Gen V Season 2 Uses A Returning Boys Star To Answer Some Key Mysteries

This article contains spoilers for "Gen V" through season 2, episode 6, "Cooking Lessons."

A few familiar faces from "The Boys" have appeared on the "Gen V" campus this semester. Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) popped up in the season premiere, "New Year, New U," to save Marie (Jaz Sinclair) from supe bounty hunter Dogknott (Zach McGowan). The Deep (Chace Crawford) helped out with some hazing initiations at his old Godolkin University fraternity. Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) is apparently in league (and a relationship) with God U's new dean, Cipher (Hamish Linklater).

Now, in the latest episode, "Cooking Lessons," our heroes meet two more characters from "The Boys": deposed Vought International CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) and his superpowered granddaughter, Zoe (Olivia Morandin).

When "The Boys" began, Edgar was CEO of Vought, and the only one unafraid of Homelander (Antony Starr). Season 3 revealed that Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) was Edgar's adopted daughter and, with her bloodbending and head-popping superpowers, his personal assassin. Neuman ultimately sold her dad out to Homelander, though, allowing Homelander to take over Vought. Marie met Victoria back in "Gen V" season 1, and now she meets Neuman's extended family, who make a similar offer of friendship (with a cost).

Edgar was last seen in "The Boys" season 4, episode 5, "Beware the Jabberwock, My Son," locked up in prison as the scapegoat for Vought's crimes. He attempted a plea deal with the Boys in exchange for helping them find the supe-killing virus Neuman acquired back in "Gen V" season 1, but failed. When being taken back to prison, his transport was ambushed by Victoria; the scene left it unclear if she was going to kill her dad or free him. Evidently, it was the latter. After Victoria's own death in "The Boys" season 4 finale, Zoe was sent to supe orphanage Red River — but her grandpa has since taken her in. They're staying in a luxury underground bunker (lined with zinc so Homelander can't find it with his X-Ray vision).

Edgar, as former CEO of Vought, knows where all the bodies are buried and delivers some key exposition so as to earn Marie's trust.

The driving mystery of this "Gen V" season has been the circumstances of Marie's birth, which was part of a Vought project called Odessa. God U Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater) was present at Marie's birth, and now he wants to train her to master her bloodbending powers. 

Edgar explains it all. Back in the 1960s, God U founder Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater) started Odessa to create "God-tier superheroes." The project only got anywhere after in vitro fertilization was developed in the 1970s. This procedure allowed Vought's scientists to inject developing human embryos with Compound V, the chemical formula that bestows superpowers. "The Boys" and "Gen V" have previously established that supes are typically given Compound V later in life. By introducing it before someone is even born, the chemical won't be rewriting their genetic code, but shaping it from the ground up.

(The word "Odessa" is Greek, a derivative of Odysseus, and means "long journey." It does make sense to name a super-soldier project after a mythical hero.)

There were two survivors of the Odessa program: Homelander and Marie. Some eagle-eyed "Boys" fans previously noticed that, in "The Boys" episode "Wisdom of the Ages," there was a memo about "Odessa" in the lab where Homelander was raised. Edgar decided Odessa was a failure (Marie's powers didn't come until puberty, and he's previously dismissed Homelander as "bad product"), so he shut it down.

Godolkin was a Nazi sympathizer; he was the right hand to Vought's founder and Compound V's creator, the Paperclipped Third Reich scientist Frederick Vought. Godolkin's private room at the God U library was also filled with Nazi and KKK regalia. Of course he'd want to make a "Master Race." 

Edgar clarifies that Godolkin wanted to control the Odessa supes, while Cipher wants "supe supremacy, Voughtland über alles." His special "seminar classes" (death matches) for God U's strongest students are premised on supes needing to keep humans from fighting back.

Cipher's obsession with Marie is him carrying on Godolkin's work, and he's likely had a helping hand with that. Back in this season's fourth episode, "Bags," Jordan (London Thor/Derek Luh) and Cate (Maddie Phillips) discovered that Cipher is caring for a horribly burned man in a hyperbaric chamber. Cipher has claimed it's his father, but they realize in this episode it's likely Godolkin himself (who "died" in a lab fire). Edgar hypothesizes that Godolkin is Cipher's prisoner, but maybe they really are father and son. Or, since Cipher has telepathy and no V in his blood, maybe Godolkin is the one with psychic powers and Cipher is his puppet.

In an August 2025 interview with The Wrap, Esposito suggested Edgar would be back for "The Boys" season 5, and his appearance on "Gen V" all but confirms that. During "The Boys" season 5, Edgar is probably going to be an ally (of convenience) to the anti-Homelander resistance. When Starlight last appeared, she mentioned that she's been on the run since the rest of the Boys were captured by Homelander's forces. Edgar's bunker is the exact kind of home base that Annie needs right now.

Edgar definitely disapproves of Homelander's regime (if only because he's human himself) and he reveals in "Cooking Lessons" that he intends to retake control of Vought. Once he does, he wants Marie by his side. She literally has the exact same powers as his dead daughter, so she could step easily into the role Neuman once played for Edgar.

Homelander's coup probably has Edgar more convinced than ever that his plans, to turn Vought from a "superhero company" into a "proper" defense and pharma company, were the right ones. But remember, while Edgar is helpful and polite to Marie & friends, he is not a good guy. He authorized all sorts of shady doings, assassinations included, when he was head of Vought. In "Cooking Lessons," he implores Marie to embrace that she's more powerful, and valuable, than her friends, who he considers disposable.

"When the dust settles, those that remain will reshape the world," Edgar says to Marie, recalling a similar speech he gave Starlight about power back in "The Boys" season 3. Speaking of power, could "The Boys" end with Edgar back on top of the corporate world? "The Boys" is too cynical a show for a pure happy ending; Edgar is a lesser evil than Homelander (just like how corporate capitalism is a one-degree lesser evil than fascism), but he's still evil.

Stan Edgar staying alive and empowered would be a fitting message for this story all about how capitalism and conservatism have rotted out the world; the rot goes so deep that its most ingrained symptoms can't be cured. (For what it's worth — and spoilers for the comic here — the original "The Boys" comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson ended with Vought bigwig James Stillwell escaping any justice.)

Then there's Zoe. While Edgar is generally too detached for vengeance, I think Zoe will want revenge on Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) for killing her mom. She's unlikely to be the one who does Butcher in, since that role seems reserved for Hughie (Jack Quaid) or Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), but she could become more blood on Butcher's hands.

"Gen V" is streaming on Prime Video with new episodes debuting on Wednesdays. "The Boys" season 5 is set to premiere on Prime Video in 2026.