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Oct 27, 2023 · Gen V Episode 4 ends with Emma enlarging her size to pin down Sam, but just as Marie is telling him they’ll protect him, the episode cuts to black halfway through her sentence before showing...
- Cameron Frew
- Lets break down the Season 1 finale of Gen V.
- What Gen V's Season 1 Finale Means for The Seven
- Why Did Homelander Pin the School Massacre on The Guardians of Godolkin?
- Why Was Billy Butcher at The Woods?
- What’s Going To Happen With the Virus?
- When Will We See the Guardians of Godolkin Again?
By Matt Donato
Posted: Nov 3, 2023 2:30 pm
Warning: This piece contains spoilers for Gen V and The Boys!
Gen V’s Season 1 finale episode titled “The Guardians of Godolkin” ties directly into the upcoming fourth season of The Boys, which means that everything we’ve learned about The Woods, manufactured supe-killing viruses, and Vought’s control over Godolkin will bleed right into the original show’s timeline with devastating results. Questions were plentiful as God U’s students fought corruption below the school’s campus, especially when it came to how Vought, Homelander, and The Boys would tie in. Now that we have our answers, let’s talk about how we can expect Gen V to shape The Boys next season.
For a quick recap, The Seven is now technically The Three. The only standing Seven members are Homelander, The Deep, and A-Train. Starlight and Queen Maeve quit. Translucent is dead. Black Noir is dead. There’s a desperate need to fill slots should Vought want to keep their superteam churning a profit, and all signs point toward Gen V characters.
Will it be Cate, Sam, or both that finds themselves brought up to the team? All three options have their pitfalls, but it’s clear that Vought’s focus on ratings and public favor aren’t factored into whatever game Homelander’s playing. Vought’s acting CEO Ashley Barret ordered that whoever brought Cate down would get an immediate slot in The Seven, but when Homelander arrived it was Marie he attacked. Now that he’s realized that he can murder someone in the middle of the street and be cheered on after The Boys Season 3 finale, the approval ratings that Vought used to keep him under control are no longer a factor. For better or worse, Cate’s “Supes First” mission fits alongside his quite nicely and Homelander has plenty of reason to find a strong connection with Sam given their respective histories of growing up alone in labs.
Vought has a problem, and his name is Homelander (hence the, y’know, virus). When he’s called in to stop Cate and Sam from killing any more humans, we quickly realize he’s just hedging more bets for his upcoming master plan. When he zaps Marie with his laser eyes, we’re brought right back to last season’s arc in The Boys where Homelander asserts himself as a tyrannical superhero who wants to rule with zero mercy and punish anyone he values as lesser. He wants to ignite a Supe uprising, and he’s found two uniquely in-line sparks in Cate and Sam.
Homelander doesn’t care why Marie bursts Cate’s arm. He doesn’t care about the deceased adjunct marketing professors who had their faces burned off. He’s bringing that xenophobic superiority from last season into Gen V with full force, and he has a chance to build an army.
As we saw from vice-presidential hopeful Victoria Neuman’s town hall, GodU is filled with Homelander devotees who believe wholeheartedly in “Supes First” messaging. Will we see Homelander exploit this and recruit like-minded creeps like the rapey telepath Rufus? There’s no more charismatic devil in The Boys universe as Homelander, so if a doink like Rufus can convince Sam to abandon his moral convictions after a single conversation, imagine what Homelander can accomplish in The Boys.
Season 4 will be Homelander’s march towards a war between humanity and supes. He’ll recruit wisely, and lean on events like the Godolkin Massacre to erase heroes who dare stand against his coup. And, whether Butcher’s Boys and Vought like it or not, the likes of Marie, Jordan, Andre, Emma and other like-minded Supes are their best chance at stopping him.
The presumptive answer is Grace Mallory.
After her meeting with Dean Shetty, Mallory makes a phone call to someone, asking whoever is on the other side of the call to tail Dean Shetty. We don’t know who that is just yet, but given Gen V’s post-credits scene, it seems likely that it was Butcher.
Why else would Butcher know the whereabouts of The Woods? The virus is a matter of national security at this point, and while Mallory and Shetty both have plenty of reason to dream of superhero eradication, Mallory seems keen to keep Shetty’s virus under wraps. The brash and resourceful Butcher seems like the right man for that job.
Although, if anyone wants to see the entire superhero population dead, it’s Billy bloody Butcher.
Butcher’s presence inside The Woods after the God U breakout is one of the more curious questions that still looms. Mallory could have been calling one of the more level-headed members of Butcher’s team to tail Dean Shetty, or another CIA operative altogether. Butcher seems like one of the last people you’d want in possession of Dean Shetty’s concoction, or even learning of its existence, and no one knows the darkness of Butcher’s soul better than Mallory, so it’s a strange concept to comprehend.
Perhaps Mallory understands that to combat a great evil, the most dangerous man is still the best man for the job.
There’s one bombshell in Gen V that could pose a problem to Homelander — the viral concoction that Dr. Cordosa creates for Shetty.
The virus is currently in the hands of Victoria Neuman. Given that she’s a Supe herself, she’s obviously not going to release the virus in its current form. But, given that she always seems to be three steps ahead of everyone around her, the politician must have a plan for Cordosa’s contagion.
While Neuman’s typically ahead of the game, she’s unaware that anyone else knows the virus exists since Cordosa wasn’t aware of Shetty and Mallory’s alley meeting. With that in mind, there’s a chance that the senator loses the virus to another interested player. Like, say, Billy Butcher.
The virus ending up in Butcher’s hands would present an interesting scenario for the Boys’ leader. On the one hand, he wants nothing more than to stop Homelander and Vought. On the other hand, as much as he hates Homelander, he loves his supe son Ryan that much more (or his previous actions suggest).
If Butcher unleashes Cordosa’s virus, there’s a very strong chance Ryan dies.
Can Butcher, Mallory, or even Vought get the virus back to its previous stage as a single-injection dosage that could take Homelander down? Or will Billy Butcher be forced to show a single feeling and protect the last remnant of his beloved Becca?
We haven’t seen the last of the real Guardians of Godolkin who’ve, for now, have chosen a path of heroism that clearly has Homelander steaming mad. They’re no doubt trapped in some Vought facility, likely in Vought Tower, and will become allies in future episodes of The Boys.
Gen V’s second season is confirmed to directly play off of Season 4 of The Boys (and vice versa), so there’s going to be a jailbreak sooner than later. Marie and her captured crew — magnetic manipulator Andre (Chance Perdomo), gender-fluid ass-kicker Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), and size-altering Emma (Lizze Broadway) — can’t stay locked away forever.
Marie is precisely the type of character Butcher needs to encounter to further his development out of personality traits that want to burn everything down. Hughie has helped soften — ever so slightly — his calloused British exterior, but Marie represents everything Butcher needs to see for himself. When they meet, Marie can stand up to Butcher in the same way Starlight does throughout their turbulent relationship because Butcher hates supes so deeply. Marie represents a side of supes who haven’t yet become spandex product placement, filled with the same piss and vinegar that Butcher exudes — without the narcissism, selfishness, and cruelty.
Butcher might not want to admit it at first, but he and Marie will make a smashing duo.
- Matt Donato
Gen V: Created by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke, Craig Rosenberg. With Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips, London Thor. From the world of "The Boys" comes "Gen V," which explores the first generation of superheroes to know that their super powers are from Compound V.
- (90K)
- 2023-09-29
- Action, Adventure, Comedy
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2 days ago · With the fourth season of Prime Video's The Boys arriving on June 13th, here's a look at how the Gen V Season 1 finale set up what's to come. Published Thu, 30 May 2024 14:06:09 -0500. by Ray Flook.
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Oct 6, 2023 · What was the strange ending to Gen V episode 4? Emma talked to Sam, but he was thrown by a hallucination of a puppet and Jason Ritter telling him to kill Cardosa. He hunted the guy at his...
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