‘Gen V’ Boss Breaks Down Episode 7’s Explosive Deaths, Major Connections to ‘The Boys’ Ahead of Next Week’s Finale

Jennifer Maas
·7 min read
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SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Episode 7 of “Gen V,” titled “Sick” now streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.

One week until the Season 1 finale of “Gen V” and Amazon’s college spinoff of “The Boys” has revealed just how tight the ties that bind it to its parent series are.

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In Episode 7, “Sick,” there are callbacks to storylines planted at the beginning of “The Boys,” and vital information relayed from characters on one show to another.

Grace Mallory (Laila Robins) of “The Boys” — the former deputy director of the CIA, and founder of The Boys and their fight against Vought — met with Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) at Shetty’s request, and was shocked to learn of the fatal-to-supes virus built in the Woods, and quickly refused to help Shetty spread the virus.

Meanwhile, Marie (Jaz Sinclair) met vice presidential candidate Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) from “The Boys” during a town hall at God U and found out that Neuman is her benefactor and secretly a superhero herself, and that they share the same blood-manipulation super power — though Neuman is still hiding hers from the public. (As of the Season 3 finale of “The Boys,” Neuman and supe Homelander, played by Antony Starr, are The Boys biggest concerns).

And Dean Shetty’s grudge against supes is revealed to stem from the fact that her husband and daughter were killed when Vought’s star supes Homelander and Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott) abandoned them, and all the other passengers on Transoceanic Flight 37, to die when they botched a rescue mission of the hijacked plane on “The Boys” in Season 1.

On top of those in-universe connections, the hour offered up two very gory (even for a “Boys” death) murders that will heavily affect what’s to come for Marie and her God U friends going into the finale.

See below for Variety‘s full Q&A with “Gen V” co-showrunner Michele Fazekas about Episode 7, and looking ahead to what you can expect in next week’s big Season 1 finale of “The Boys” spinoff.

There were some major connections to “The Boys” in this episode. Were these plot points that were brought to you by “The Boys” showrunner Eric Kripke and his writers, and plans they had from the start?

A lot of that came out of the “Gen V” writers’ room. I think Eric probably pitched, “It would be great if Victoria Neuman came and spoke on campus,” because it makes sense, it’s a college campus and that happens at college campuses. The connection between her power and Marie’s power, that came out of the room. Shetty’s backstory with the plane crash, that came out of room. I think that was Jessica Chou’s (writer of “The Boys’s” “Herogasm” episode) pitch; she’s on both shows. The writers are all really well-versed in “The Boys.” They’re all genre geeks, so they know very well if you could pay something off like that, it is really rewarding for a viewer. It’s a really smart writers’ room.

You’ve said before that you don’t think viewers need to watch “The Boys” to follow along with “Gen V’s” storyline, and vice versa. Do you think that still holds moving forward, given the number of connections between “Gen V” and “The Boys” plot points that are revealed by the end of this episode?

I do, because I actually think all you need to know about Victoria Neuman is, she’s running for vice president and she is a secret superhero — which you find out in this episode. So you actually don’t need to see a single thing about it from “The Boys,” because it’s all in this show. You get something extra out of it by having seen “The Boys.” But there’s nothing that you’re not going to understand without it.

The thing that you don’t want to do as a spinoff is confuse people, or make them feel like they had to do homework and go watch three seasons of a different show. So as long as everything’s spelled out in a way that’s not three pages of exposition in a script, but really holds a nice balance of what you need to know so you can enjoy it even if all you know is, “Oh, there’s another superhero out there who has a similar power to Marie, and also she’s going to be vice president and she’s interested in Marie.”

Yeah, I think that should always hold.

Have you seen the fan theory floating around that by the end of the season, one of the God U students will become a member of The Seven, which is in need of several new members as of Season 3 of “The Boys”?

I have not seen that fan theory. I try not to engage on that, I don’t want to even accidentally see something. I would just say this season is not going to end how you expect.

With Shetty’s death at the hands of Cate — and Victoria Neuman killing Dr. Cardosa and taking the virus to keep anyone else from knowing about it — Shetty as the Big Bad of the season is no longer the looming conflict for Marie and her friends. So what can you tease about where things go in the finale?

It’s interesting, because Shetty as the Big Bad, she’s sort of a lone wolf. She’s doing something that even Vought didn’t want her to do. Vought is always the Big Bad, and you never want to forget that. And I think you will be reminded of that very well in the finale. And in the end, Marie started out the season like, “I just need to go it alone. I can only trust myself, everybody else is going to betray me or maybe I’m going to accidentally kill them.”

What I think is so great about this show is despite her greatest effort, she’s building a family around her. And that’ll be hard and it’s not always going to the way you want it to, but you can’t actually do everything alone.

Sam falls in with a very “Supe Lives Matter” crowd by accident before going to Victoria Neuman’s town hall with Cameron Coleman at God U. What appeals to him about this group, which seems to become more radicalized and anti-regular human by the end of the episode?

And he’s not totally wrong. He was held in prison and tortured by humans. Of course, he’s going to have feelings about that. It’s that sort of, just jump to anger. If nothing else, you don’t have to really have policy, you don’t have to think about anything else other than, you are angry and it is someone’s fault. And I think that exists in so many areas in our life. And on some level I get it — being angry is better than being depressed and sad. That feels good. I think for somebody like Sam who has had so much guilt and recrimination and sadness, what I could feel is just really pissed off. That’s attractive.

Andre’s dad Polarity suffered mysterious seizures in this episode and Andre is worried about him right now. Will we see Andre take up the mantle of Polarity, like his father wants him to, by the finale?

Polarity has very complicated feelings about retiring, and very much wants his son to take over, but not until he’s ready. And then I think there’s going to be a connection between Polarity and Andre that maybe we don’t expect.

Luckily, “Gen V” has already been renewed for Season 2! With fans knowing they’re safe in that respect, can you confirm whether Season 1 will end on a cliffhanger?

Yes, and it’s a cliffhanger on a lot of levels. It’s a cliffhanger to our second season. It’s a cliffhanger to “The Boys” fourth season. There’s definitely a sense of — I would like to see what happens next!

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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