The ending of Gen V season 2, episode 7, finally revealed the true identity of the burned man who had been put in a cryogenic pod for the entirety of season 2. It turned out that all those theories making the rounds on the internet are actually correct. [Spoiler Alert] The burned man is none other than Thomas Godolkin, the founding father of Godolkin University, who was using the campus as a front for his evil experiments. In 1967, some two years after laying the foundation of his university, Godolkin initiated Project Odessa to engineer god-tier superheroes, but the program wasn’t a complete success, at least not while Godolkin was around (for the rest of the world). As seen in the first episode of season 2, some of Godolkin’s colleagues got greedy and injected themselves with unstable Compound V, which gave them powers beyond their control. As soon as Godolkin arrived at the lab, his colleagues started exhibiting superpowers that eventually took away their lives. One of them even torched the entire lab with his powers, and Godolkin tried his best to pull the fire alarm, but he fell unconscious due to the presence of heavy smoke. It was this lab fire that gave Godolkin all those burn marks and would have taken his life too if someone (we don’t know who yet) hadn’t injected him with Compound V. The reason I believe it was the supe serum that saved Godolkin’s life is because he wasn’t a supe earlier, but in the present timeline, he has the power to get into peoples’ heads and control them like puppets. And it was through these powers that he continued his research on the Odessa program and went on to create the most powerful supe in the world, that is, Homelander, in the 1980s. Later, he tried to replicate the success of his experiment to create more and more godlike supes, but most of his subjects died during the trial except for one, Marie Moreau. Now, I don’t think Godolkin knew how Marie’s powers were going to manifest; however, as soon as he learned that she could control blood with her powers, it gave him a glimmer of hope that someday Marie would be able to heal his wounds and free him from his suffering. Godolkin brought Marie to his university so he could help her level up her powers and use her as a means to further his evil objective, which was to “cull the herd” and “make supes gods again.”
Godolkin Wants To Create An Army of God-Supes
For Godolkin, the supes are nothing but mere lab rats. He doesn’t consider them human. Well, actually narcissists and supremacists like him don’t consider anyone human. So, now that Godolkin is back on his two legs, and his body is as good as new, his primary objective is to dig out the weeds and prepare the soil for a new harvest. The ending of season 2, episode 7, suggested that Godolkin is going to kill everyone not worthy of being a supe. It seemed like he, while working from the shadows, had created the ranking system so he could segregate the best from the worst and then put the remainder in an incinerator to start a new cycle. It is to be noted that after a fetus is injected with Compound V, no one can predict what powers they are going to develop growing up, which makes the task of creating supes pretty challenging. It’s not like horticulture. But Godolkin has his unstable serum from the Odessa program, which he believes will help him create a perfect soldier. However, the question here is: will more supes like Marie and Homelander survive the experiment? But I am sure that if Godolkin is to survive a few more years, he’ll eventually find a solution to that problem.
The second question is about control. The more powerful a supe is, the more unstable they are as a person. They are much harder to control, but then Godolkin has his powers to mind control or take possession of others’ bodies and bend them to his will. This brings me to the possibility that Godolkin won’t mind executing any godlike supe who will try to defy his orders, which even includes Marie and Homelander. So far in the show, we haven’t seen Godolkin taking possession of Homelander, which brings up a question: can he really control someone as powerful as Homelander or Marie? Because if he can, then why didn’t he just mind-control Marie and manipulate her into healing him instead of waiting for her to come seek him out? The thing is, if Godolkin can control the godlike supes, then it will make him the most powerful person in the world. He can lead an army of superpowered soldiers and establish his reign over the world. But if he cannot control them, then his hustle to make more godlike supes won’t amount to much, because it will take just one rogue supe to end it all. Sooner or later, Godolkin will end up being the architect of his own doom, leaving the world in chaos, from which it may never recover. However, it’s possible that earlier on, Godolkin, all burned and bed-ridden, wasn’t powerful enough to control the god-tier supes, but now that he has been fully healed to his former glory, it’s very much possible that he can possess the body of any supe he wants, and that includes Homelander as well. I believe the only reason why Godolkin joined hands with Sister Sage was because both of them have a common goal in mind, which is to get rid of Homelander, who is currently the most powerful supe in The Boys universe. Both Sage and Godolkin want to establish supe supremacy in the world, and even though Homelander has a similar objective in mind, he’s quite unhinged and narcissistic. In simple words, he can’t be trusted with the plan as it’s very much possible that he’ll spoil it all. So, if Godolkin is now capable of plunging into Homelander’s mind and taking control of his body, then he can simply further their plans for world domination, and no will be able to stop them, except for a supe with electromagnetic powers.
The True Nature of Godolkin’s Powers Is Still a Question Mark
The ending of episode 7 further established the real identity of the person who had assumed the role of the new Dean of Godolkin University. It turned out Cipher was just a pseudonym (ironic) that Godolkin had given him, while his real name was Doug Brightbill. It can be assumed that, over the years, Godolkin had taken control over the bodies of many humans (as they are easier to manipulate) to lead his research, and sometime around the late 1990s or early 2000s, he came across Doug, who, after he lost his job at Blockbuster, ended up becoming Godolkin’s puppet. Now, the second season revealed a few interesting things about Godolkin’s powers. Firstly, he can control more than one person at a time. Remember, he was already controlling Doug when he took possession of Jordan’s body. However, if you noticed, both Doug and Jordan started gesturing the same way, as if they were both puppets tied to the same string. A similar thing had happened when Godolkin tried to mind control Polarity. In the show, we haven’t seen Godolkin controlling more than 2 people at a time, but even though he can be capable of doing that, we know that every person/supe he controls at a given point of time will act in the same manner. This explains how his powers work in a linear way, that is, all his puppets are tied to the same control bar.
However, the reason why I said that Godolkin’s powers are still a question mark is because he himself doesn’t know the true extent of his superhuman abilities. In the sixth episode, when Godolkin, through Doug, tried to control Polarity for the second time, he used his electromagnetic shockwave to resist the possession, which made Godolkin realize that even his powers weren’t without flaws. A magnetic pulse can interrupt the neural electrical activity, thereby kicking Godolkin out of their brain. And it’s not just Polarity. Any supe with electromagnetic abilities can easily counter Godolkin, which means he isn’t exactly a god, as he believes himself to be. And I could be wrong here, but I think even Starlight has similar powers, so it’s possible that there will be a clash between her and Godolkin in the season 2 finale.
Another thing that we don’t yet know about Godolkin is how far his mind stings can actually reach. All this while, he has been controlling Doug from the dean’s house. Later, he used Doug to control Jordan, who was fighting in the ring and was not exactly near enough Doug for Godolkin to control him so easily. I guess Godolkin’s range is limited to a certain number of miles or something, which was why he wasn’t able to control Marie and Homelander, because they had been beyond his reach. I mean, he could still have been able to control Marie through Doug, but then he would have exposed himself to the only person capable of giving him a second shot on life. Additionally, I think the distance should play an important role with regard to his powers, as his leash over a person or a supe is strongest when they are near. And last but not the least, I guess it’s the Compound V running in his veins that stopped him from aging. Given it’s the 2020s, Godolkin should be around 100 years old, but when Marie healed him, he looked as young as he was in the 1960s, which means the serum actually turned him into a god.
Godolkin Will Be Defeated, Eventually
As mentioned earlier, even though Godolkin’s mind control abilities make him one of the most powerful supes out there, he’s not invincible. In season 2, Marie and her friends will try to stop him from killing the “weak” supes in the university and therefore take Godolkin on in a direct fight, where he will use his powers to control either Marie or her friends. This is when either Polarity or someone else will use their electromagnetic abilities to break Godolkin’s possession. However, as mentioned in the penultimate episode, his powers can move pretty fast from one person to another, making it difficult for the other supes to stand a chance against him. However, we also have one trump card on Marie’s team, a supe named Harper, who can mimic the powers of a superhuman by just touching them. It’s possible that Emma will bring Harper to help them so she can copy Godolkin’s powers and use them to control him; however, for that, she will first have to physically reach Godolkin. I am pretty sure that now that Godolkin himself knows his weakness, he’ll make sure that his enemies won’t exploit his vulnerabilities, so it’s going to be one hell of an uphill task to take Godolkin down. Well, it will be quite interesting to find out how Marie and her friends finally defeat the evilest supe of all time and finally put an end to his tyranny.
Also, will Homelander have a role to play in Godolkin’s downfall? I hope he makes an appearance in the season 2 finale, because that will make things much more interesting. So, see you all next week, and if you have any other theories or thoughts on Godolkin’s powers, then please do share them with me in the comments below.
