The Woods In Gen V Is Way Worse Than We Imagined
Warning: This article contains major spoilers for the latest episode of "Gen V."
We're well and truly in the home stretch now. Throughout each and every episode of "Gen V," the Prime Video series has taken us further and further into the depths of a whole new conspiracy. Not only is Godolkin University the furthest thing from the safe haven for young Supes it was marketed as, but the shocking death of Patrick Schwarzenegger's Golden Boy in the premiere has unraveled an even more disturbing mystery — one that traces right to the heart of the Vought-funded institution. As has been previously confirmed, dean of students Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn) is well aware of the secret facility known as "The Woods" located underneath campus grounds, where renegade Supes have been imprisoned, tortured, and outright killed in the pursuit of devious ends. Now, however, we've learned exactly what all the insidious experimentation has been about from the beginning.
After taking viewers on a mind-trip through the heads of our main circle of protagonists, episode 6 ends with a bombshell revelation. We once again circle back to Dean Shetty and her right-hand man Dr. Edison Cardosa (Marco Pigossi) in the thick of The Woods. After encouraging him to push the limits of whatever nasty virus he's injected into his victim's bloodstream, which has the effect of targeting Supes' powers on a cellular level, the doctor crosses yet another ethical line and ups the dosage until she's dead on the floor of her cell. Convinced that he's about to get reamed out for doing the unthinkable, Shetty instead delivers a chilling request: "Now, can you make it contagious?"
No, our overmatched heroes aren't out of The Woods yet; if anything, they're far deeper than they ever imagined.
The making of a Supe-killer
The super-powerful Sam (Asa Germann) has transformed into much more of a central player than fans may have first expected. As Golden Boy's brother who was long presumed dead, Sam's sudden appearance in the premiere and Golden Boy's own suspicions that he'd been lied to ultimately led to him undergoing an explosive demise in front of his friends. We've since found out that Sam has actually been held prisoner in The Woods all this time and subjected to excruciating experimentation while Golden Boy's girlfriend Cate (Maddie Phillips) used her powers under the orders of Dean Shetty to repeatedly wipe Golden Boy's memories so he would remain in the dark. Gee, no wonder Sam's suffering from so many mental health problems.
While the exact nature of The Woods has been kept under wraps, it's now blatantly obvious that Shetty is intent on weaponizing their discovery into some sort of Supe-killer. It's unclear if she's doing so entirely under her own volition or at Vought's behest, which would be odd given that the mega-corporation invented the very concept of Supes through Compound V in the first place. Then again, remember that Dr. Cardosa had been ready and willing to send an official report to Vought earlier in the episode when the virus had merely suppressed the powers of a Supe. Now that the company has lost control of superheroes and villains, as seen in "The Boys," maybe it simply makes good business sense to introduce a highly contagious virus into the general populace and allow Supes to be culled en masse. For those who assumed a spin-off like "Gen V" wouldn't have much of an impact on the world of its parent series, think again!
New episodes of "Gen V" stream on Prime Video every Thursday.