In Episode 6 of Gen V, we saw Cate working overtime to keep Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Emma oblivious to the fact that they were on the cusp of revealing that Indira and Dr. Cardosa were using Sam to augment Golden Boy’s powers in The Woods. All this “pushing” (which is Cate’s way of manipulating people’s minds) caused Cate to malfunction, and she ended up sucking Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Dusty into her mind. Cate inadvertently gave them a short summary of her origin story, and then her mind turned against the “intruders” and tried to kill them. While Dusty died, the rest of them made it out alive with the information that Cate was manipulating them all this while and that she was responsible for Luke’s death as she manipulated him on Indira’s orders. Emma managed to track down Sam and reunited with the rest of the young Supes. They decided to take down Indira, who, BTW, was planning to kill every Supe in existence with a killer virus.
Spoiler Alert
Grace Mallory meets Indira Shetty
Episode 7 of Gen V opens with Indira and Dr. Cardosa exposing a few young Supes to a Supe who is very infected with the Supe-Killing virus. An impatient Indira says that the contamination process is taking too long, and she wants the virus to be airborne, then the infection will spread faster. Cardosa says that what they are doing in The Woods is already too out-of-pocket, and if they make the virus more infectious, Vought is going to finish them all. Indira spells it out for Cardosa and the audience that everything that is happening at Godolkin is now out of Vought’s jurisdiction, and Cardosa has to do what Indira wants him to do because he knows too much. This confirms my suspicion that whatever Indira is doing in The Woods is completely illegal. I mean, everything that Vought does is pretty much illegal. But it seems like Indira is crossing some lines that Vought doesn’t want her to cross. The concept of making something that harms the Supes business sounded fishy from the get-go. Now, it’s clear that Indira is secretly anti-Vought and anti-Supe. Cate tries to ambush Indira by asking to convene at her house, but Indira says that she has to go to the city for an unavoidable task, and that she’ll meet Cate later. Despite Marie, Jordan, and Andre’s apprehensions about Cate, they decide to trust her because they don’t have any other option. Andre says he’ll wait with Cate until Indira arrives, while Marie and Jordan search for evidence in Indira’s office so that they can present it to Victoria Neuman when she arrives for the Town Hall meeting at God U, in the hopes that she’ll shut down Indira and her work in The Woods. Emma goes out to get some supplies and food for Sam and explicitly tells him to stay inside her hostel room because he’s living evidence of the fact that The Woods exists and that Indira is responsible for the torture that he has faced.
Marie and Jordan infiltrate Indira’s office, and they are nearly discovered by Cardosa, but since he’s drunk, he doesn’t notice them. He delivers a file, urinates in Indira’s scotch bottle, and then leaves. Marie and Jordan confirm yet another long-standing theory that Indira’s child was killed by a Supe. Well, not only her child but her husband were killed by Homelander when he allowed that plane to crash in Season 1 of The Boys. So, her crusade to kill every Supe in existence makes so much sense. The episode doubles down on this theory by showing Indira meeting Grace Mallory, the founder of The Boys, and informing her about the Supe-Killing virus. Mallory advises her to stop going down the path of vengeance because it has harmed her and consumed Butcher. However, when Indira leaves, Mallory picks up her phone and asks someone if they’ve heard everything Indira has said about The Woods and the Supe-Killing virus. She probably had someone from The Boys or someone who is anti-Supe (and hence, part of The Boys) listening to their conversation. I don’t know who it is, but if I have to bet, it’s definitely Butcher. At the end of The Boys Season 3, episode 8, Butcher was planning to kill Victoria Neuman, and a Supe-Killing virus will definitely help his cause. It’s risky because the boys have two Supes on their team. If the rest learns that Butcher is trying to acquire a virus that’ll kill all Supes, it’ll definitely lead to an argument.
Victoria Neuman’s Town Hall Meeting at Godolkin Goes Sideways
As expected, Sam stupidly leaves Emma’s room and goes with Rufus to attend Victoria Neuman’s Town Hall meeting. Cameron Coleman sits down to have a conversation with Polarity about “superhero issues.” Andre and Cate watch the show from Indira’s house, and they have a tiff about their trust issues. It’s short-lived, though, because Polarity suffers a seizure on live television, thereby causing his powers to act up in weird ways. Andre rushes to help him. As Polarity inadvertently crushes the ambulance that’s carrying him to the hospital, Andrew tries to stop the ambulance from getting obliterated. Emma finds out that Sam is missing. Cameron Coleman swiftly moves from the conversation with Polarity, where he almost got killed, to the conversation with Victoria Neuman. So, here’s what I think is happening. Victoria Neuman is trying to hold Homelander, Soldier Boy, and every other Supe who has killed innocent people accountable for their crimes. Neuman’s stance is that Supes should be tried like every other human being. However, the vibe of the God U Town Hall is that Supes shouldn’t be tried for their crimes because they are in the minority. Yes, I know, it’s a dumb stance to take, but that’s what happens when young, uneducated minds make political decisions based on what the media is feeding them instead of reading about it in history books or learning about it in your political studies class.
Sam, who is totally new to all this, is convinced by the idiotic Rufus that the Supes are being oppressed by Neuman and that they should be against such rhetoric, even though that’s totally not the case. Homelander is a murderer. His patriotism doesn’t give him a free pass to kill anyone. He needs to be jailed or neutralized because he’s a criminal. By the way, do you see how Gen V, which is clearly a wild take on the X-Men, turns the X-Men’s allegory on its head? The X-Men represented minorities and how they’ve been othered by society, whereas the Gen V-ers think they are the minority because, despite having ungodly powers, there are more humans than Supes. I’m not sure who is right and who is wrong, but I know that anyone who wants to kill without facing the consequences is dangerous. Anyway, armed with the knowledge that Indira is creating a virus to kill every Supe, Marie tries to get to Victoria Neuman, while Jordan creates a distraction to get the guards to move away from the door leading to the auditorium. Coincidentally, the Town Hall meeting goes sideways as the students get all riled up and try to kill Neuman. As Neuman makes her way backstage, Marie gets a hold of her. Neuman reveals that she has been looking forward to meeting Marie, which is not much of a surprise because she is one of the most famous Supes of God. Therefore, it seems like Marie’s job of convincing her to expose Indira and The Woods is going to be fairly easy.
What Will Victoria Neuman Do With the Supe-Killing Virus?
Emma finds Sam and takes him to a safe spot. Cate confronts Indira about her Supe-Killing virus. Indira, seeing that Cate’s gloves are literally off, tries to calm her down by saying that, after losing her family, she sees Cate as her own. Cate reads Indira’s mind and seemingly comes to the conclusion that Indira indeed loves Cate. But it can be an elaborate ruse, right? Someone who can literally manipulate people with her mind says that Indira is a master manipulator, even though she doesn’t have any powers. Indira managed to one-up Tek Knight. She has been working under Vought’s radar to create a Supe-Killing virus. So, it’s totally possible that she’s faking her affection so well that Cate can’t catch it. The episode moves to the uber-important conversation between Marie and Neuman, and, first things first, Marie finds out that Neuman can bend blood just like her. Neuman turns this revelation into a relatable moment for Marie because Neuman is someone who has reached unimaginable heights, despite her “disgusting and unmarketable” powers, and she wants Marie to do the same.
But Neuman has achieved what she has achieved by hiding her powers. Everyone thinks that she is a powerless human being. Marie’s situation is totally different. Everyone knew about her powers from the get-go. That’s why this whole conversation feels very weird, because even though Neuman keeps saying that she “understands” Marie, she clearly doesn’t. Anyway, after establishing that she is Marie’s “secret benefactor,” Neuman asks Marie to come to the point she was trying to make earlier, and Marie tells her everything about The Woods, Indira, Cardosa, and the Supe-Killing virus. Neuman says that she is going to take care of it, and Marie should divert her attention to rising through the ranks in God U. Marie says that that is impossible because she knows too much to just go back to normalcy. Neuman reminds her that she has a unique opportunity to enter the Seven and influence people the way she wants to. However, the road to get to that position is really long. If she tries to be a rebel at this stage, she is going to lose that opportunity.
Coming back to Cate and Indira, the former sends a message to her friends to come to Indira’s house. Everyone heads over to Indira’s house, except for Andre, who decides to stay beside Polarity, who is in a state of comatose. At the end of Gen V episode 7, Cate forces Indira to tell Marie, Emma, Sam, and Jordan that she plans to kill every Supe in existence because she feels they are responsible for the most violent incidents happening in the world. Before anyone can decide what they should do with Indira, Cate manipulates her into killing herself. When Marie rushes in to help her, Cate manipulates her mind so that she can’t use her powers to help Indira. Once Indira breathes her last, it becomes clear that the young Supes have been divided into two factions. On one side, there are Cate and Sam, who think that humans should be killed before they can kill Supes, and on the other side, there are Marie, Emma, and Jordan, who think that they should find a way to get humans and Supes to co-exist.
In the following episodes of Gen V and maybe even The Boys, we’ll probably see this divide getting bigger as more and more people develop polarizing views about each other. And this divide is definitely going to be exacerbated by Neuman, who gets her hands on the Supe-Killing virus after killing Cardosa. If Mallory learns about this, I am sure she’s going to kick herself for not acquiring the virus when Indira was offering it. What is Neuman going to do with it? She is pretty anti-Supe. So, maybe she is going to unleash that virus on the world, or she is going to use it to threaten every Supe to do her bidding. I think the latter is more plausible because causing a pandemic is too risky. By the way, what do you think is going to happen to Cardosa’s urine-spiked scotch, which was meant for Indira, now that both of them are dead? Is someone going to find it while cleaning up Indira’s office and think she used to drink urine-flavored scotch? Are Marie and Jordan going to clear Indira’s name by informing everyone that Indira used to have regular scotch and that Cardosa was responsible for pouring urine into it? Please share your theories with us.
