The second season of "Gen V," the spinoff of "The Boys," is dedicated to Chance Perdomo, the 27-year-old star who died due to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident shortly before the start of production. This tribute is the first image we've seen from the second season, which comes almost two years after we last saw the superpowered students trying to survive their time at the institution known as "God U." It's a touching tribute to a talented young actor whose career was cut short too soon. But the dedication is, secondarily, a prelude to what's to come: a season that retains much of what made the first such a thrilling debut, but also displays a completely understandable discomfort at taking an unexpected turn.
In a franchise with a body count as high as "The Boys," which revels in effusive gore, the off-screen death of Perdomo's character, Andre, isn't as abrupt as it might have been in a milder series. In the season one finale, Andre was imprisoned along with his classmates Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Emma (Lizze Broadway), and Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh) for rebelling against Vought International, the sinister corporation that controls all things "super," including God University.
Creators: Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke, Craig Rosenberg
Stars: Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips
The second season picks up a few months later, revealing that the gang has been locked up in a Vought-controlled prison known as Elmira. Marie, who can manipulate blood, escaped on her own; Andre, despite his Magneto-like power over metal, died offscreen in an escape attempt. The rest are freed after the telepath Cate (Maddie Phillips), feeling guilty for betraying her former friends, pressures Vought to release them.
Whatever happens, it was always going to be hard to believe—even in a world where your classmate might have an alternate dimension instead of an anus—that "Gen V" would continue its premise beyond the climactic events of the first season. We never see Cate present her case, which might be for the best; why would Vought agree to let Marie and company go, let alone return to campus, after causing so much heartache? Best to ignore it all and move on quickly. Similarly, the doorless, windowless box our heroes were trapped in has given way to more traditional cells, a slight step back from last season's finale. No explanation is given, nor is it really needed. It is what it is, which is what "Generation V" needs to be to move forward.
Andre's sudden absence simply adds an extra layer of difficulty to this suspension of disbelief. To their great credit, showrunner Michele Fazekas and her collaborators ensure that Andre, and by extension Perdomo, are mourned, much more so than the many supporting characters whose deaths are used to fuel the show's signature dark comedy. Andre's father, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), joins the God U faculty as a marketing professor to seek justice for his son, putting his loss front and center.
Polarity's quest also brings him face to face with the season's newest villain: the mysterious new dean of God U, a superhuman known as Cipher (Hamish Linklater). As you'll recall, the previous dean was ousted for secretly developing a deadly virus that only affects superhumans, a potentially paradigm-shifting development whose impact has so far been disappointing. The anticlimax preemptively reduces the gravity of this new conflict, though Linklater creates a gleefully sinister blank slate.
As Cipher takes an unseemly interest in Marie, who is linked to a secret Vought initiative known as Project Odessa and led by God University founder and namesake Thomas Godolkin (Wicked's Ethan Slater in flashbacks), "Gen V" begins to neglect some of the college satire that helped define the show's humor and ground it in real life. There's a small subplot in which Sam (Asa Germann), now on new meds and less prone to hallucinating puppets, joins the God U version of a frat house, and Emma gets a guest lecture on social media skills from a traditional influencer with butterfly wings. But Season 2 focuses much more on narrative momentum and loses some of its lighthearted spark as a result.
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