Victoria Neuman Sets 'Gen V' On a Crash Course With 'The Boys' Season 4

The following story contains spoilers for Gen V Episode 7, "Sick."

PART OF WHAT'S been so exciting about Gen V, Prime Video's first live-action spinoff of the hit superhero satire The Boys, is just how seamlessly the plot and characters of this brand new show have managed to intertwine with the plot and characters of The Boys. Sometimes, cameos and references can feel a bit shoehorned into similar projects as fan service—that's not the case at all in Gen V.

While previous episodes of Gen V's freshman season have included references to Homelander, cameos from a puppet version of The Deep, and a dream sequence appearance from Soldier Boy himself, it was the show's seventh episode, "Sick," that saw its most substantial guest appearance from the flagship series yet: Victoria Neuman, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-inspired politician and (newly-installed) vice presidential candidate who just might kind of have the ability to make people's heads blow up with their minds.

Neuman, played by actress Claudia Doumit, has been a fixture in The Boys since Season 2, and finds herself playing a crucial role in Gen V as she makes her way to Godolkin University for a talk—and connects on a level deeper than anyone could have expected with series protagonist Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair).

While earlier Gen V guest appearances from the likes of Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) and Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) have essentially been cameos, Victoria Neuman's role goes deeper. She's in a large chunk of the episode, in multiple scenes, and while we may not see her again in Gen V (and maybe we will!), we'll certainly see the aftermath of her actions when the time comes for The Boys Season 4.

Victoria Neuman's Gen V appearance suggests where The Boys will go in Season 4.

Victoria Neuman enters the fray of Gen V when she's giving a scheduled talk on the Godolkin University campus. As you may remember from the end of The Boys Season 3, she's just been added to the ticket alongside presidential candidate "Dakota" Bob Singer—after cutting a deal with Homelander where she traded the location of his son, Ryan, for the life of Singer's previous running mate, Lamar Bishop (whom Homelander had killed in a pool by The Deep). She also runs the Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs, intent on regulating superhuman behavior, despite the fact that she herself is both the adapted daughter of former Vought CEO Stan Edgar (whom she betrayed), and a Supe who has been using her power (more on that below) to blow people's heads up for years.

Anyway. She's still "fighting the good fight" publicly, standing in as the progressive political option in a world where the power is largely controlled by Vought and people with Compound V in their veins. That leads her to a rather contentious talk on the Godolkin University campus which she rather easily brushes off afterwards—before linking up with Marie Moreau.

As it turns out, Victoria has been behind just about everything that's happened to Marie since childhood; both grew up without parents in the Red River Institute, and Victoria felt a special connection to Marie... because they have the same superpower. That's right—we finally learn in "Sick" that Victoria is able to blow people's heads up because she has the same Magneto-esque blood ability that Marie does.

But where things get really hairy is when Marie tells Victoria everything she's learned about "The Woods," and the lethal Supe virus that Dean Shetty has created. Victoria is genuinely shocked, and uses the goodwill she's earned with Marie to essentially tell her to forget it—and that she would pay her back handsomely for her trust somewhere down the line (promising her, in essence, a spot in The Seven).

By the end of the episode, we find Victoria meeting with Dr. Edison Cardosa to discuss the Supe-killing virus he's created; she tells him that they wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands, and he assures her that he's the only one who knows how to make any more of it. And then what we were all waiting for happen—she blows his head up, as "Heads Will Roll" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs begins to play, and the closing credits start to roll.

We may see Neuman in the Gen V finale, but if not, this is a pretty perfect lead-in to a storyline for The Boys Season 4: perhaps the most powerful Supe of them all (matched maybe only by Homelander) now suddenly has a weapon that could take out every other Supe. How will she use it? What will happen next? What's Neuman's endgame? And how wil Billy Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, and the rest of the gang react?

There's so much to break down, and we'll just have to wait for The Boys Season 4 to see how it all plays out.

What is Victoria Neuman's power?

We've been seeing Victoria Neuman blow people's heads up for two full seasons on The Boys, but we finally learn how she's been doing it in Episode 7 of Gen V, titled "Sick." As it turns out, she's got the same Magneto-esque, blood-bending power that Marie does. But Neuman's is significantly more trained, powerful, and refined.

This makes sense—remember earlier in the season when Marie made Rufus' penis explode? She doesn't have the same control over her powers that Neuman does (She even told Jordan in the aftermath that she didn't know how that just happened), but this moment was, in retrospect, remarkably similar to the way that Victoria makes heads explode (including with Dr. Cardosa at the end of "Sick").

It's possible that as Marie gets stronger—and we have to wonder if someone like Starlight or Queen Maeve will eventually come around to train her—she could make for a formidable opponent to the increasingly-villainous Victoria.

Victoria Neuman is played by Claudia Doumit

Victoria Neuman is played by Claudia Doumit, an Australian actress who was first a recurring character in Season 2 of The Boys before joining the show's main cast for Season 3 and the upcoming Season 4.

Prior to her role on The Boys, Doumit was best known for her main cast role in NBC's underrated sci-fi series Timeless, which was also co-created by The Boys and Gen V creator Eric Kripke. Prior to that, she also appeared briefly in shows like Supergirl, Scandal, and New Girl.

She has also worked in a handful of films, including alongside Cate Blanchett in director Richard Linklater's Where'd You Go, Bernadette?.

You can follow her on Instagram at @ClaudiaDoumit.

Is Victoria Neuman in The Boys comics?

In what comes as a a very significant change, Prime Video's Victoria Neuman is, indeed, based on a character from Garth Ennis' The Boys comics. But the character's name is "Victor Neuman," who eventually earns the nickname "Vic the Veep." And Vic the Veep isn't based on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or any similar progressive politician of the time (the comics ran from 2006 to 2012), but rather George W. Bush.

Victor Neuman, in the comics, is neoconservative politically, and comes from a family where at least 5 other members have been the CEO of Vought. Ennis said that Vic the Veep "was meant to be the most grotesque parody of Bush, Jr. imaginable."

Victoria Neuman, then, being based on Ocasio-Cortez, then, feels like a fairly significant shift. But given the political landscape, it makes sense; in the mid-2000s, people like Bush were the major figures who received significant attention.

AOC, in the present, is a figure of major attention and impact, and it makes sense for the show to have interest in basing a character around a political figure who just about anyone watching can recognize.

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