This text comprises spoilers for “The Boys” season 4 and “Gen V” season 2, episode 2, “Justice By no means Forgets.”
“Gen V” is simply as enjoyable and twisted as “The Boys,” however there’s one key distinction: Whereas the Boys’ combat in opposition to the present’s resident Donald Trump analogue Homelander (Antony Starr) is each topical and essential to cease the supes from unleashing hell on humanity, Godolkin College needs to be nigh-obsolete.
That is a daring assertion, however hear me out. As “Gen V” retains displaying us, the entire “injecting adolescents with Compound V and creating a complete schooling system for the tiny share of them that develops semi-useful powers” modus operandi is pricey and cumbersome. It is extra prone to trigger numerous deaths and ship younger supes to the asylum-style Elmira Grownup Rehabilitation Heart by way of the Crimson River Institute than it’s to supply worthwhile superpowered influencers and pretend crimefighters. It is a main problem as enterprise fashions go — particularly since Vought has a far superior choice on the desk.
V24 is a Compound V selection that grants momentary superpowers and might be given to smart adults. It has its points, like a $2 million-per-dose price ticket and an inclination to make the person loopy and/or lifeless in the long term, however come on: Vought has already been coping with management and value effectivity points with an awesome lots of its present supes, solely consistently and all through their lives. Ever since “The Boys” launched V24 and Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) made clear that he seeks to switch supes with V24 customers inside 5 years, I’ve had a tough time understanding why Vought nonetheless selected to hold coaching extra supes that it totally intends to switch quickly. Fortuitously, “Justice By no means Forgets” fixes this plot gap and reminds me that God U nonetheless has its makes use of.
Younger supes’ potential to degree up may be motive sufficient to maintain God U operating
Because the episode reveals, younger supes can “degree up” in energy, generally in shocking methods. This alone is greater than sufficient motivation for Vought to maintain extraordinarily cautious tabs on them with a tightly-controlled supe college system — in any case, it could be dangerous for enterprise if, say, an unsupervised wall-crawling teenager abruptly manifested the power to create black holes in his palms and toes.
To ensure that the message comes throughout, “Justice By no means Forgets” explains the idea twice. First, Cate (Maddie Phillips) recuperates within the hospital after Marie (Jaz Sinclair) and others attacked her within the season 2 premiere (“New 12 months, New U”). She instinctively lashes out at two employees members, displaying the fully new energy of taking up individuals’s our bodies and manipulating them like puppets — a substantial change from her normal energy set of studying minds and controlling individuals with contact and verbal instructions. This is not the one time “Gen V” has hinted that Cate has untapped potential, nevertheless it is the primary time she demonstrates a complete new side of her powers.
Later, Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater) gives extra exposition on the topic, as he tries to forcefully set off energy growth in choose college students together with his “seminar” — that’s, having Vikor (Tait Fletcher) beat everybody up in hopes that somebody ranges up in the course of the ordeal. College students studying to make use of their powers higher is not a brand new idea for “Gen V,” and folk like Marie and Emma (Lizze Broadway) have demonstrated extra management over their powers because the sequence has progressed. Nonetheless, Cate’s model new puppeteering trick is a robust implication that powers can abruptly manifest in a dramatically totally different means than normal, which could be what Cipher is after.
Homelander’s revolution threw a wrench in Vought’s V24 plans
Other than the episode’s implication that Vought has wanted to look at the God U college students’ energy growth extra intently than we knew, there’s one other doubtless motive for the college’s ongoing existence: Homelander taking up. The brutal ending of “The Boys” season 4 left the chief of the Seven because the de facto head of each Vought and the nation, and tensions between supes and common individuals are at an all-time excessive.
Sturdy as he’s, Homelander needs adoring, supportive supes to do his bidding. Whereas he himself grew as a prisoner in a secret lab and has demonstrated pretty little curiosity in God U other than a fast cameo within the “Gen V” season 1 finale, he must be much more unhinged than he already is to tug the plug from the nation’s main supe-training facility. So, as a substitute of the imprisoned Stan Edgar’s V24 plans, we get what we see in “Gen V” season 2: Not solely does God U have extra sources than ever, nevertheless it’s now staffed by supes who’re fairly brazenly coaching the scholars as troopers for Homelander’s trigger.
It is a dramatic flip of occasions that is additionally a logical follow-up to “The Boys” season 4. Mixed with the facility evolution reveals of “Justice By no means Forgets,” it additionally makes for a reasonably hermetic reason why God U is not prone to go away any time quickly … that’s, except Billy Butcher (Karl City) will get an opportunity to open that may of supe virus close by.
“Gen V” is streaming on Prime Video.
