The Ending Of Gen V Season 1 Explained
Season 1 of "Gen V" has officially come to a close after eight episodes filled with the kind of shocking twists and tense standoffs that fans of "The Boys" have come to know and love. Like its predecessor, "Gen V" follows a group of superpowered individuals who gained their powers after taking a serum called Compound V. However, unlike "The Boys," "Gen V" centers around a group of young superheroes (often called "supes") attending an academy meant to train them for careers in crimefighting and-slash-or showbusiness. While the spinoff includes much of the same satirical sensibilities of the original show, the supes of "Gen V" tend to be far less jaded and cruel, making them more sympathetic subjects.
Audiences are no doubt reeling over the first season's final moments, which see our protagonists at their lowest point in the show's run. After the massive cliffhanger ending, viewers may be wondering how the events of the finale will be resolved in the upcoming second season. However, before looking to the show's future, let's take a look back at "Gen V" Season 1's explosive ending and dissect its themes and storylines.
What you need to remember about the plot of Gen V Season 1
The first season of "Gen V" centers around a superpowered teenager named Marie Moreau, who was orphaned at a young age soon after her powers began to manifest, accidentally killing her parents. Marie is offered the chance to attend Godolkin University — often referred to as "God U" — a school created by Vought Industries to teach young supes how to navigate the superhero workforce and industry. While there, Marie meets fellow students Emma, Andre, Cate, Jordan, and Luke. But tragedy strikes when Luke, aka Golden Boy, kills Professor Richard Brinkerhoff and attempts to kill Marie before taking his own life.
After much investigation, Marie and her new friends learn that the school is situated on top of an underground lab nicknamed "The Woods," where the school's dean, Indira Shetty, experiments on students. Luke's brother, Sam, is being held in The Woods, and Luke's rampage is an attempt to save his brother. Dean Shetty uses Cate Dunlap, Luke's former girlfriend, to wipe the memories of students who find out too much. After turning Cate back to their side and rescuing Sam, Marie and her friends hatch a plan to expose Dean Shetty and help to save the students still trapped in The Woods.
What happens at the end of Gen V Season 1?
At the end of the penultimate episode of "Gen V" Cate waits in Dean Shetty's house with plans to confront her and use her powers to force Dean Shetty to expose her misdoings and the secret of The Woods. By the time Marie and the rest of the group arrive, Cate is holding Dean Shetty hostage. Despite pleas from the rest of the group, Cate forces Shetty to cut her own throat, killing her. Cate then tells the rest of the group that they need to break out the students in The Woods by any means necessary and fight back against the non-supes at the school. Sam agrees to join her, while the rest of the group refuses.
Cate attacks The Woods, killing the guards and rescuing the prisoners. Then, she and the newly rescued students launch a full-scale attack on God U, killing every non-supe that they can find. Vought Industries' CEO, Ashley Barrett, is on campus at the time of the attack and calls Marie, telling her that if she kills Cate and the insurgents, she will be given a spot on The Seven. Marie doesn't want to kill Cate, but nevertheless knows she needs to stop her and explodes her arm in order to keep her from using her power on Jordan. Unfortunately, Homelander arrives and knocks out Marie, who wakes up with her friends in a room without doors.
How does Gen V Season 1 tie into The Boys?
"Gen V" is a spinoff of Amazon's popular superhero show "The Boys" and occurs in the same universe. The events of "Gen V" take place after Season 3 of "The Boys" as evidenced by references to certain events from Season 3, such as Soldier Boy's defeat at Vought Tower. In fact, "Gen V" itself was briefly teased in "The Boys" Season 3. In the Season 3 episode "The Only Man in the Sky," "The Boys" protagonists Hughie and Starlight visit the Red River Institute while researching Victoria Neuman. While searching through the students, Hughie sees Marie Moreau's file among them.
In addition, "Gen V" features several major characters from "The Boys" in supporting and cameo roles. Colby Minifie reprises her role as Vought CEO Ashley Barrett throughout the show's run, creating a unified vision of her hands-on approach to running Vought Industries. Other characters from "The Boys" also appear in smaller cameo roles, such as Soldier Boy, Homelander, and A-Train. Karl Urban even makes a brief return as Billy Butcher during the post-credits scene where he investigates what remains of The Woods.
The show's main cast has split into new groups
Much of the first season of "Gen V" follows a core group of students that were connected to Golden Boy in some way prior to his death. This includes Cate Dunlap and Andre Anderson, Golden Boy's girlfriend and best friend respectively; Jordan Li, Brinkerhoff's former T.A.; newcomer Marie Moreau, and her roommate Emma Meyer. Eventually, the group is joined by Sam Riordan, the brother of Golden Boy, after he is rescued from The Woods by Emma. For the majority of the show's run, this group remains a tight crew, working to uncover the secrets behind Golden Boy's tragic death and reveal the evil deeds being committed underneath Godolkin.
However, this changes in the lead-up to the final episode. After it is revealed that Cate Dunlap was using her power of suggestion to erase and change the memories of her peers at the behest of Dean Shetty, Cate began to feel isolated from the group. However, the group is willing to still work with her up until she takes matters into her own hands by brutally killing Shetty and starting a revolution on campus. Sam, who has spent the last few years being tortured by Shetty, joins Cate. The two believe that as supes, they are superior to non-supes, isolating the rest of their friends.
Cate might not have betrayed Dean Shetty after all
Before Dean Shetty is seemingly betrayed and killed by Cate Dunlap, viewers get a scene where Shetty approaches Cate and tells her of her plan to use a weaponized virus to kill supes. However, she tells Cate that she will be spared because she has come to love Cate like a daughter. Shetty also tells Cate that she has one last job for her. Cate hugs Shetty. However, the next time we see Cate is when she is holding Dean Shetty hostage just as her friends run in. Shetty pleads for her life but is killed anyway.
On the surface, it seems that Cate betrayed Shetty and chose to side with supes in the conflict. However, this may not actually be the case. Only a few scenes before, Shetty is seen meeting with Grace Mallory, where she reveals that her husband and daughter were killed by Homelander in the Flight 37 incident and that she wants Mallory to use her virus to kill supes. Mallory turns it down. Having lost everything, it's possible that Shetty's plan was to have Cate kill her and start a riot at the school, perhaps as a way of provoking conflict between supes and non-supes.
The political discord in Gen V borrows from the real world
"The Boys" famously borrows many of its plots and conflicts from real-life incidents. This includes moments as small as a parody video of Gal Gadot's infamous "Imagine" cover to major political issues. "Gen V" follows in this trend, tackling several social and political issues pulled from the real world. Emma's story deals heavily with the impact of social media sites. Her attempts to keep up a certain social presence for her Little Cricket persona take a huge hit after another classmate exposes her methods of growing and shrinking.
The show also deals heavily in current political affairs. Rufus — who frequently wears a red ball cap that says, "Keep America Safe," referencing MAGA — meets Sam and attempts to radicalize him against non-superhumans, stating that the supe race is superior to non-supes. He also uses the phrase "Supe lives matter," a reference to the Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements.
Sam knows his radicalization is wrong
The latter half of "Gen V" Season 1 shows how manipulative groups can prey on vulnerable people in order to convince them to carry out terrible acts. One of the most prominent examples of this is Sam Riordan, Golden Boy's younger brother. Prior to his rescue, Sam spends years being tortured in captivity. When Emma breaks him out midway through the season, Sam appears sweet and kind. While he occasionally commits violent acts as a means of self-defense or due to his uncontrollable visions, Sam generally comes off as caring and has a soft spot for Emma.
This changes after he is befriended by Rufus, who tells him that supes are superior to non-supes and that they need to rise up against the supposedly inferior beings. This opens his mind to Cate's radicalization, and he joins her in her attack on Godolkin's non-superpowered population. However, it's clear that his conscience struggles with his decision. Golden Boy, his deceased brother, keeps appearing to him during the attack and attempts to talk him down, telling Sam that he knows what he is doing is wrong. Sam comments that Luke is a figment of his imagination, proving he subconsciously wants to stop himself.
The final showdown mirrors other major superhero stories
Like many superhero shows, "Gen V" ends in a massive showdown that sees its superpowered protagonists battling one another. However, it isn't just the fight itself that mirrors other superhero properties. The plot itself actually mirrors several other superhero stories pretty closely. In "Gen V," former friends and teammates turn against each other over a disagreement about the rights of superpowered individuals. This resembles the plot of the "Civil War" storyline in Marvel Comics, which was later adapted into the film "Captain America: Civil War." In the story, the Avengers break up and fight over the need to support the Superhero Registration Act.
Arguably, however, "Gen V" borrows more from the "X-Men" franchise. In the "X-Men" comics and films, superhumans called mutants are regularly discriminated against by regular humans, often out of fear. This fear and discrimination leads humans to commit terrible acts against mutants, and many mutants are divided over how to handle the situation. The X-Men, like Marie Moreau, believe that they need to be compassionate and help humans understand their differences, while the Brotherhood, like Cate Dunlap, believe that violent domination is the only solution.
The final conflict in Gen V challenges what is right and wrong
What makes "Gen V" such an interesting show is that the concept of right and wrong is not always clearly defined by its main characters or opposing sides. This is especially true during the first season's final episode. When Cate first proposes that the group break into The Woods and immediately free all of the students who have been held captive, it might at first sound like the right thing to do. After all, the captives were being treated horribly, and the people holding them there were clearly in the wrong.
But Marie, Emma, and Jordan are able to see that the lasting ramifications of the rescue would be very dangerous. After all, it would require declaring war on the school, which could lead to more students being hurt, and they didn't know how the captive students would react. As it turns out, the supes freed from The Woods were out for blood immediately following their rescue. In the end, when the media flips to story to make Cate and Sam seem like the heroes and the new Guardians of Godolkin, even without any distortion, it's possible to understand why Cate's side might seem sympathetic as she was rescuing those who needed her help.
Homelander picks a side
The final moments of the battle at God U give viewers their biggest cameo of the season. Just as Marie and Andre have subdued Cate and Sam, seemingly putting a stop to the battle, Homelander arrives at the behest of Vought to help stop the riot. But in a shocking twist, Homelander hasn't arrived to save the school or the Vought employees on campus, but to lend his support to Cate, Sam, and all of the supes fighting back against the non-supe staff. He knocks out Marie, and she wakes up along with the rest of the group in an unknown location.
While it's surprising to see Homelander oppose Vought so publicly, the move is very much in line with his character motivations in "The Boys." During the show's third season, Homelander begins to grow more absolute in his supes-first beliefs. When he asks Marie how it feels to turn against her own kind, he was very much signaling that he sees himself as a savior of supes and considers non-superhuman lives secondary.
Will Polarity save his son?
Andre Anderson is the son of a famous and influential superhero named Polarity. The two have a complicated relationship. Polarity pushes his son to follow in his footsteps, while Andre is frustrated by his father's need for control and lack of emotional support. In addition, Andre finds out that his father had knowledge of The Woods and kept quiet about it so as to keep himself and his son safe and not stir up trouble. However, after Polarity has a major seizure in Episode 7, Andre rushes to his side in the hospital and the two finally have a chance to bond.
But the final moments of the season see Andre trapped in the room with no doors alongside his friends. Andre's father wields a lot of influence in the superhero community and at Vought. In theory, if Polarity knows about his son's fate, he will do everything in his power to help rescue him. In practice, that might not be the case. Following his seizure, Polarity is in rough shape, and we can't be sure that he'll think helping Andre escape is in either of their best interests.
How does Gen V Season 1 impact The Boys Season 4?
It would have been easy for "Gen V" to exist as just a mere side story that takes place in the world of "The Boys," with the two never impacting each other much. But "Gen V" takes a very different route, with its events creating waves that could have major ramifications on the upcoming fourth season of "The Boys." Arguably, the biggest change might have to do with Homelander's relationship with Vought. Despite his controversies and disagreements with Vought, Homelander has remained Vought's number one superhero and the leader of The Seven. His decision to directly oppose Vought in the final conflict of "Gen V" may see the two splitting for good.
In addition, the show's post-credits scene checks in with Billy Butcher, one of the main protagonists of "The Boys." In the scene, Butcher discovers The Woods and begins looking around. This could lead to the secret of The Woods finally coming out in the open. Since the experiments in The Woods were sanctioned by Vought, this could be bad news for the company.
What has the cast and crew of Gen V said about the ending?
While trying to gain insight into the ending of a show, especially one that leaves so many unanswered questions and hanging plot threads on the table, it's worth checking to see if the show's cast and crew dropped any interesting bits of information in interviews. Unfortunately, the cast of "Gen V" hasn't commented much on the ending, likely due to restrictions from the SAG-AFTRA strike which prevents actors from promoting shows or films.
However, the co-showrunner of "Gen V," Michele Fazekas, revealed in an interview published prior to the release of the season's eighth and final episode that the season wouldn't end the way viewers expect it to — which turned out to be an accurate statement. In addition, she stated that it was her continued intention moving forward to make the series accessible for viewers who don't watch "The Boys."
What does the ending of Gen V Season 1 mean for Season 2?
Luckily for fans of "Gen V," the show was renewed for a second season before the first season even finished airing. This will likely be a relief to viewers who found themselves worried about the show's protagonists following Season 1's cliffhanger ending. But what might Season 2 have in store?
It's hard to say how much of "The Boys" Season 4, which will air before the second season of "Gen V," will touch on the events at God U or the fates of its students. However, there will likely be a time jump between the first and second season in order to keep the in-universe events in order, as has been the case so far. Although the situation may seem bleak for Marie, Emma, Andre, and Jordan, there are a few possibilities that may allow them to escape. If Polarity is not able to save his son, perhaps Victoria Neuman will work to free Marie, as the two share a bond since they both have the same powers and both came from the Red River Institute. During her Episode 7 appearance, Neuman seems to indicate that she has plans for Marie moving forward.