This text incorporates 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’ struggle 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 ought to be nigh-obsolete.
That is a daring assertion, however hear me out. As “Gen V” retains exhibiting us, the entire “injecting adolescents with Compound V and creating a whole training system for the tiny share of them that develops semi-useful powers” modus operandi is pricey and cumbersome. It is extra more likely 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 faux crimefighters. It is a main problem as enterprise fashions go — particularly since Vought has a far superior possibility on the desk.
V24 is a Compound V selection that grants non permanent superpowers and could be given to wise adults. It has its points, like a $2 million-per-dose price ticket and an inclination to make the person loopy and/or useless in the long term, however come on: Vought has already been coping with management and value effectivity points with a fantastic lots of its present supes, solely continually and all through their lives. Ever since “The Boys” launched V24 and Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) made clear that he seeks to interchange supes with V24 customers inside 5 years, I’ve had a tough time understanding why Vought nonetheless selected to preserve coaching extra supes that it absolutely intends to interchange 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’ means to degree up may be motive sufficient to maintain God U working
Because the episode reveals, younger supes can “degree up” in energy, generally in stunning 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 spite of everything, it will be unhealthy for enterprise if, say, an unsupervised wall-crawling teenager all of the sudden manifested the power to create black holes in his fingers and ft.
To guarantee 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, exhibiting the fully new energy of taking on folks’s our bodies and manipulating them like puppets — a substantial change from her traditional energy set of studying minds and controlling folks 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 facet of her powers.
Later, Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater) presents extra exposition on the topic, as he tries to forcefully set off energy growth in choose college students along 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 collection has progressed. Nonetheless, Cate’s model new puppeteering trick is a robust implication that powers can all of the sudden manifest in a dramatically totally different method than traditional, which might be what Cipher is after.
Homelander’s revolution threw a wrench in Vought’s V24 plans
Aside from the episode’s implication that Vought has wanted to watch 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 on. 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 persons are at an all-time excessive.
Robust 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 major 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 ability evolution reveals of “Justice By no means Forgets,” it additionally makes for a reasonably hermetic reason why God U is not more likely 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.
