Get ready to suit up because it’s sophomore year at Godolkin University!
In Gen V’s inaugural season, we followed blood bender Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) as she entered young adulthood and college life at Godolkin University. While she had a rocky start with her shrinking roommate Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway), the two became close friends by Episode 3, which is also when she joined the friend group of Luke Riordan, aka Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), his girlfriend Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips), and his close friends Jordan Li (London Thor and Derek Luh) and Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo).
On the first day of school, a troubled Luke confronts Professor Richard Brinkerhoff (Clancy Brown) about his brother Sam (Asa Germann) being locked up in the Woods, the school’s secret underground lab. After Marie sees him kill Brink in a fiery embrace, Luke attempts to kill her, too, which escalates to the point where Jordan steps in the ring to stop him.
At the end of his public display of blazing violence, Luke takes to the sky and explodes, leaving his remains to rain down on Marie and his best friend, Andre. His tragic death kicks off the season’s big mystery: what is “the woods” and why is it a secret? While Vought is, of course, behind the experiments, they don’t know about Dean Indira Shetty’s (Shelley Conn) supe-killing virus project. Her relationship with empath Cate is a manipulative one; she used Cate’s abilities to mind-wipe Luke, Sam, and later, all their friends, a betrayal they won’t let her forget any time soon.
Cate not only broke free of Shetty’s influence but also liberated the patients held in the woods with Sam and started a Supe vs Human massacre on campus. Marie, Andre, Jordan, and Emma do their best to save lives and stop their friends. The arrival of Homelander (Antony Starr) seemed like a relief until he scolded Marie, blasting her with his laser eyes. In the last moments of the finale, Marie wakes up to find that she, Andre, Jordan, and Emma are locked in a bright, windowless room. The four friends are framed as the instigators, with Sam and Cate named the new Guardians of Godolkin.
Season 4 of The Boys had an incredibly bleak ending that saw Homelander given even more power than he already had, thanks to his right-hand woman, Sister Sage (Susan Heyward). A newly suped-up Butcher (Karl Urban) gruesomely kills Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), leaving her daughter Zoe (Olivia Morandin) an orphan at Red River. With Neuman’s murder pinned on the Boys and President-Elect Robert “Dakota Bob,” they’re able to swoop in and reimagine America in his twisted image. Sam and Cate end the season helping detain non-supes, including Frenchie (Tomer Capone).
In Season 2, we learn that Marie, Andre, Jordan, and Emma were detained at Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center. As soon as she found the opportunity, Marie broke out and didn’t return, for which her partner Jordan is especially angry. Now a fugitive, Marie is nearly caught by a Supe bounty hunter, Dogknott (Zach McGowan), but is saved by Annie January, aka Starlight (Erin Moriarty). The former Seven member tasks her with investigating an old initiative called Project Odessa, helmed by the school’s founder, Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater).
In a flashback to 1967, we see a glimpse of the doctor, frantically running to his colleagues. After they inject themselves with a mystery substance, they each die an extremely gory death.
After Marie’s escape, Andre attempted his own breakout, but died in the process, allegedly due to the condition his magnetism manipulation powers cause. After Perdomo’s sudden passing in March 2024, production was briefly delayed while showrunner and executive producer Michele Fazekas (Agent Carter) and the writing team rewrote season 2 to focus on his absence. Andre’s death motivates his father, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), to hunt down the truth of what really happened in the facility. He’s much more prominent in the season, becoming somewhat of a reluctant leader to his son’s friends, who also want justice.
Jordan, Emma, and eventually Marie are essentially forced to return to God U, where they have to go along with the false narrative created by Vought. The school is now under the leadership of aptly-named, enigmatic Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater), who sees its current state as a “monument to mediocrity.” He strives to help (or more like force) gifted students to level up their abilities by any means necessary. Linklater always delivers multilayered performances (see: Midnight Mass and Legion), and he plays Cipher with the right amount of intensity, weirdness, and mystery.
Homelander’s anti-human stance has increased on campus, with characters like Rufus (Alexander Calvert) still declaring Humans as inferior. Supes and Humans have separate entrances for God U, really driving home this idea of segregation, as do clips of Firecracker’s (Valorie Curry) alt-right show.
Aside from the usual politics and satire, this season has plenty of the franchise’s signature gross-out sex scenes and an abundance of male genitalia. Sometimes these scenes go on a bit too long just for the sake of it, but fans of The Boys and (maybe a little less so) Gen V should expect it at this point. The fight scenes, especially any with Marie and/or Jordan, are as entertaining and impressively executed as they are brutal.
Gen V’s sophomore season delivers just as much gruesome action, dark humor, poignant themes, and engrossing drama as before, now with the added grimness of Homelander’s new world order. It’s dedicated to the immensely talented Chance Perdomo, whose untimely death becomes a major part of the season.
The first three episodes of Gen V Season 2 hit Prime Video on September 17, 2025, followed by weekly episodes through October 22.
