“Gen V” team explains the significance of Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy cameo

Warning: This article contains spoilers from Gen V season 1, episode 6, "Jumanji."

Back in April, Jensen Ackles went up on stage with Jared Padalecki at a Supernatural fan convention in New Orleans and casually told the gathered crowd that he shot a cameo as Soldier Boy in The Boys spinoff series Gen V, not realizing he was spoiling a massive surprise.

"That's on me," Eric Kripke, showrunner of The Boys and executive producer on Gen V, tells EW. "In his defense, no one broke it down for him on set that it was a huge secret. I texted him and he felt bad, but it's not his fault." In hindsight, Kripke now sees the benefit of having that information out in the word ahead of time. "Just knowing that Jensen shows up for three f---ing minutes is enough to get a certain amount of the population to watch the show," he says. "Hey, man, at the end of the day, whatever puts the butts in seats is cool with me."

EW previously revealed the first look at Ackles once again donning the Soldier Boy suit on Gen V after his turn in The Boys season 3, and the show's sixth episode "Jumanji" saw the character's return.

Prime Video Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy returns in 'Gen V' episode 6, "Jumanji"

Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) used her powers to restore her friends' memories, after she forced them to forget anything to do with the Woods and Sam (Asa Germann). The exertion caused her to have a seizure and inadvertently pull Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and the others into her mind. There, they meet Soldier Boy — or at least the imaginary friend version of Soldier Boy Cate fantasizes about.

Kripke and Gen V showrunner Michele Fazekas discuss the true meaning of this specific cameo. "It really speaks to how damaged Cate is, because he's an asshole," Kripke says. "Just because Jensen is charming and people love Jensen, the character is like a dinosaur and proceeds to be an asshole in the scene, you know. It speaks to Cate's actually low self-esteem. It's an interesting choice for a sex symbol of someone who is basically verbally abusive."

It's also a callback to The Boys season 3, which saw Ackles' Soldier Boy joining Jack Quaid's Hughie Campbell and Karl Urban's Billy Butcher on a mission to track down the telepath Mindstorm (Ryan Blakely), who trapped them all inside their minds. Fazekas says the Gen V team looked to that Mindstorm scene if only to determine what the rules were of these kind of supe mind games. "How is this happening? Is [Cate] in their head? Are they in her head?" she says, adding how Christopher Nolan's 2010 film Inception was a specific touchstone for the episode. "We wanted to differentiate from [Mindstorm]. It's not the exact same power, but it's a psychic ability. What we loved about it was allowing our characters to experience with Cate her memories versus doing flashbacks or someone telling a story."

There's even more of Soldier Boy to be had beyond these few minutes of screen time. At the April convention, Ackles mentioned how Kripke joined him on set and the two "were spitballing ideas and workshopping literally in between takes and coming up with a whole variety of takes."

Amazon also released a few promos they shot with Ackles, in which Soldier Boy warns fans not to spoil anything from Gen V. "Only commies spill secrets. Don't be a commie," he says into the camera. "You spoil this show, I'm gonna ass-punch you with the broad side of a hammer. Don't spoil any secrets. God bless America."

And don't forget the other one in which Ackles just says, "Surprise, motherf---ers." As Kripke said, that's all you need.

Episodes of Gen V season 1 continue to stream on Prime Video every Friday, with the finale set to drop Nov. 3.

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