Gen V season 2 episodes 1–3 review — Blood, lies, love, and the shadow of Homelander

Gen V is back and it’s wilder, bloodier, and more fearless than anyone expected. If season 1 had already carved a raw wound into the universe of The Boys, the second season tears it open until it bleeds.

Across the first three episodes, we get grief, manipulation, buried projects with sinister names, and revelations that shake Godolkin University to its rotten foundations. Yet in the middle of this storm, there’s one fragile and luminous thread: the romance between Jordan and Marie, proof that even inside a slaughterhouse of lies, humanity insists on finding a way to survive.

Gen V opens on tragedy. Andre Anderson is gone. His death isn’t shown, because in real life the loss of Chance Perdomo reshaped the story itself. What matters is how the series makes that absence a presence. The characters carry it like a bruise, heavy and unhealed, and so do we.

From there, Gen V decides to risk everything: Marie dragged back into God U, Jordan refusing to shrink their truth, Emma terrified but unwilling to turn away, Cate turned into both victim and symbol, Cipher weaponizing every moment into propaganda. And behind it all, Odessa, the name that hangs like a code for something bigger, darker, and unspeakable.

Andre’s ghost and the wound of survival

Andre’s death changes the chemistry of every scene. He was the loyal friend, the one trying to hold a team together, and the silence he leaves behind is unbearable. When Jordan tells Marie how he died, in sacrifice, already sick, still pushing his powers to help them escape, it’s one of those moments where grief fuses with fury. There’s no comfort in this death, only the reminder that Godolkin consumes even its brightest.

The writers could have recast him, but instead they turned loss into narrative weight. The second season of Gen V opens (and closes) with mourning, and that decision makes everything else sting sharper. Every reckless risk, every confrontation, feels like it could end the same way, with another friend erased.

Marie under fire

Marie’s trajectory across these episodes is the closest the show has ever come to putting a spotlight on what power means. She’s haunted by her own gift, caught between guilt and rage. When she uses her abilities in public, it isn’t triumph, it’s exposure. Cameras catch her in the act, blood and violence turned viral in seconds. That vulnerability makes her the perfect target for Starlight’s plan: come back to God U, pretend to play along, spy from the inside.

But Marie is nobody’s pawn. Her refusal to let others script her role sets her apart. She isn’t chasing fame, and she isn’t trying to look like a savior. She’s navigating trauma, mistakes, and the terrifying suspicion that her powers might be the key to everything—maybe even the only real weapon capable of denting Homelander.

Jordan and Marie’s fragile revolution

Through all the carnage, the romance between Jordan and Marie feels almost scandalous in its tenderness. It’s not there to soften the edges of the story but to deepen them. Jordan’s shifting body, Marie’s blood-soaked hands, they see each other without flinching. Their connection is built on shared danger and mutual respect, and that makes it dangerous in its own way.

The climax of episode 3 of Gen V is Jordan taking the podium and speaking the truth at the event. In a world where silence is survival, that act is explosive. Vulnerability becomes defiance. For once, the most powerful moment isn’t an explosion of flesh and gore, it’s the decision to stand up and say what nobody else dares. That’s where Gen V shows its heart: not just in brutality, but in the insistence that honesty is revolutionary.

Cate bleeding, Cipher rising

Cate’s arc in Gen V is grotesque in its tragedy. Injured in confrontation, left behind, she becomes a prop in Cipher’s game. The dean spins her suffering into political capital, painting her as proof of how dangerous supes are, fueling fear and pushing his agenda. It’s not about healing Cate, it’s about weaponizing her body and her image.

Cipher is an architect of lies, and he plays the long game. By exposing Andre’s medical condition posthumously, by orchestrating narratives, by tying Marie back to the institution, he positions himself as the voice of order. But in a show where every “protector” turns out to be a predator, his apparently calm authority reeks of rot.

Odessa and the children of Godolkin

Then there’s Odessa. Just a word in the beginning, almost a whisper, but by episode 3 of Gen V, it’s a thunderclap. Files hidden in the university point to something horrific: records of infants, experiments, babies dead before they had a chance to live. Odessa isn’t just a codename, it’s the foundation on which God U stands, proof that this place has always been a laboratory of cruelty. And it's related to Marie. Deeply related.

This discovery shifts the series into a new register. It’s no longer about surviving the politics of one corrupt campus, it’s about exposing the original sin that ties Godolkin to Vought itself. Odessa could be the fuse that, once lit, brings the whole empire crashing down.

A future written in blood in Gen V

Three episodes in, and season 2 of Gen V already feels more relentless than the first. The violence is sharper, the betrayals more suffocating, and the stakes bigger. Yet what makes it so intoxicating isn’t just the carnage, it’s the undercurrent of possibilities.

Marie standing on the edge of something terrifying and monumental. Jordan showing that truth is its own kind of weapon. Emma fighting through fear. Even Cate, broken, might still have cards to play.

And somewhere above it all, Homelander’s shadow stretches long. He doesn’t need to appear to dominate. Every whisper of “supes vs humans,” every attempt to control the narrative, is really about paving the way for his reign. Which is why Marie feels so central. Her powers, her history, her refusal to be manipulated? She’s the antithesis of everything he embodies. Maybe she can’t kill him, but she could be the crack in the myth, the one who proves that gods bleed. Time will tell.

Rating with a touch of flair: 5 out of 5 blood-soaked sparks refusing to be silenced.