Compound V Is Even More Insidious In Gen V Than In The Boys
This article contains spoilers for the latest episode(s) of "Gen V."
In the world of "The Boys," superheroes aren't all they're cracked up to be. We watched in blood-soaked horror as grown adults with a few screws loose wreaked havoc on their surroundings and the world at large, fueled by the Compound V formula — the synthesized basis of their powers — coursing through their veins. So why wouldn't the same apply to a bunch of hormonal college kids in the new spin-off series "Gen V" taking their first steps into the wide world of superheroism at Godolkin University, a college exclusively meant for Supes?
It takes all of a single scene in the premiere episode to realize that the status quo in "Gen V" is very much the same as in "The Boys" ... if not worse. Almost everyone in our main cast, from Jaz Sinclair's Marie Moreau to Maddie Phillips' Cate Dunlap to Lizze Broadway's Emma Meyer to Jordan Li (jointly portrayed by Derek Luh and London Thor) comes burdened with either a tragic backstory or emotional trauma. Marie has the profound misfortune of suffering from both, stemming from the horrific and graphic way she finds out she has powers in the show's opening moments. As we learned in "The Boys," such abilities only came into existence as a result of the creation of Compound V, the Nazi-invented super serum (courtesy of Frederick Vought, founder of Vought International) that has since been secretly introduced to random civilians in the general population.
The Compound V scandal becoming public knowledge in "The Boys" season 2 continues to have ripple effects on the students of "Gen V," where the rate of Supes-inflicted accidents has only increased and, more disturbingly, those Nazi-era experiments haven't exactly fallen by the wayside.
Compounding the problem
Take a bunch of inexperienced young adults; add in a culture that encourages climbing over friends and fellow students to make it to the top; combine that with the volatile mix of Compound V, drugs and alcohol, and raging hormones; and you can probably figure out why an establishment like Godolkin University has always been a pressure cooker just waiting to blow up. The ending of episode 1 proves that this was inevitable when Luke Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger) appears to completely lose his grasp on reality, killing Professor Rich Brinkerhoff (Clancy Brown) and attacking his closest friends before dying by suicide.
The tone-setting climax, however, only scratches the surface of the Compound V problem. Sure, it's one thing to see the supervillain Homelander or the actual Nazi Stormfront intentionally using their powers to take advantage of others, promote their own self-absorbed aims, and advance fascist ideology. It's quite another, however, to watch cocky college students simply trying to impress a girl with their powers at a party ... only to accidentally cause another woman to bleed out on the floor when such efforts go completely awry.
Unlike the repulsive actions of the villains in "The Boys," the vast majority of which are done with ill intent, there's something downright tragic about seeing these students victimized by the results of choices that they never made themselves. More than once, blame is turned right back around to the parents who willingly shot their own kids up with Compound V. Much like what Starlight suffered through as a child thrust into the spotlight, Andre (Chance Perdomo), Emma, and Jordan in particular struggle to live up to the selfish expectations of their parents. Whether this manifests in self-harm, frayed mental health, or outright violence, it's clear these kids have a difficult path ahead.
Not out of the woods yet
As if all that wasn't bad enough, looming ominously over all of this continues to be the mystery surrounding "The Woods." After Marie and Andre first encounter what they're led to believe is a meth-tripping student, helping campus security apprehend him despite his protests against going back to "The Woods," they eventually come to discover that this is actually Luke's supposedly deceased brother Sam (Asa Germann). Held against his will in the bowels of the facility underneath the college, Sam is forced to endure painful experiments despite his obviously compromised mental state.
Thus far, the unfolding conspiracy remains limited to our small circle of protagonists, but there's simply no telling how deep the rot goes. Based on conversations we see between dean of students Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn) and a returning Colby Minifie as Vought CEO and damage-control specialist Ashley Barrett, Indira's concern for and assistance in molding Marie's new image as a rapidly-ascending superhero in her own right initially had to be looked at with a skeptical eye. In light of the reveal that she knows exactly what's going on to Sam and others trapped in such insidious conditions, it sure feels like we've been introduced to the main villain of the show, hiding in plain sight.
There are undoubtedly more surprises to come and reveals to be made, but the early returns point to an immensely disturbing fact. Compound V carved a gore-streaked swath through the three previous seasons of "The Boys." From what we've seen so far, the odds are stacked even higher against our protagonists of "Gen V."
New episodes of "Gen V" stream on Prime Video every Thursday night.