“Gen V” bosses on the period scene that initially caused 'some discomfort' with execs
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from the Gen V premiere, "God U."
The makers of The Boys know how to make a statement. The same now goes for its spinoff series, Gen V.
The earliest sequence of the new drama, now streaming on Prime Video, shows how the main character, Jaz Sinclair's Marie Moreau, discovered she was a supe with the power to manipulate and weaponize blood. As her parents watch footage of A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) get inducted into the Seven, America's premier team of heroes, young Marie gets her period. If puberty wasn't difficult enough, she observes in horror as her period blood begins to rise out of the toilet through the air. When her parents come to check on her, Marie loses control of her abilities, leading to the death of her mom and dad in an explosive, bloody display.
Amazon Studios Jaz Sinclair's Marie fights to survive 'The Boys' spinoff 'Gen V'
"That was in the pilot script when I came aboard, and I think that there may have been some discomfort early on from maybe the executive side because it's girls' periods," Michele Fazekas, who showruns Gen V season 1 with Tara Butters, tells EW. "When Tara and I came on, it was one of the things that gripped us. I love that this is where her powers come from. It's already, not necessarily a traumatic thing, but a very big thing in any girl's life."
"To have that set off your powers [and] murder your parents really differentiates [from The Boys]," she continues. "It's like, The Boys is about 'the boys' and this is about a girl, a woman. I felt like, out of the gate, this is what the show is."
Gen V follows Marie, who's been growing up as an orphan at the group home for supes known as the Red River Institute, as she heads to Godolkin University with the hopes of one day making it into the Seven. She meets her supe classmates, including Lizze Broadway's Emma Meyers, Patrick Schwarzenegger's Golden Boy, Chance Perdomo's Andre Anderson, London Thor and Derek Luh's Jordan Li, and Maddie Phillips' Cate Dunlap. They soon get involved in a mystery surrounding the Woods, a secret underground facility at Godolkin were young supes are held captive and forced into harmful experiments.
Brooke Palmer/Prime Video Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau on 'Gen V'
Eric Kripke, showrunner on The Boys mothership series and an executive producer on Gen V, says the pilot episode went through "an incredible amount of development and changes." He notes, "There were some wild versions I'm remembering."
"There were several versions of the script where Marie was from the Caribbean and spoke with a Caribbean patois to the point that when Jaz auditioned, she auditioned with that accent. That's how serious we took it," he recalls. "I think it was [Amazon Studios' Head of Television] Vernon Sanders who was like, 'Wait, why isn't she from the United States?' You don't remember why there were so many versions."
But the opening sequence with Marie was there since the first iteration of Gen V, which was developed by The Boys writer and executive producer Craig Rosenberg. "Sometimes the victims were different, sometimes it wasn't her parents, but [it was] always the notion that with Marie's puberty came this onset of adulthood in the most horrific way possible," Kripke continues. "I think [that] was always really powerful. Sometimes there was some talk from higher up about, 'Are we sure?'"
"'Is this uncomfortable?' Because I think people get uncomfortable," Fazekas adds. "And what I love is, let's take the uncomfortable thing and dive right in the center of it."
New episodes of Gen V drop Fridays on Prime Video.
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