Despite being a spin-off, Gen V was doing a good job of not filling itself with references to the characters and events of The Boys, as it focused on telling a self-contained story set in Godolkin University for budding Supes. But the penultimate episode went overboard as it explicitly started setting up the events of the fourth season of The Boys. Grace Mallory showed up to meet Indira Shetty and talk about the Supe-killing virus that she was cooking up with Dr. Cardosa in The Woods to avenge her child and husband. Although Mallory refused to commit genocide, she did inform someone about the existence of the deadly virus. Victoria Neuman showed up to do a town hall meeting with the students of Godolkin. However, that went sideways as the students started protesting her stance regarding treating superheroes like regular human beings from a judicial point of view. Neuman revealed her powers to Marie, who had come to tell her all about The Woods, and she told her to continue her education because only that’d give her a shot at becoming a part of the Seven. Neuman acquired the Supe-killing virus from Cardosa and popped his head. Cate killed Indira Shetty for using the Supes as guinea pigs. The final episode of the first season of Gen V makes this whole endeavor seem like an elaborate way of setting up the events of the fourth season of The Boys. So, let’s talk about it.
Spoiler Alert
Cate Motivates Her Brotherhood Of Supes To Kill Humans
Episode 8 of Gen V opens with Cate and Sam on one side of the moral spectrum and Marie, Jordan, and Emma on the other end of the moral spectrum. Cate and the newly radicalized Sam think that killing humans who want to kill Supes is the right thing to do, and their first step is to unleash the prisoners of The Woods on the people at Godolkin. Marie, Jordan, and Emma are of the opinion that bloodshed won’t resolve anything. So, they intend to stop Cate, Sam, and everyone who stands beside them before they cause irreparable damage to the students and employees of Godolkin. Andre finds out that Polarity is dying because the side effect of using his power is brain damage. The doctor advises both Andre and Polarity to never use their powers because they’ll eventually kill them. Polarity is in no position to use his powers, so in a way, he’s safe. But Andre has his whole life in front of him, and he won’t be able to get through it without his powers. Therefore, Andre’s dad tells Andre to take up the mantle of Polarity and do the things he never could for one reason or another.
Back at Godolkin, Ashley Barrett shows up to conduct a meeting where they’ll decide who should join the Seven. No, she isn’t invested in the future of the young Supes. She thinks that the appointment will cause a big enough distraction to make the general audience forget everything about the deaths and the violence that is happening at the university. Cate releases the prisoners of The Woods and motivates them in a very Magneto-esque way to kill all the humans who are responsible for the ill-treatment of the Supes. The highly impressionable kids listen to Cate’s orders diligently because, for the first time, someone is treating them like Supes and not like test subjects.
Marie Locks Down Godolkin
Cate’s minions unleash hell on Godolkin. They unapologetically kill anyone who isn’t a Supe. Marie, Jordan, and Emma get to The Woods, and they realize that Cate, Sam, and the rest of the Supes have escaped. Marie orders Emma and Jordan to go and get the humans to safety. She goes to Indira’s office to shut the institution down, in the hopes that it’ll give her some time to take down Cate and Sam. Social Media Jeff comes across a feral Supe and uses the supersonic sound-emitter device to kill her. But he fails to see Cate creep up behind him and put him under a spell. Cate proceeds to take Jeff outside and “pushes” him to kill himself publicly and on livestream. Ashley finally realizes that yet another disaster is unfolding right in front of her eyes in Godolkin. She keeps asking for Indira because she doesn’t know that Indira is dead. Sam interrupts Adam Bourke’s audition class and almost kills him. Emma stops him from doing so and tries to reason with him. However, Sam has become too radicalized to listen to anyone, and that includes Emma. He insults Emma by saying that she’s selfish, and he resumes his killing spree. Emma, surprisingly enough, shrinks, and that confirms the fact that Emma doesn’t have to puke or eat to get small or big. Her powers can be controlled mentally. In this case, Emma was feeling small due to Sam’s insults, and that’s why she literally became small. If she starts feeling confident, I’m sure that she’ll grow big.
Cate calls up Andre and asks him to join her fight. She sees that Sam is struggling to differentiate between reality and fiction as he keeps talking to an imaginary version of Luke about the morality of killing people. She assumes that this is a result of Sam’s emotions. So he makes him forget how to feel, thereby turning Sam into a merciless killing machine. Marie finds the lockdown button and presses it. Initially, it seems like that’ll only activate all the large impenetrable gates all over the institution. But as soon as the supersonic sound begins blaring through the speakers strewn all over the grounds, Indira’s backup plan feels somewhat impressive. That said, soon after this display of genius, one of the recently released Supes uses his supersonic powers to fry the sound devices and makes the lockdown protocol look like a juvenile attempt at protecting oneself from literal, overpowered superheroes.
How Does This Set Up ‘The Boys’ Season 4?
Ashley comes up with a plan. She says that they should call up the candidates who have been selected to be potential members of the Seven and tell them that if they successfully stop the mayhem, they’ll immediately get to join the prestigious group of superheroes. Marie gets a call, and it seems like she likes the idea because it means she’ll get to meet her sister, even though she has no clue how to stop Cate, Sam, and all the other Supes. Ashley, Bourke, and the rest of her team members try to escape via a helicopter. But Cate manipulates a Supe to destroy it. Andre shows up to stop Cate and ends up using his powers to save the aforementioned helicopter from crashing. As predicted by the doctor who is looking after Polarity, the superheroic act takes a toll on Andre’s mind. He shrugs it off and joins Marie in her attempt to reason with Cate. That doesn’t work out as Cate unleashes Maverick, the son of Translucent, on Marie and Andre.
Marie tells Andre to go after Cate while she takes care of Maverick. Initially, Maverick manages to beat the living hell out of Marie because she can’t see him. However, Marie remembers Neuman’s words about detecting blood activity and discovers Maverick’s heartbeat. As soon as she locates him, she knocks him out. Andre tries to connect with Cate, but instead gets knocked down by Sam. This leads to a horribly edited fight between Sam and Andre. The shot choices and the decision to cut after every two seconds are just baffling to me. Thankfully, Andre knocks him out with an electric baton. As if all the talking that has already happened during the climactic battle of Gen V wasn’t enough, Marie engages in a dialogue with Cate yet again. Predictably enough, that goes nowhere because Cate has gone insane. Marie notices Jordan getting attacked from all sides, and she uses her blood powers to save them, as well as the Vought employees who are trapped inside a helicopter. Bourke says that he is going to use that in his movie, thereby indicating that he seeks to monetize every single thing that he sees.
During Gen V‘s ending, Marie and Jordan take a pause to appreciate that they work together really well. But Cate shows up out of nowhere and tries to manipulate Jordan. Marie uses her blood powers and blows up Cate’s arm. At the same time, Homelander shows up and blames Marie for attacking one of her own. Cameron Coleman, the newsreader, says that Sam and Cate are the real heroes, while Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Emma are the real villains of the Godolkin massacre. This means one thing and one thing only: Homelander has become a full-blown racist. He wants to paint the white students as the victims as well as the heroes, while labeling the diverse section of the cast as the villains. This is insidious, and given how Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Emma are in a doorless prison, probably inside Vought, they’ll have a hard time proving their innocence.
Meanwhile, Cate and Sam will get all the freedom in the world for being white and discriminatory. So, the one thing that you can expect in The Boys Season 4 is racism. By the way, if you stick around, you’ll be greeted with a mid-credits where Billy Butcher visits The Woods and says one of his infamous catchphrases. I didn’t like this bit, by the way. The Boys was supposed to mock, critique, and repurpose genre tropes, not unironically echo the tone of the mid-credits teasers of Marvel properties. What is this nonsense? Anyway, I’m guessing that Butcher was listening to Mallory and Indira’s call. Mallory is probably unaware of Indira’s death. That’s why she has sent Butcher to investigate it and get the Supe-killing virus. Butcher is going to be the one to learn that Indira is dead and the virus is missing. If he and his team are smart, they are going to figure out that Neuman is behind this. At the end of The Boys Season 3, Butcher had revealed his intentions of killing Neuman for good. However, now that she has a Supe-killing virus, it’s going to be a little difficult.
