“Gen V” recap: A meatball saves the day
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At the end of Gen V's last episode, Emma (Lizze Broadway) made a daring attempt to help Sam (Asa Germann) escape prison, but it ended on a cliffhanger, with guards storming in. This week, we learn that they did in fact escape… killing a dozen guards in the process. Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) has no idea how Sam got out, but whatever did go down, she needs to keep it quiet.
That will be pretty difficult, because Vought is capitalizing on Golden Boy's death by sending in famed superhero detective Tek Knight (Derek Wilson) to investigate. Tek stars in a TV show called The Whole Truth that sees him use his supernatural investigation abilities to uncover murders while tossing hilariously cheesy quips at the camera.
But Marie (Jaz Sinclair) is more concerned with finding Emma, who hasn't been seen since Andre (Chance Perdomo) sent her into The Woods to save Sam. With no leads, Marie seeks the aid of psychic student Rufus, who quickly takes advantage of her by getting her alone in his room and exposing himself. Marie isn't particularly pleased with this, and expresses that displeasure by using her powers to fill his dick with blood and explode it. Serves you right, perv!
Brooke Palmer/Prime Video Lizze Broadway as Emma Meyer
Meanwhile, we find Emma and Sam hiding out, reeling from what's just happened. Sam wants to seek his brother Luke's (Patrick Schwarzenegger) help in figuring out what to do next… which forces Emma to admit that she lied to him earlier: Luke, a.k.a. Golden Boy, died by suicide.
Sam flips his s— – screaming, breaking things, and crying. His whole life, everyone has left him one way or another, he confesses, and now Luke's left him, too. Emma tries to console him, but he pushes her away. He can't bear getting close to someone else only for them to leave him.
Brooke Palmer/Prime Video Asa Germann as Sam
Back on campus, Tek Knight interrogates our main cast to figure out what happened, putting Marie, Andre, Jordan (London Thor/Derek Luh), Cate (Maddie Phillips) and even Dean Shetty under his microscope. Pretty soon he susses out what went down… then decides to pin it all on Shetty, to keep Vought's potential future all-star superheroes out of harm's way.
But Shetty doesn't take this lying down… she finds an utterly hilarious piece of blackmail that she uses to leverage Tek into letting her off the hook. Throughout the episode, Tek seems to have some kind of strange obsession with… no other way to say this… holes. Like, holes in inanimate objects. The hole in a roll of tape, a donut, etc.
Shetty's learned that Tek developed a brain tumor that gave him a bizarre proclivity to… make love to these holes (hence the name of his show, and this episode's title). She proves it by showing Tek surveillance videos she obtained of him… doing his thing… with the holes of various objects around campus: a tree, a vacuum cleaner, a traffic cone, etc. Shetty threatens to expose Tek unless he keeps quiet. He agrees.
God I love this show.
While… that… is going down, Emma and Sam are still lying low, growing closer and closer and almost kissing before Sam scrambles away, too nervous to make the first move. And in a fit of anxiety… Sam starts hearing voices in his head. Voices externalized in the form of Jason Ritter, played by Jason Ritter, alongside a Sesame Street-style doll version of The Deep.
Jason Ritter as Jason Ritter and Doll Deep encourage Sam to get revenge on the people who tortured him, namely Dr. Cardosa (Marco Pigossi). Sam screams and shouts for them to leave him alone, but the voices are too loud, and eventually he surrenders to them. Emma tries to play on their connection to convince him to stand down, but Sam's losing it, and he runs off.
Emma and Sam aren't the only ones whose romance pulls on our heartstrings in this episode, though. Andre and Cate are still together, and only growing closer. Which presents a problem when Tek uncovers this by smelling Cate's… fluids… on Andre's lips during a taped interview for his show. Andre reacts by losing his temper and telling both Tek and his father (who's there with him) to go f— themselves, and rushing off mid-interview.
Also of note is the connection between Marie and Jordan. While being interrogated by Tek, Marie admits that she lied – it was Jordan, not her, who fought off Golden Boy. Jordan's initially pissed that Marie told the truth, but it soon becomes clear that their emotions come less out of selfishness than they do out of a genuine attraction towards Marie. Acting on instinct, Jordan morphs into their male counterpart and kisses Marie. After a beat of hesitation, Marie kisses them back and they go at it.
Walking in on this is Emma, who tells them the bad news: Sam is on his way to kill Dr. Cardosa. So the whole crew gathers and rushes over to Cardosa's house, where Sam's got his tormentor cornered. Emma tries to talk Sam out of killing Cardosa, but Sam's losing his mind and seems hell-bent on enacting revenge. So when diplomacy fails, combat begins.
Andre throws a fridge at Sam, who easily flicks it away. Marie tries to entangle him in a blood vine, but he throws it back at her. Jordan uses their (still very vague) powers to try subduing Sam, but it's no good. He's far too powerful for any one of them…
So Emma shoves a plate of meatballs into her mouth.
See, that's why I love this show so much – 'cause the logical solution to defeating a powerful supe can just be binging Italian food. Emma eats so much that she grows to be taller than the house. She grabs Sam like a toy and pins him to the ground. He's neutralized… for now. But I would not want to be Emma purging her way back to normal size. Poor girl.
Stray Observations:
I have to say I'm totally enthralled by a lot of the performances in this show, but the two that really stand out are Lizze Broadway and Asa Germann as Emma and Sam. Their chemistry is incredible, they excel equally in comedy, drama, and romance, and they're just genuinely fun to watch. Definitely two actors to keep your eye on.
Normally I'll call out one, maybe two lines of dialogue that pop out or make me ROTFL, but it's impossible to ignore the plethora of incredible jokes this week. Writer Jessica Chou really knocked it out of the park. Just a few of my favorites:
"That's the sum total of your searing insight? That Sam skull-f***ed Bob here?"
"You have a piece of eardrum on your shoulder."
"Tag team cocksplosion!"
"We'll find it in the edit."
"...and you're ovulating, by the way."
"Leave me alone, television's Jason Ritter!"
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