How Gen V Season 2 Skips Over Season 1's Big Cliffhanger Ending

Spoilers for "Gen V" season 2, episodes 1-3 to follow.

Class is back in session for "Gen V," aka the "Boys" spin-off set at mega-corp Vought's superhero training school, Godolkin University. "The Boys" uses superheroes as its world's celebrities and elites; like in reality, the ruling class of this fictional universe are taught how to uphold the system that lets them rule in prestigious universities.

"Gen V" is thus the story of young adults deciding if they're going to go along with that depraved system for their own benefit, or if they're going to strike back against it. Our universities may not have supes on them, but the central theme of "Gen V" — sell out or stick by your beliefs — is potent and real.

At the end of "Gen V" season 1, the young leads made their choices. Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) and Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) spent the season 1 finale leading a supe riot on God U's campus to kill every normal human in sight. Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Emma (Lizze Broadway), Jordan (London Thor & Derek Luh), and Andre (Chance Perdomo), however, decided to stop that riot. Then, king supe Homelander (Antony Starr) showed up and pinned the mess on the real heroes, while elevating Cate and Sam into the "Guardians of Godolkin."

When we last saw our four young heroes in "Gen V," they were imprisoned and wearing hospital gowns. That suggested they were going to be subject to some nasty Vought experiments. You'd expect that "Gen V" season 2 would resume with them in prison and build up to their escape, perhaps contrasted with Cate and Sam living the high life as celebrities. Well, not quite.

"Gen V" season 2, episode 1, "New Year, New U," reveals they've spent about a year in the Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center. (Elmira is a real supermax prison in New York, but it's not clear if the "Gen V" version is supposed to literally be that one.) In the very first scene, Jordan and Emma are loaded onto a truck ... back to God U, because their "friend" Cate has pulled some strings to get them exonerated. Marie, on the other hand, escaped offscreen between the first and second season and is currently on the run, although Emma, Jordan, and "The Boys" guest star Starlight (Erin Moriarty) convince her to go back to God U; she'll be safest if she stays in the public limelight, and Starlight wants Marie to investigate a mysterious project, "Odessa," on the campus.

By episode 2 "Justice Never Forgets," things are basically back to the status quo of "Gen V" season 1. Our leads are experiencing semi-normal college life while digging into a conspiracy on campus overseen by a sinister headmaster — this season, supe supremacist Cipher (Hamish Linklater) replaces the late Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn), who was developing a virus to kill all supes back in "Gen V" season 1.

Maybe we should've seen it coming that "Gen V" season 2 wouldn't pick up directly from season 1. It's been two years since "Gen V" season 1 streamed, and "The Boys" season 4 happened during that gap. Sam and Cate guested in that season of "The Boys" as well, riding the publicity high as the Guardians of Godolkin.

"The Boys" season 4 ended with Homelander staging a coup of the U.S. government and putting the country under martial law; God U now has a segregated entrance gate, one line for supes and one for humans. In hindsight, sticking Marie and co. in prison now feels less like set-up for "Gen V" season 2 and more like a way of keeping them in stasis during "The Boys" season 4.

"Gen V" itself was also in a bind because Chance Perdomo died in a motorcycle accident. The show made the respectful decision to write Andre out rather than recast him. Skipping ahead lets the series move on without him while also explaining how he died during the season gap (while attempting to escape Elmira).

Yet, the show could've easily done a premiere that sped through Marie and co.'s time in Elmira, starting where season 1 left off and showing what the "Gen V" characters were doing while "The Boys" season 4 went down. The characters talking about how awful Elmira was, and their desperation to not go back, rings hollow because we don't see any of it.

The comparison that stings for me is "Yellowjackets," the Showtime series about a teen girl soccer team stranded in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash. Season 2 of "Yellowjackets" ended with the team's adopted cabin home catching fire, leaving them without shelter during the harsh depths of winter. Instead of showing their struggle to survive that, "Yellowjackets" season 3 skipped ahead to summer when the girls had already rebuilt.

"The Boys" itself has had a bad habit of sticking too close to its status quo (mostly in how the Boys and Homelander's conflict cannot truly escalate, because that would mean the end of the series). The reversion of "Gen V" to its norm suggests that this is one lesson the teacher shouldn't have given its student.

"Gen V" is streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes premiering on Wednesdays.