Gen V premiered in 2023 as a blood-soaked, hormone-fueled extension of The Boys universe, and followers ate it up. Set at Godolkin College, it took every part individuals love (and concern) about supes and shoved it into a school campus, the place energy performs, physique horror, and company manipulation was oozing from the cracks and crevices. With a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 97% and glowing evaluations from critics, Gen V Season 1 boasted sharp writing and sharper performances from its youthful solid. Now, after months of hypothesis and crossover teases, Season 2 is lastly right here, kicking off with a three-episode premiere on September 17, adopted by weekly installments that promise much more chaos.
If The Boys has taught us something, it’s that supes are not often heroic. They’re unstable, disturbing, and downright appalling. Gen V has adopted swimsuit by introducing a brand new era of raging people who’re harmful and morally compromised. With Season 2, the stakes are larger and the solid is even stranger. Whether or not they’re right here to control, essential, or simply to make issues bizarre, listed here are the brand new characters confirmed to seem in Gen V Season 2, and so they’re undoubtedly not right here to play good.
Nathan Mitchell as Black Noir II
Black Noir has at all times been probably the most intriguing figures in The Boys universe. A silent murderer wrapped in thriller and trauma, even his backstory and identification reveal was a significant plot twist for the collection. However after the unique Noir met a brutal finish by the hands of Homelander in Season 3, Vought, as an alternative of mourning the loss, rebooted him. Enter Black Noir II, a sanitized, corporate-friendly model of the character, nonetheless performed by Nathan Mitchel, was now extra a mascot than a menace. He didn’t have the brooding depth that outlined the earlier model. In his place, there’s a PR-friendly supe who’s pliable.
Mitchell, who performs each iterations, brings a delicate shift in physicality that indicators the change from Black Noir to Black Noir II with out ever breaking his silent mould. In Gen V Season 2, Black Noir II is ready to make his campus debut. He’s not a part of the college, neither is he central to the plot, however as Vought tightens its grip on Godolkin College underneath Dean Cipher’s supe-first regime, Black Noir II serves as an emblem of obedience. He’s basically utilized in promotional scenes and propaganda efforts to bolster Cipher’s ideology. Although non-verbal, his cameo is a reminder that Vought can simply erase a legacy and change it with a hole duplicate and faux like nothing occurred.
Erin Moriarty as Annie January/Starlight
Annie January, higher recognized to the world as Starlight, has by no means been part of the Godolkin College system. Not like most supes in The Boys and Gen V, she didn’t come up by Vought’s educational grooming pipeline. As an alternative, she was raised in a small city. She gained native pageants and constructed her popularity by neighbourhood heroics earlier than being recruited into The Seven. That outsider standing has at all times formed her arc in The Boys. She’s not solely preventing the corruption inside Vought, but additionally rejecting your complete system that props it up.
Performed by Erin Moriarty, Starlight has grown from a naive, wide-eyed idealist into one of many franchise’s most emotionally secure rebels. Moriarty is unbelievable as Annie too, who’s simply as weak and unyielding. Her efficiency continues to be a standout, particularly with the brand new threats and shifting loyalties.
In Gen V, Annie is ready to step into Godolkin for the primary time, not as a visitor or alum, however as somebody with a mission. She rescues Marie Moreau from a brutal assault and duties her with investigating Undertaking Odessa, a covert Vought initiative that’s straight linked to the season’s central thriller. Annie’s position is a catalyst for Marie’s path to unraveling the college’s darkest secrets and techniques. She’s the one bridging Gen V with The Boys Season 5.
Chace Crawford as Kevin Moskowitz/The Deep
It wouldn’t be a Vought crossover with out The Deep awkwardly swimming into body. Kevin Moskowitz has lengthy been the franchise’s most tragic comedian aid. Perpetually a punchline, he’s a supe with the power to speak to fish and completely no clue discuss to individuals. From getting recruited by a cult to being in a relationship with an octopus, The Deep’s journey in The Boys has been one lengthy cringe reel, and in some way, he’s nonetheless standing. Performed by Chace Crawford, who leans into the character’s delusions with simply the right combination of appeal and discomfort, The Deep is a cautionary story of what occurs when energy meets insecurity.
He’s one other character confirmed for Gen V Season 2. The Deep is displaying up within the second installment with a objective. His return is proof of how intently Vought desires to observe and management Godolkin College. He isn’t right here to encourage college students or to supply mentorship. He’s right here to implement. He’s mainly appearing like some sort of celeb bully underneath Dean Cipher, serving to hold rebellious supes like Marie Moreau in line.
The Deep’s blind loyalty to Homelander and Vought in The Boys made him each pathetic and complicit, and Gen V Season 2 intends to hold that wild character ahead. As for Crawford, he’s obtained that realizing wink for the character, and he lets The Deep tip too far into parody. Which makes him considerably bearable.
Hamish Linklater as Dean Cipher
There’s a new sheriff at Godolkin College, and he’s not right here at hand out detention slips. Dean Cipher, performed with chilling precision by Hamish Linklater, is the primary superpowered dean we’ve seen in Gen V, and he’s already being referred to as one of many franchise’s most terrifying villains. A bureaucrat with Compound V in his veins, he’s a politically sensible scientist with a imaginative and prescient for supe supremacy. Linklater, recognized for his standout roles in Midnight Mass and The New Adventures of Previous Christine, brings a chilling factor to the character. His efficiency is unnerving and unsettling.
In Season 2, Cipher steps into the facility vacuum left by Indira Shetty’s downfall and instantly takes steps to reshape Godolkin. He’s mainly implementing Vought’s agenda. His curriculum follows an “us vs. them” mentality, stokes concern of human threats, and prepares supes for warfare. Cipher additionally occurs to be tied to Undertaking Odessa, a secret initiative first teased in The Boys Season 4, which includes viral experimentation on college students and psychologically conditioning them to react in a sure manner. It’s honest to match his impression on the collection to Homelander’s. He will not be bodily dominant, however his means to regulate minds makes him simply as harmful.
Ethan Slater as Thomas Godolkin
Till now, Thomas Godolkin was only a identify on the college signal. A distant founder whose legacy loomed over Gen V with out ever entering into the body. That modifications in Season 2, the place he’s lastly launched by way of flashbacks and pre-recorded footage, portrayed by Ethan Slater in a recurring position. Slater is position for his acclaimed Broadway efficiency in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical and his position in Depraved. He performs Godolkin with the sort of detachment that matches the character’s origins as somebody who helped Vought design the psychological infrastructure for controlling supes.
Godolkin’s appearances in Gen V Season 2 are tied to the central thriller, which is Undertaking Odessa. By recovered footage and historic context, Marie and her allies uncover that Thomas wasn’t constructing a college, he was constructing a lab. His work laid the muse for the way Vought research, manipulates, and weaponizes younger supes. He’s proven collaborating with Frederick Vought within the Nineteen Sixties, and his analysis is now being revived by Dean Cipher to justify a brand new wave of management. Slater’s restrained and evil efficiency lets the horrors of Godolkin’s objective converse for itself.
Additionally, Thomas Godolkin doesn’t pop up within the current timeline. His inclusion is solely to attest to the truth that the college’s mission was by no means about schooling, however about containment. And Slater, with out overplaying the position, delivers precisely what the story wants.
Zach McGowan as Dogknott
Simply once you assume The Boys universe has exhausted its provide of unhinged supes, Gen V Season 2 introduces Dogknott, a strolling scandal with an influence that’s simply as weird as his popularity. Performed by Zach McGowan, recognized for his gritty turns in Black Sails and Shameless, Dognott is a supe that’s notorious however nonetheless in Vought’s orbit. He’s additionally not completely new to the lore. In The Boys Season 4, he was briefly floated as a candidate for The Seven, solely to be shot down after a disturbing rumor resurfaces. The Deep, of all individuals, clarified it with the road: “He ate out a canine. It’s a giant distinction.”
In Gen V, Dogknott is a free cannon who reveals up in episodes like “New 12 months, New U” and “Justice By no means Forgets,” and brings a complete new taste of discomfort to Godolkin’s already tense environment. His powers embrace canine telepathy, superhuman scent, night time imaginative and prescient, and enhanced energy, which makes him a formidable enemy. He clashes with Marie in feral and unpredictable methods. Plus, there’s no redemption arc right here. He’s only a supe who was rejected by The Seven and weaponized in smaller, messier methods.
Gen V
4.5
/5
- Launch Date
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September 28, 2023
- Community
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Prime Video
- Administrators
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Nelson Cragg, Clare Kilner, Philip Sgriccia, Sanaa Hamri, Shana Stein, Steve Boyum
- Writers
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Craig Rosenberg
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Jaz Sinclair
Marie Moreau
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Lizze Broadway
Emma Meyer / Little Cricket
