‘Gen V’s finale has a Homelander problem

Gen V Season 1 ends not with a superpowered bang, but with a forced, The Boys-centric whimper.

That whimper comes courtesy of the arrival of Homelander (Anthony Starr) on the Godolkin University campus. He’s there to quell the violent murder spree started by Cate (Maddie Phillips), Sam (Asa Germann), and the freed prisoners of the Woods — at least, in theory.

In reality, Homelander takes out the four God U students trying to stop Cate and Sam from murdering every non-supe in their path: Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Emma (Lizze Broadway), Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), and Andre (Chance Perdomo). The surprising switch-up occurs when Homelander sees that Marie has blown up Cate’s arm. He compares her to an animal, asking, “Do you like attacking your kind?” Without giving her a chance to respond, he lasers her in the chest. So much for not attacking your own kind!

When Marie wakes up, she finds that she, Emma, Jordan, and Andre are trapped in a mysterious research facility. Turns out, they’ve been blamed for the Godolkin massacre, and Sam and Cate are being hailed as the new Guardians of Godolkin. These developments make for a fascinating set-up for Gen V Season 2, but they come at a major cost: the show’s individuality. And really, Homelander’s finale appearance is to blame.

What’s wrong with Homelander popping up in Gen V?

The problem is simple: Homelander is a staple of The Boys, but he is not a staple of Gen V. Yes, the two shows take place in the same world, but up until the finale, Homelander and the rest of the Seven have mostly been kept offscreen, reduced to the occasional reference. This lack of focus on them — or on any major character from The Boys — helped Gen V cement its identity as The Boys‘ college-aged sibling with its own messed-up crew of supes.

Throughout its first season, Gen V made wise use of its few cameos from The Boys cast, including Vought employees Ashley (Colby Minifie) and Adam (P.J. Byrne). Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) showed up briefly, but only as a figment of Cate’s imagination (one who offers up some wild descriptions of masturbation). These cameos served less as major plot points than as flavor for the world of the show.

That began to change in Gen V’s penultimate episode, when we learn that Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) hates supes because her family was on the flight Homelander let crash in Season 1 of The Boys. We also find out that Marie and Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) have the same powers. Suddenly, the characters of The Boys and Gen V were colliding in more significant ways — although the show still showed some restraint, like not flashing back to the plane scene from The Boys.

Any restraint flies out the window when Homelander actually shows up in the flesh. As a supe, he is so much more powerful than any of the God U students. They don’t stand a chance against him: It’s like expecting a stick of dynamite to stand up to an atomic bomb. Take Marie — she just barely survives one encounter with Homelander’s trademark laser eyes.

So by throwing Homelander into the mix in its final stretch, Gen V is basically robbing its own main characters of any agency. The show sends a near-unstoppable outside force to provide a neat-ish solution to the massacre on God U’s campus, instead of giving Gen V‘s actual characters an opportunity to solve the mess on their own. Sure, having Marie face off against Homelander demonstrates the power she and her friends are up against. But to end the season like that makes for unsatisfying storytelling. What’s the point in getting invested in Gen V‘s bloody battles when Homelander can just swoop in and resolve them at any minute?

Gen V‘s Homelander problem recalls other spinoff issues.

Homelander’s appearance in Gen V is a textbook spinoff problem, where a spinoff relies too heavily on its flagship show instead of forging its own path. Recent examples include almost every Disney+ Star Wars show. Take the disappointing Easter egg frenzy that was Ahsoka, or the cameo fest that was The Mandalorian Season 3.

Most egregious of all these Star Wars examples — and most similar to the Gen V and The Boys issue — is how the spin-off show The Book of Boba Fett was used to resolve a major plot point from The Mandalorian. The former saw the reunion of Din Djarin and Grogu with little fanfare or forethought as to how shunting such a key event to an entirely different show would cheapen The Mandalorian itself.

Now, Gen V faces a similar problem — ironic, given its many digs at Disney (including a pointed WandaVision reference) throughout Season 1. Will it try to maintain its own specific identity, even in the shadow of The Boys? Or will it succumb fully to that shadow and just become the Homelander and the Seven show 2.0?

The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke told Entertainment Weekly that Gen V‘s Season 1 finale would function as a “handoff” to Season 4 of The Boys, which would, in turn, tie into Season 2 of Gen V. His comments suggest that the shows will likely remain further intertwined, at least in their respective finales. Billy Butcher’s (Karl Urban) brief appearance in a mid-credits scene in the Gen V finale further confirms this.

The obsession with plot interconnectedness is an unfortunate direction to take — as if the purpose of each season of TV is only to tease another. Like in the MCU or Star Wars, and now in The Boys universe, no TV show can be allowed to stand alone. Everything is building to some unknown payoff, with plenty of fan service along the way — but far less confidence in a show to speak for itself.

Gen V Season 1 is now streaming on Prime Video.

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