The Boys spin-off series Gen V returns for its second season this week. While we won’t grieve Prime Video for making more sequel TV series for the tongue-and-cheek superhero show that built a career on taking the piss out of DC and Marvel, we will give it grace by picking up the pieces of Gen V‘s first season so viewers are all caught up just in time for its return on September 17. Here’s everything you need to know about Gen V season one.
Gen V centers on Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), a Supe with the power to manipulate blood like she waltzed out of Avatar: The Last Airbender. She enrolls in Godolkin University, a superhero academy that’s been training Supes on ethics, crime fighting, and branding since 1965.
There, she meets an assortment of cool, superpowered friends, like magnetism-manipulating Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo), mind-warping telepath Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips), size-shifter Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway), and Jordan Li (London Thor/Derek Luh), Marie’s maybe sorta kinda pre-Facebook official partner whose gender-swapping powers grant them super strength and energy blasts.
Maria witnesses star student Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger) incinerate Professor Brinkerhoff (Clancy Brown) and self-implode, kicking off a series of events that not only unearth secret experiments taking place under the school’s watch but also have huge implications for The Boys‘ finale as well.
After some sleuthing, Marie and her friends discover that Luke was completely justified in attacking his teacher. It turns out that Brinkerhoff was just one of many staff members and trustees at God U involved in secret experiments aimed at creating superhumans.
One of these experiments produced a serum designed to kill Supes. Unfortunately for the students, their story doesn’t end in victory, as Homelander (Anthony Starr) crashes their party and quickly apprehends them.
One unfortunate real-life detail that’ll ripple into the upcoming season of Gen V is the passing of Perdomo. The 27-year-old actor died last March following a motorcycle incident. Production on Gen V was delayed as a result; when work resumed, Gen V‘s creators aimed to honor Pedromo with how they handled Andre in the second season (a feat Variety reports is earnest, if not awkward in execution).
From what we saw in season four of The Boys, Gen V‘s Cate and Sam Riordan (Asa August Germann) switched teams, joining Homelander in his reign of terror. We’ll have to wait and see if the Supe-killing virus from God U, which Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) possesses, will come into play or if Marie will be the key to Homelander’s downfall.
Gen V returns to Prime Video for season two on September 17.