futures go out the window, fearing TMZ-like news coming out. Still, Marie uses her blood manipulation to put the dying woman’s blood back into her body, giving her a chance to survive until the ambulance arrives. It’s a crazy moment because she’s also rolling on Molly, so she’s got some major concentration powers to do that in a messed-up state of mind. The news makes the rounds on social media, and it looks good to get into the superhero program back on campus, but it quickly flips on her. Professor Brinkerhoff gives her the news about her expulsion from school because the other kids were smart enough to avoid the cameras, and she’s just a freshman, so someone had to bite the bullet. He also makes a rude comment about her blood powers, stating it would never be seen as not creepy in North America, but with Homelander’s outbursts from last season, I’d say anything can be good if spun the right way.
4. Mental Breakdown
Now, if that isn’t a perfect moment to end the episode and push the narrative to keep her full-ride scholarship intact, nah, it has to take a seriously twisted turn. Golden Boy wakes from another woods-infused nightmare and goes straight to Professor Brink. Earlier, they had a conversation about GB going straight to The Seven; no draft since Maeve and Starlight were out, and they needed some spots to fill. It seemed like good news, but still, something was off. Luke goes into the professor’s office seemingly easy-going, and when Marie goes in to make her case to remain a student, she sees Luke killing Professor Brink in a flame-induced hug. (Imagine The Human Torch giving an ordinary person a bear hug). GB then goes on a hellbent chase for Marie, fighting Jordan in the hallways before he reaches Andre outside, who finds a way to calm him down. Luke is crying and hugs him normally before he whispers something unknown in his ear and then goes flame-mode in the sky and implodes in the sky. Now, that’s how you end a pilot for this new, crazy show.
5. The Woods
After finishing this episode, one of the biggest questions I had was, what are the woods? Luke referred to it a couple of times with his nightmares, and we even got a small glimpse of it at the club and towards the end of the episode. A little boy named Sam told him it wasn’t a dream, it was real, but that was all we got from his nightmare. There was also a scene in the middle of the episode where a runaway super-powered man is running through the campus “tweaking on meth,” per the campus security. Once Marie and Andre subdue him to be handcuffed, he screams, “I’m not going back to the woods!” There’s no other glimpse of the actual woods, or if it’s a prison, but if it’s anything like The Boys, there’s definitely going to be more secrets to be unveiled.
