Note: This article contains spoilers from “Gen V” Season 2, Episode 6.
“Gen V” star Keeya King unpacked Annabeth’s superpower to predict or anticipate events, which the actress said is the show’s creative way of portraying the real-life struggle of an anxiety disorder.
Annabeth has officially joined the party after Marie (Jaz Sinclair) revived her from her death and subsequently saved her from Cypher’s prison in Episode 5. And as viewers learned in Episode 6, Annabeth is a supe just like her big sis, but she has the ability to see the future and/or tap back into past or forthcoming events that help in present time.
She’s a “pre-cog,” as Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) put it, but predicting the future doesn’t necessarily accurately describe it either. As Annabeth says in the episode, “I just get, like, visions, I just can’t control when.” Annabeth doesn’t quite have it all mapped out herself, King explains.
“I think Annabeth is still figuring out her powers, so a key point is that she gets these visions,” King told TheWrap. “Sometimes they’re images, sometimes they’re voices and she doesn’t know when they show up. Sometimes they can be extremely painful, depending on what what it is. She’s learning she doesn’t even [know] how to control them. She’s just existing with them and trying to help her sister and her sister’s friends out.”
Like most of the supes in “Gen V” and “The Boys,” the powers aren’t just super abilities, the writers crafted the super humans’ special gifts to depict real-life human conditions, disorders and struggles as strengths rather than weaknesses. And the same goes for Annabeth’s worrisome nature that opens her eye to future or unseen events.
“Annabeth’s powers are a metaphor for anxiety,” Annabeth explained. “How we play with it [in the show] is you hear and/or see images of the future, but you don’t know how to fix it. You know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know when, how or what you need to stop it. That kind of leaves you in a frozen state.”
It’s an experience King, who, by the way, had no idea she was auditioning for the role of Annabeth, could relate to.
“We just got sides and the sides said, like, ‘Rachel,’ ” she recalled of the auditioning process. “I got the audition and went to work. I broke down the scene, asked myself questions, and I really understood what they wrote. I unfortunately could relate to a lot of the experiences. One of those scenes I got was a panic attack, and I get those. I know exactly what that’s like. I kind of put that all into the work and then sent off my tape. After hearing that I got the role I heard it was for Annabeth and I was like, ‘Holy f—k, where’s Rachel?’ I had no clue it was going to be Marie Moreau’s sister.”
She continued: “Our showrunner, Michelle, really helped guide me through that, and then the director, Cat[riona McKenzie], of Episode 6 was really beneficial in helping craft those moments. I am so grateful for her and her intelligence and specificity. We created visual moments when anxiety is starting to happen. [When Annabeth] hears a voice and then something’s coming. We worked on making sure that that was really understood by audiences.”
Episode 5 is the first time viewers got to lay their eyes on Annabeth, and it’s the first time Marie’s seen her little sister in years after she accidentally murdered their parents as a child. And ever since, Annabeth has resented Marie, but King said there’s some hope for their relationship, especially after the two shed tears together, Marie comforted Annabeth during her panic attack and when Zoe asked about her experience having a sister after the death of her parents.
“We see young Annabeth saying Marie killed her parents and that she’s a monster, and as an actor I held on to that as my foundation for building her,” King shared. “That looks like carrying resentment, carrying hatred but then also wondering what it would be like to forgive Marie. What it would be like to have a family again, especially being in an orphanage and then living with Aunt Pam.”
“Gen V” Season 2 releases new episodes Wednesdays on Prime Video.
