Summary
Gen V Season 2 continues to benefit tremendously from smart cameos and the presence of Cipher, both of which stand out in Episode 5.
You can’t keep a good Supe down, or so the saying that I’ve just made up goes, and it’s similarly difficult to keep them locked up, too. Gen V has never been especially good at establishing the logistics of a prison for superpowered individuals in Season 2, which is weird since the threat of being sent to Elmira has been bandied around a lot. Episode 5, “The Kids Are Not All Right”, goes some way to explaining why Elmira is better in theory than it is in practice. Marie had already escaped before the premiere even began, and shortly after being thrown in there a second time, the kids manage to enact a prison escape. If this was Cipher’s trump card, I’m not sure he’s in as much control as pretends to be.
Of course, that’s also kind of the point too. Cipher’s gambit paid off in the previous episode, and he managed to force Marie and Jordan into a highly-publicised deathmatch that had an appropriately dramatic ending. At the same time, he also managed to disprove the claim that he was human, despite confirming that he does indeed have the severely burned body of his father contained in a hyperbaric chamber in his home. But whatever Cipher’s hiding, one of the side effects is severe, constant pain, and he’s operating on some kind of nebulous ticking clock, which is called out by Jordan towards the end. His ability to step inside people’s bodies and puppet them comes with some downsides; they can get a much deeper sense of him than he’d perhaps like.
Whatever Ciper’s up to, he’s up to it with Sister Sage, who makes a cameo in the cold open. Cipher’s taking care of his “father” while Sage, in a weird scene, engages him in an argument, a fight, and then sex right in front of Mr. Crispy. The nature of this relationship is very vague, but since we’re in the demented universe of The Boys, I feel compelled to raise the possibility that Cipher was using his powers to make Sage mount him in front of his own pops? Just throwing it out there. It’s likelier that she was a willing participant, but you never quite know.
Cipher is still trying to push Marie into exploring the extent of her powers even further, which is what all this is in service of. Once again, he uses the threat of Elmira, which is where he has already sent Cate for turning against him in the scheme to record his “confession” about being human (Cate’s powers not working properly is still a reliable source of dark laughs in this episode). Given the Sister Sage connection and some feints in the direction of usurping Homelander, I can only assume that Cipher’s fascination with moulding Marie into the most powerful Supe in the world is something to do with that plan.
Let’s take a deviation for a moment to chat about Sam, since the rest of the action in Gen V Season 2, Episode 5 is pretty contained to Elmira. Sam, on the other hand, flies back home to reunite with his parents, who have really been going through it. Not only did Vought tell Ted and Janet that Sam was dead, but they also had a funeral for him and buried someone’s remains. All of a sudden, he’s in the kitchen.
Hamish Linklater in Gen V Season 2 | Image via Prime Video
Not that any of this has been particularly easy for Sam either, especially given how much time he spent under Cate’s thrall, so you can kind of understand why he’d be paranoid enough to smash his mother’s phone when he sees her making a call and slap his dad clear across the back yard. But there’s definitely some growth occurring here. Once he has calmed down a bit, Sam chats with his mother about the genesis of his schizophrenia, which turns out not to be due to Compound V but simply a genetic quirk inherited from his mother’s side of the family. This, if nothing else, he takes rather well, and even absolves Janet of some of the guilt she feels over being responsible for his predicament. Sam’s on a positive path, and one can only imagine how he might react if, say, something terrible and violent were to happen to his parents. Just saying.
Anyway, as mentioned, Cate is banged up in Elmira, and Marie thinks, after the lengths Cate went to in order to help them – both in getting out of Elmira in the first place and trying to incriminate Cipher – that they should all mount a rescue effort. There’s some initial reluctance, but everyone eventually comes around to the idea after being inspired by the story of Marie’s initial escape, which, it turns out, was entirely unremarkable. Reverse-engineering that escape isn’t exactly a reliable entry strategy, but since it’s all probably a calculated setup by Cipher anyway, it hardly matters.
It’s easy to imagine everything is some scheme of Cipher’s since he seems to know everything all the time. He somehow knows that Polarity helped Emma poke around in the God U archives, and he also reveals the “truth” about Andre’s death, which apparently came about through extensive experimentation and not, as claimed, his overexerting himself in an effort to help Emma and Jordan escape. This is probably some kind of sly deception given Cipher’s form, but it’s hard to tell. He’s a weird guy, man. What’s with the liquid-only diet, stabbing himself in the hand for effect – which doesn’t seem to heal – and having seizures?
As expected, Cipher also expected Marie, Emma, and Jordan to break into Elmira – they’re captured almost immediately. Cipher tries to force Marie into playing ball with him by leading her to a captive Annabeth, which is obviously a sore spot, and seems like the best way to blackmail her. It would probably work, too, but Cate is pretty adamant about not remaining a prisoner and facilitates an escape. After she has freed the rest of the gang, they all head to Annabeth’s cell and find her dead, her throat having been cut. Marie, at the most extreme range of her emotions, is able to knit her wound back together and resurrect her, thus revealing herself as – I think? – the most powerful superhero in the world.
All part of Cipher’s plan? It’s a possibility we must consider.
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