‘Gen V’ Episode 1 Recap: “God U”

Vought this! Vought that! A Vought version of another consumer product you know! Howabout Vought being essentially Fox News cosplay? It’s all here in Gen V, the first spinoff from the The Boys universe, where the culture-swallowing megacorp that originally developed and quietly distributed into the population its superabilities-making Compound-V serum also operates its own bastion of supe-specific higher education. A generation whose parents administered Comp-V to them as infants are now in their late teens and early 20s, and in an ad styled after those inspirational missives admissions programs run during college football games, Godolkin University dean Indira Shetty (Bridgerton alum Shelly Conn) pledges “a community of faculty and peers who will accept you as the unique and culturally rich change agent you are.” Which of course is complete bullshit. Like The Boys, Gen V presents Vought as a front-facing entity for good that’s actually corrupt and self-serving. And while it’s the dream of Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) to attend God U, ascend through its ranks, and become the first Black woman to join top supe team The Seven, her initial excitement over a full-ride scholarship quickly turns into suspicion once she arrives on campus.

Marie’s ability lies in the manipulation of blood, and how this is presented in Gen V tracks with the storytelling and visual aesthetics it shares with The Boys. “God U” opens eight years before the events of the main timeline. While Marie’s parents watch a Vought Sports Network segment about Godolkin’s speedy supe A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) getting drafted into The Seven, Marie feels a twinge in her belly. It’s the onset of her period, but also the manifestation of her power, and within seconds her parents are violently killed by the blood she can’t yet control. Marie’s sister screams and calls her a murderer. Shock value and gore dialed up to ludicrous levels: in Gen V, as with The Boys, carnage occurs in a blink.

Fast forward to the dreary and depressing Red River Institute, an institutional home for orphaned supe kids. Marie’s method is to cut herself with a pocketknife, which releases plasma globs she flings as weapons or twists into powerful ropes of blood. She’s talented, determined, and a devotee of author and eminent Godolkin professor Richard “Brink” Brinkerhoff (Clancy Brown), and soon enough she receives her scholarship. At God U, young supe scholars can study “Hero Ethics,” or “Understanding Branding.” They can enter the theater program, where disgraced Dawn of the Seven director Adam Bourke (PJ Byrne) is doing time as a visiting professor, or aspire to the competitive ranks of the Lamplighter School of Crime Fighting, where the list of super alumni includes Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) and The Deep (Chace Crawford). Lamplighter is Marie’s goal. But first she’s gotta navigate the dorm, where her resident advisor is invisible, bongs float by on ghostly waves, and she meets roommate Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway).

Emma can get small. Really small. When Marie walks into their dorm room, she’s filming her latest YouTube video as “Little Cricket,” complete with a tiny wrestling ring where she faces up to a gerbil. Funny and a little bit hyper, Emma helps Marie with the lay of the land. At Godolkin, everyone competes for status in a ranking system, which is controlled by Vought and the university’s board of trustees. It classifies who’s hot and who’s not amongst the student body based on factors like social media engagement, recognition of abilities, and overall Q Score. Marie, focused on fighting crime and being a hero, is learning that there are layers to being a supe. “This shit is 90 percent of being a hero,” Emma tells her. “Only five kids a year score a city contract.” (As in the top supe tier, protecting an entire city.) “The rest of us sing and dance.” Marie wonders if that’s all Emma wants out of college. “Well, I can’t fight bad guys when I’m the size of a pickle, so yeah. I mean, I’m also looking for a three-way…” 

And then Marie falls in with the top-ranked cool kids. There’s Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo, another Sabrina vet), the metal-controlling legacy son of retired supe and board trustee Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas). Jordan Li (played by London Thor and Derek Luh), who wields incredible strength and agility as well as the ability to shift between genders. Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) can “push,” or control people’s thoughts with just a touch. And Cate’s often-on-fire boyfriend Luke Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger) is Golden Boy, the BMOC and a senior groomed for Seven membership. Marie, who has a prepared fake backstory about her parents where they’re still living, confides in Luke the truth. She just wants to make their deaths worth something, make her sister proud. But Luke preaches caution. “Being a hero…it’s not what you think. Make sure you do it for you.”    

The group’s in a club and high on coke and molly when Andre’s attempt at a supe party trick ends up slicing open a bystander’s throat. And while Jordan urges them to flee the scene, Marie instead uses her powers to move the spurting blood back into her body and save the woman’s life. The moment quickly goes viral. But as Brink says, TMZ can’t discover that God U (and Vought) sanctioned students who were gonna let someone bleed out. Instead, he’ll pin it on Marie, an orphan who killed her parents, and coldly expel her from the university. 

Only that’s not what happens. We knew Luke was troubled by his beknighted supe status, knew he experienced persistent and disturbing dreams about something called “The Woods.” But we didn’t expect him to walk into Brink’s office, confront him with questions about what’s really going on at Godolkin, and then burn his mentor’s body to a crisp before fighting with Jordan on the way out of the administration building and ultimately self-immolating in a streak of blinding flame above the school grounds. Did Marie’s expulsion die with Brink? What exactly is “The Woods”? And what will Golden Boy’s murder/suicide mean for Vought and God U’s vaunted ranking system? All Marie knows for sure is that her dreams seem dashed, and classes haven’t even started yet.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges