There’s a lot of buzz online about Gen V, a new series that is coming to Amazon’s Prime Video at the end of the month. A bunch of young students with special powers, known as “supes”, are getting used to their new life at superhero university, Godolkin.
Though they’re clearly a naturally talented group, they are far more concerned with sex and partying than they are honing their abilities. As with a lot of recent teen dramas (such as Euphoria and Sex Education) they mostly use their age as a permission slip to get up to no good – and have a lot of fun in doing so.
While they’re busy indulging in hedonism, they also need to watch their backs; not everything is as it first seems.
Here’s everything to know about the upcoming show.
What is it about?
The show follows the perspective of new student Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair). She’s a ‘blood bender’, meaning she can manipulate blood to do what she wants. If this sounds quite gross, it is. But it’s a power that has its uses: for example, in the show’s trailer Moreau cuts her palms slightly and then transforms the dripping blood into two whips. Her friends’ powers include metal bending, shifting gender, changing size, fire manipulation and super strength.
Is there a trailer?
Yes – you can watch at the top of the page. It sets the scene perfectly: Godolkin isn’t a regular school, and its students are obviously not regular people. Between class, they’re busy practicing their powers, competing and partying (at some very posh looking clubs – this is no usual freshers week). Then, things take a dark turn. There is real evil lurking in the hallways, and according to the superintendent of the university (who is played by Bridgerton’s Shelley Conn), newbie Marie has a target on her back.
The trailer, which is set to a quickening beat, then gets gory: there are bodies in the university’s hallway, a fist bursts out of a man’s mouth, and several people are alive but completely covered in blood. “Everything is f**ked,” exclaims Marie in a subsequent scene.
Elswhere, there are superpower fights, cars dramatically flying through the air, explosions in the university gym and – by the looks of it, at least – a penis literally gets blown up. It’s all go.
It’s a spin-off show of The Boys?
Yes. For those just joining the franchise now, The Boys, which premiered on Prime Video in 2019, is an ongoing superhero series. It’s based on the comic book series of the same name which was written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Darick Robertson and published between 2006 and 2012.
The Boys is a cynical twist on the genre, looking at what would happen if superheroes were just not very nice. In the original show, the characters are respectively spiteful, cruel, self-serving and apathetic. They are working for Vought International, a major corporation who sets up superhero scenes (think, a major disaster) which the champions need to come in and fix, boosting their image and in turn, bringing in more money for Vought.
The show has so far picked up eight Emmy award nominations, and its second and third series boast Rotten Tomato scores of 97 per cent and 98 per cent – meaning anticipation is sky-high for the new spin-off series.
Who makes up the cast?
The leading cast is largely made up of new faces, though Bridgerton’s Shelley Conn (she played Lady Mary Sharma) stars. Other cast members include hip-hop artist Derek Luh, Maddie Phillips (Teenage Bounty Hunters), Lizze Broadway (American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules), Chance Perdomo (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) and Jaz Sinclair (Paper Towns).
Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), Patrick Schwarzenegger (The Terminal List), Sean Patrick Thomas (Vixen), Marco Pigossi (Tidelands), Jason Ritter (Raising Dion), Alexander Calvert (Supernatural) and Clancy Brown (Dexter: New Blood) also feature, as do The Boys’ Jessie T. Usher, Colby Minifie, Claudia Doumit and Jensen Ackles.
Who has made the show?
The show has been made by The Boys’ creator Eric Kripke with Craig Rosenberg (who worked as a producer on The Boys) and Evan Goldberg (who wrote Superbad and Pineapple Express). Gen V’s executive producers include Seth Rogen and Neal H. Moritz (who is best known for producing or co-producing the Fast & Furious films).
Why is Gen V getting so much hype?
Essentially, the show has been getting a lot of attention because fans of The Boys – which has ended up being a sleeper hit – are excited about a new chapter of the franchise.
Plus, there have been some intriguing previews of the new show: The Guardian, for example, said the “teen superhero spin-off from The Boys does sex and drugs like never before”, while Empire published a piece in which Rogen says “Gen V has some really crazy shit in it”.
“The fact that they’re in college, they’re a little younger, makes it more shocking maybe,” he added.
