Note: This story contains spoilers from “Gen V” Season 2, Episode 8.
“Gen V” showrunner and executive producer Michele Fazekas and executive producer Eric Kripke opened up to TheWrap about everything that went down in the Season 2 finale of “Gen V,” including Godolkin’s death, the dwindling romances and what fans can expect to see in the kickoff to “The Boys” Season 5.
In the previous episode, “Gen V” revealed Cipher’s true identity, and in Episode 8 — just as we did in the opening of the season — the show flashes back to 1967 where we see Dr. Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater) shoot himself up with what we understand is Compound V. However, the show pivots back to modern day where Doug breaks down how all this mess started in the first place.
As Marie pointed out, Godolkin should “be like 100.” But as Doug detailed, Godolkin’s V1 formula, a variant of Compound V, prevents a person from physically aging. When Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) pondered how that allows Doug to age, he shares that he’s the second body Godolkin has inhabited.
“I’m the second puppet, the first one is dead,” an injured Doug says to the group. He also reveals that the reason Godolkin couldn’t just take over Marie’s (Jaz Sinclair) body is because she’s too powerful. He’d already tried when she was at Elmira.
As for Godolkin, he’s now living it up with his boo Sage (Susan Heyward). That raunchy bathroom scene with Cipher makes a little more sense now, huh? But Godolkin is still carrying on with his plans to remove the “failures” of Godolkin University by having them battle it out and earn their spot at the institution.
Sadly, Doug doesn’t last long as Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) from The Seven comes in to take out Doug and capture Polarity. By the end of the episode, Marie forgives Cate (Maddie Phillips), Marie and Annabeth (Keeya King) find some common ground, Emma (Lizze Broadway) solidifies her relationship with Greg with a kiss, Jordan (London Thor) and Derek breaks it off with Marie.
Remember how Doug said Godolkin has tried and failed to possess Marie, well, he finally does it in the final moments of the episode. But Polarity saves the day just as Godolkin was forcing Marie to kill her friends by breaking his control and snapping her out of it. When Marie comes to, she blows Godolkin head up. The final scene brings back in Starlight/Annie January (Erin Moriarty) and A-Train/Reggie to welcome Marie and the gang to the “resistance.”
“I could use you,” Annie says to the young supes. “Want to join the resistance?”
And what’s the resistance? Well, Fazekas and Kripke gives us some details below. Plus, they share what Homelander would have said on that phone call to Sage, where the end of “Gen V” Season 2 takes in “The Boys” in Season 5 and more.
Kripke and Fazekas were interviewed separately, and these conversations have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Fans shared how much they loved seeing Ethan Slater in this villain role, and I’m curious to know if you ever thought about keeping Dr. Godolkin or was killing him off always part of the plan?
Fazekas: I don’t think we did. I feel like he had to die. Godolkin had to go.
And there was no possibility that he could’ve put himself in another host body?
That did exist. We did have a pitch where he hides in Cate’s head and somehow we find out at the end. But [I] don’t think that … I mean, never say never. Anything can happen. We did toy with keeping Doug around. Like, does he get a happy ending? I guess not in this universe.
Outside of Dr. Godolkin, Soldier Boy and some of the other folks named this season that took V1, could anyone else have used it?
I don’t know the answer to that question, and if I did, I couldn’t tell you.
We see Starlight/Annie and A-Train come in at the end of the finale and ask Marie and the gang to join the resistance. How does this set up Season 5 of “The Boys”?
Kripke: What I think Michele Fazekas has done such a good job doing is just really setting up that there’s this birth of resistance. That there’s this underground that is fighting back against Homelander’s America. This kind of fascist government.
We talked a lot about things like the French Resistance, like a real underground that’s trying to hit back. “The Boys” Season 5 picks up about six months after “Gen V” Season 2 ends. We really throw the audience right into the middle of it. This kind of underground versus this sort of fascist government, and how it’s all going. Spoiler alert: not well.
While we don’t see Homelander this season, we do see he phones Sage when Dr. Godolkin goes rogue with his own plans. What would Homelander have said on that phone call with Sage?
Kripke: Something to the effect of, “What the f–k is going on with this guy?” Poor Sage. It was Michele’s notion of, why can’t we give her a love story? Why does Sage have to be this cold Machiavellian automaton; she’s a real person. She loved that guy, and they had a plan. They were going to live together and she was going to introduce him to Homelander. They were going to work it out, and then he just went s–t bird crazy, and she ended up having to scuttle the whole thing. It really broke her heart. It’s fun. We actually play some of that going into Season 5, [that] she’s not just this Machiavellian nightmare. Now she’s a Machiavellian nightmare with a broken heart. This was true love for her – she loved this guy. This is one of the few people that was at her level intellectually, and he lost his f–g mind.
Fazekas: I think because her plan and Godolkin’s plan aligned, and we liked the idea that Sage, who has a total disdain for almost everyone, but this guy is so smart that she feels like she he is at her level. And I think she goes through the world feeling like everyone else sucks, which is a very lonely place to be. So the fact that she found someone who was her intellectual equal was amazing.
When I spoke with Eric, he told me that y’all have plans for Season 3. What does that look like from your point of view?
Fazekas: His plans, because I’m working right now. I haven’t been actively involved in Season 3 plans. But I think there’s so many different ways it could go. You will always have college — and it really very much depends on what the world looks like at the end of “The Boys” Season 5 and how that launches. That’s what happened with Season 2 of “Gen V.” “The Boys” Season 4 ended, and then we had a stretch of time in between their ending and Season 2 beginning. So we sort of got to play with that. What has happened in these ensuing months? How has the world changed?
I was happy see Marie kind of gain a familial connection/relationship with the introduction of her sister Annabeth. How did that impact her this season in terms of character development, and maybe her healing journey. We still saw a little bit of her loner vibe and selfishness this season, but it seemed better.
Fazekas: We’ve seen a lot of growth in her. I think when she initially met her sister, and was hoping for that kind of instant connection, like “Oh my God, finally,” and then doesn’t immediately get it from Annabeth.
Marie sort of came to a point where [she’s] either going to go full villain or not. As soon as you start to hear someone say, “Only I can fix this.” Like, wait a minute. She was believing the hype, and she was believing Godolkin. That is what is great about Godolkin — and by great I mean evil — is they find what you want, what each individual there wants, and then how can we use it to corrupt you and manipulate. I think all [the characters] showed growth, because at the end of the day, what is the show but coming of age story.
Jordan dumps Marie, Emma’s got a new man. Tell me about the creative decision behind shifting these relationships.
Fazekas: I think that shows growth, too. When you think about being at that age and like your first love, your first real relationship. I loved it actually for Jordan. For Jordan, Marie and Sam and Emma, the doors are not slammed shut. It’s just, “I need to figure my own stuff out. I need to define myself outside of us,” which I think is a super mature thing. Even though Marie didn’t want that with Jordan, and Jordan was very lovely about it, but I was happy that Jordan did that. I think they’re great together. But I also think that if there is a future for them, it will be really different relationship, because they will have grown a little bit and matured a little bit. I want everybody to be happily ever after forever, sure. But they’re very young there was a lot going on that first time around. So if there’s a second time around, it’d be amazing, for sure.
I love that you all kept Chance Perdomo in mind throughout the season. From the very first episode to the finale. How has this all been for you, emotionally, mentally and creatively in terms of having to guide a cast and crew through such a tragedy?
Fazekas: What was most important to us as we were going into this was to not even seem a tiny bit like we were taking advantage of a real tragedy. We knew we were never going to recast him. We knew that meant that we have to understand what happens to Andre as a character. There’s no way to sort of avoid it. We have to go towards the storyline and make sure that it is not, just being respectful, but being real about it and telling that story.
We were so lucky to have Sean Patrick Thomas available to us. We were already going to have him on the show, [but] we went to him and said, “Can we have you like all the time?” How the entire cast and how the realness with which they approached it, I’m really proud of the work, and I’m really pleased with how people seemed to react to it.
“Gen V” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Prime Video.
