Summary
A compelling first installment to this highly anticipated series, but this spin-off doesn’t yet serve the same level of black comedy as its predecessor.
From the insane world of The Boys comes Gen V Season 1, which opens with an underwhelming yet promising first installment, “God U.” Episode 1 explores the life of horny and hopeful young adults who were given Gen V as infants to induce superpowers, at a specialist superhero university. It explores themes of sexuality, internal and external pressures, and self-discovery. Whilst there are some strong comedic moments and tension built, the episode’s final ten minutes are its strongest.
It’s move-in day at Godolkin University and Marie Moreau is ready for a fresh start, to finally feel accepted and fit in. The main storyline focuses on Marie at Goldolkin, finding her feet, and which classes to take in order to be the best and excel.
She has help from her eccentric and extroverted roommate Emma, whose superhero skills are like Termite’s as she can make herself impressively tiny.
It’s all about the converted superhero team, The Seven, and all eyes are on the university’s top-ranked hero, Golden Boy, aka Luke (the big hot flaming sea cucumber) for a spot.
Emma’s fantasies come true, but the fantasy isn’t always the reality when her lover asks her to turn small to hang around his penis. This is one of the more hilarious and ridiculous sections you crave from this series (although, again, this was done in The Boys with Termite, so it might feel repetitive in content.)
Marie has a night out with Golden Boy Jake and his best friends Andre, Cate, and Jordan at a nightclub that ends a bit drastically with someone dying. However, hero Marie puts the blood back into their bodies so they live, which grabs the attention of audiences everywhere, making her an online hero. After this night, she realizes that being a hero isn’t what she first thought.
The last ten minutes are the strongest in the episode, where you get a sense of the insane environment this University is about. There are intense fight sequences and unexpected deaths.
Marie is our main protagonist in Gen V Episode 1, whose powers are controlling blood. Her parents gave her Gen V as a baby, but it didn’t hit until she got her first period. Marie isn’t the typical popular social media star like her classmates; she doesn’t even have an Instagram. At Goldolkin, Marie wants to major in crime fighting but is cut from the course, much to her dismay, due to her lack of social media presence.
Marie wants to prove herself, and her main goal is to be part of The Seven. However, our cautious, caring, crime-fighter wanna-be might be the maverick character we all want, who might try to disrupt the seemingly perfect, harmonious high school.
Godolkin University has been training the best and brightest superheroes since 1965. But more than that, it’s a family, a community of supportive faculty and peers who will accept you as the unique, culturally rich change agent that you are.
Or that’s what they’d have you think. Here, they can control superheroes, their minds, actions, and futures, molding and forcing them into what Goldolkin wants and needs.
In the beginning, we meet Marie and her powers of controlling blood and how dramatically this is discovered. As she begins at Godolkin she’s clearly working on her identity and place amongst other people with powers. Marie doesn’t have a superhero name (yet) which is twinned with her identity crisis.
After an eventful night partying with other superheroes Marie’s life takes a dramatic turn she wasn’t expecting and is left feeling hopeless and distraught, and she takes this out on Emma. Marie begins to have flashbacks to her childhood, and it is clear she’s in fight, not flight mode.
Towards the end, Luke feels fearful and angry and chases Marie in flames, which leads to a full-throttle battle and an unexpected event that leaves everyone feeling distressed and confused.
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