Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gen V’ On Prime Video, A Spinoff Of ‘The Boys’ That Takes Place In A College For Superheroes

The Boys is one of Prime Video‘s most popular shows because it has no problem “going there.” Sure, it’s based on a popular comic book series, but it has an irreverent tone that takes a lot of the edge off the dark superhero-and-villain parts of its story. A new spinoff has the same tone, but can it replicate the original series’ energy?

GEN V: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A SportsCenter-style show that talks about recent Godolkin University grad A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) being drafted into The Seven, becoming its first African-American member.

The Gist: “8 YEARS AGO.” A family is watching reports of the draft on TV, excited that The Seven has a Black member for the first time. A 12-year-old girl is goofing around with her little sister when she gets a cramp. She goes to the bathroom, reaches down and realizes she’s having her period for the first time. But the blood then rises into the air; when the surprise knocks her over and her mother bursts into the bathroom to see what’s wrong, the blood slashes the mother in the neck, killing her. Her father runs in, and an explosion of blood sends kills him, as well.

In the present day, that girl, Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), has been living and studying at an orphanage called the Red River Institute, trying to harness her blood-flinging powers and reading all the books written by Godolkin University crimefighting professor Rich “Brink” Brinkerhoff (Clancy Brown). Her goal: To become the first Black woman in The Seven. When she’s accepted at Godolkin, her mentor Vanessa (Alexandra Castillo) advises her that, as an orphan, she can’t screw this up, or else she’ll be sent to an institution for adults with powers that is not nearly as forgiving as Red River.

When Marie gets there, she meets her roommate, Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway), whose power is her ability to shrink down; she hosts a YouTube channel where she’s known as “Cricket”. They go to watch the top crimefighters work out, which is a spectator sport by itself. The big attraction is Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the first-ranked supe, who is almost guarantied a spot in The Seven. His power is fire, and when he “flames up”, his clothes burn off, which is why there are so many people watching his workouts. “I’d burn my tongue on that,” Emma says of Golden Boy’s uncut manhood.

Marie finds out that she was rejected from Brink’s intro to crimefighting class, thanks to his TA, Jordan Liu (London Thor/Derek Luh), a near-invincible, gender-shifting supe that’s the second-ranked student. Marie obviously thinks Jordan has made a mistake, but when she appeals directly to Brink, quoting back his book, he tells her the performing arts school is where she should be.

When she uses her blood powers to help corral a tweaking student (Asa Germann) — who is sent to someplace called “The Woods” — Marie meets Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo). It turns out that he’s one of Luke’s closest friends, and the next day he invites her to break curfew with him, Luke, Jordan and Luke’s girlfriend Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips). Emma encourages her to go, given the invite’s social implications.

During the night, she admits to Luke that she’s been lying to people about her parents, and that she wants to be in The Seven to prove to her little sister that she’s not a monster. He tells her that she has to do this for herself, not anyone else. At a club, she uses her blood-handling powers to save a girl whose neck was slashed, caused by wayward metal bird created by Andre in an attempt to hit on someone. Video of her saving the girl goes viral, but Brink tells her she’s going to have to be expelled, because no one can find out Luke and some of Godolkin’s other top students were out after curfew drinking and taking drugs.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Combine the vibe of The Boys, which this show is a spinoff from, and a college series like The Sex Lives Of College Girls, and you have Gen V.

Our Take: There were points when we were watching Gen V where we weren’t quite sure just what was going on. Sometimes that’s normal for a spinoff of a show that has an extended universe like The Boys, but this feeling was something different. It feels like creators Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke and Craig Rosenberg and showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters are building a new mythology around Godolkin University, but hasn’t clued in the viewers about what it is. There was missing information that we’re assuming will be filled in during the season, but instead of intriguing us, it left us just going, “Huh?”

The Woods is one of the bigger mysteries. Luke has nightmares about The Woods, and for some reason it’s where unstable supes are sent. But since there’s no context beyond that, we don’t know just what is so bad about being there. Same with Luke himself, especially what happens at the end of the episode. We won’t spoil it here, but he definitely feels the pressure of being Golden Boy, but there isn’t even that much of a hint of what’s coming during the episode.

Again, we know all of that will be alluded to and explained at some point during the season; we just wish there was a tiny bit more context surrounding those mysteries.

Once the context gets filled in, the series should be fun to watch. Right now, the characters we know the most about are Marie and Emma, but that’s enough for one episode. We get some insight into what Andre is all about, but we’re hoping to see more.

Like The Boys, there are some gratuitous moments that could be excised and the show wouldn’t skip a beat (see the section under this one for one of those moments), but the cast is enjoyable enough that those gratuitous moments don’t distract from the show and its mythology.

Sex and Skin: Emma has sex with a guy that follows her YouTube channel and fantasizes about her being small. Let’s just say that whoever designed the prop tiny Emma was hanging onto should get an Emmy.

Parting Shot: A shot of Emma covered in blood and guts. Then we see an interesting transition into a Season 1 highlight reel.

Sleeper Star: Asa Germann plays Ben, the tweaking supe that was sent to The Woods. We’ll see more from him later, and the season highlights show that he might be more key to the story than it first looks like.

Most Pilot-y Line: Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) of Vought International comments on A-Train being drafted into The Seven by saying, “This proves what we’ve been saying in a long time: We live in a post-racism world.” Kinda on the nose as far as a tone-deaf line is concerned, isn’t it?

Our Call: STREAM IT. Gen V has some well-drawn characters and a compelling young cast. Its storytelling is a bit spotty in the first episode, but the other factors are more than enough to keep us watching.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.