admin Prime Video’s series The Boys is a great show about the commodification of superheroes, the entertainment industry, and fascism in America. Its spinoff, Gen V, meanwhile, is a great show about the most relatable of topics—hating yourself in college.
The show, whose fourth episode drops this Friday, is—much like The Boys—very irreverent and very gross. Its pilot opens with a gory flashback in which the protagonist of the story discovers she has the power to weaponize her own blood—after she gets her first period and accidentally kills both her parents. That episode also features another character making herself tiny and bouncing on a guy’s balls in a hookup gone very wrong. And yet—also like The Boys—Gen V is way deeper than first meets the eye.
Gen V is set at Godolkin University, a campus run by Vought, the corporation in the Boys universe that makes and brands superheroes. God U is basically a pre-professional program, where superpowered attendees are funneled into crime fighting or performing arts—the two natural paths for a “supe.” Crime fighting is the more prestigious path, and those students are publicly ranked in a system that foretells whether you’re likely to make The Seven, this world’s really fucked-up version of the Avengers.
Into this competitive atmosphere comes Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), the girl whose first menstruation ended in both patricide and matricide. Marie has been living in a grim facility for orphaned heroes when she gets her acceptance, which she hopes will be her ticket to a better life and reconciliation with her sister, who has rejected her.
Marie’s first impression of Godolkin isn’t promising, even though her roommate Emma (Lizze Broadway) is sweet—she can turn herself really small and makes YouTube videos fighting her guinea pig under the name “Little Cricket.” She’s initially rejected from the crime fighting path, and when she finds herself invited to party with a group of cool seniors—including God U’s great blond hope Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger—their night goes awry in multiple ways. First, a clubbing civilian’s throat gets slit. Then, in the light of day, Luke has a massive breakdown, killing a beloved professor (Clancy Brown) before immolating himself.
