Once you understand that every superhero tale is some variation of a handful of scenarios, a franchise's signatures are easy to spot. "Gen V" announces its lineage less than two and a half minutes in the first episode, when we have our first bloodletting – a few drops, then more before, in a blink, a room's walls are bathed in chunky red. About halfway through the debut, we're smacked in the face with a huge penis rendered with alarming accuracy, which is both perverse and entirely on brand for a spinoff of "The Boys."
Viewers familiar with the series that originated this college by-product will probably find the presence of an exposed male member and gore reassuring. But there never was a reason to think co-showrunners Michelle Fazekas and Tara Butters would pull their punches. The pair brought us "Agent Carter" and the underappreciated "Reaper" for the CW — they get this realm and our expectations.
