This recap will contain spoilers for Gen V Season 2 Episode 6, “Cooking Lessons.”

Welcome back! This week, some theories were confirmed, others were spawned, and emotions were high. So let’s dive into it.

Previously on Gen V, Cate’s powers were glitchy, Cipher was trying to push Marie to be the best blood bender she can be, Marie, Jordan, and Emma tried to break Cate out of Elmira but ended up getting caught again themselves, and Marie’s sister Annabeth died BUT Marie used her powers to bring her back to life.

We pick up where we left off: in Annabeth’s cell, Annabeth freshly alive and the alarms going off everywhere. They manage to convince a very shaken Annabeth to come with them, and they all take off, Jordan taking care of some guards and their sound beam weapons. Annabeth pauses for a moment and leads her very confused sister and company through a restricted access door, and just when it looks like she was just disoriented and led them to a dead end, Sam busts through the wall and helps them escape in an Elmira van he stole.

“It’s the future I can see, it’s so mysterious to me.”

In the van, Marie tries to talk to Annabeth, but she’s still shook. Emma calls what Marie did a miracle, but Marie isn’t a fan of that word…though she does have to admit that Cipher might have been right about her powers. She is more powerful than she realized, and his training did weirdly help her.

Someone mentions something about how long it will take to get to Canada, but not everyone is on board with that plan, especially Annabeth, who doesn’t want to go to “a foreign country with strangers.” Emma tries her best to reassure her in that chipper way of hers, but Annabeth doesn’t quite buy it.

Emma’s little asides are like finding a disco ball in an abandoned factory and I love her for it.

Marie says they need to take things one step at a time: They need a new car and to regroup and make a plan. She promises Annabeth that she’s safe, but Annabeth hasn’t felt safe with Marie in a decade, and she sure isn’t about to start now.

Meanwhile, Cipher is exercising the burned man in his home when he gets a call from Elmira about the escapees, and he is none too pleased. He tells them that he wants Moreau back and doesn’t care about the rest, and it was only now, hearing Marie’s last name out of context after not hearing it for a while, that I realized perhaps we always should have known she was some kind of science experiment with a name like that.

When he hangs up, Cipher is so mad he starts beating up the burned man a little before then mindlessly going back to exercising the burned man’s legs like nothing happened.

Marie & Co. break into a closed-down library (which looks like it was the victim of a book burning, a testament to the politically tense times they live in) and make a list of what they need: a new car, food, money, and a phone to call Polaris. But all they find at first are clothes, which they didn’t list but they do in fact need, because half of them are in prison jumpsuits and Annabeth is covered in blood. Sam goes off to see if there’s any food left to salvage, and Marie and Jordan take a minute to chat.

Jordan says that everything is different, now that they know Marie is one of the, if not THEE, most powerful supe in the world. They say nothing will ever be the same, but Marie insists THEY are the same, what they have between them. Marie still loves them, that hasn’t changed. Marie tries to hug them to reassure them but Jordan doesn’t look as sure about all this as Marie does.

I don’t like the way they’ve been looking at Marie this episode…

After scavenging some snacks from the vending machines, Sam and Emma find a phone that they try to use to call Polarity, but Emma doesn’t have her cell phone and doesn’t remember any numbers. Honestly, she remembers more of it than I would if I were asked to call anyone but my parents, but alas it is not enough. Luckily the computer mysteriously has internet, so she signs into Instagram and messages Harper and Ally for help.

Meanwhile, Marie tries to talk to Annabeth, who is still resistant. Marie says she knows Annabeth is a supe, but Annabeth says no one, not even Aunt Pam, knows about her powers. Marie asks when she was given Compound V, but Annabeth snaps back that her parents died before she could ask, which is a slap in her sister’s face.

It breaks my heart that Marie thought she was fighting for a glorious reunion while Annabeth was just around the corner hating her guts.

Marie is going to leave her alone after that, but Annabeth stops her by offering more information. She says that she gets these senses about things, and sometimes they come true and sometimes they don’t. Cate, who had been nearby finding a new hat to cover her scars, chimes in and says it sounds like Annabeth is a precog.

The bubble broken, Annabeth retreats back into her shell, saying “thanks for the resurrection or whatever” but she doesn’t feel like she owes Marie anything and doesn’t want to keep going with her, she just wants to go home to Aunt Pam’s. Marie explains it’s not safe to do that, and Annabeth blames Marie for “ruining” her life again.

That one stung!

This poor sweet traumatized girl doesn’t realize that all Marie wants is for Annabeth to be safe and happy, and she that she’s spend the better part of a decade looking for her to try to apologize and make sure she’s exactly that. But Annabeth looks at everything bad that’s happened in her life and sees a solid line leading straight back to Marie.

I blame Pam for this. Annabeth was just a scared kid, if anyone had reassured her it was an accident (because it WAS) we wouldn’t be here!!

Back on campus, Polarity wakes up after his…episode and finds Cipher sitting in his house. He knows Marie & Co. will contact him eventually for help, and he wants to pass on the message that he just wants Marie to come back to the school for training, and if she does, he’ll leave the rest of her friends and her sister alone. Polarity says he won’t lie for Cipher, but he pokes at Polarity’s wounds, pointing out that his brain is deteriorating like his son’s was, and that Marie can be the miracle they were waiting for to fix it. But Polarity won’t back down. Unfortunately, that’s when Harper happens to call Polarity, so Cipher puppeteers Polarity’s body to answer the phone and get the information about where Marie is.

At the library, Marie is taking a moment to herself in the bathroom to try to reckon with all this new information when she hears her friends calling her name. She comes out to find her sister in the middle of a panic attack, and talks her through breathing until she calms down. Annabeth says she hasn’t had one of those in a long time, and Marie is glad that this means Aunt Pam gave her a good life.

Probably better than the Red River Institute but could have done without the anti-sister propaganda!

At this moment, Marie decides she’s going to do whatever it takes to let her get back to it, even though it’s not safe to do so yet. Annabeth hates being a supe and all the drama and trauma that comes with, and almost as if the universe was saying “are you sure about that?”, her supe-y senses tingle in time to warn them about an incoming attack and Jordan is able to save them from an incoming hammer, thrown by Vikor from their training sessions at school.

Marie sends some of them to hide with Annabeth while they fight, but Annabeth doesn’t understand why Cate and Emma are hiding with her instead of helping. They’re supes, aren’t they? Cate tells Emma to get big but she hasn’t mastered that yet. She asks Cate to say something nice about her to help and Cate says, “Like what?” and Emma responds, “Fuck you,” and I know everything is stressful but this tickled me.

I really believe Cate’s doing her best to be good now, but sometimes that mean girl still shines through

Despite Jordan and Sam going after him too, Vikor is laser focused on Marie and chases her outside. A little girl shows up and Vikor tries to shoo her away…but instead, she tentacles his face off. His entire head, actually. It’s little Zoe Neuman, Victoria Neuman’s daughter.

Just the happiest little murder baby in all the land.

She’s there with her grandfather, Stan Edgar, who has heard great things about Marie and thinks they can help each other. His mentioning Victoria softens Marie to him, but she says she’ll only go with him if her friends can come too. He agrees, and so, they leave for somewhere safe, together.

Stan takes Marie & Co. to his underground bunker, which is zinc-reinforced to prevent x-ray vision from finding them, that Stan made specifically to protect himself during the rise of Homelander. On the way up, Marie tells Zoe that her mother made her feel special, and she’s sorry for what happened to her. Zoe seems to feel an instant kinship with Marie, which is great, because Marie is very powerful, but I still wouldn’t want her to be on the wrong side of those tentacles.

When they get into the bunker, Stan has Zoe show Sam, Emma, and Annabeth around while Marie, Cate, and Jordan stay back to get some answers while Stan makes them food.

I’m sorry but their stolen library gear looks so silly and I love them so much.

Stan tells them that Cipher didn’t originally make Odessa, Godolkin did, and the goal was to make god-tier supes. The difference is, Godolkin couldn’t get it to work but Cipher did. Twice. Once with Marie…and once with Homelander.

Marie, however, takes great offense to being compared to Homelander. “I’m not a fucking monster,” she declares.

I would also be deeply offended if someone tried to compare me to Homelander.

Though Jordan looks a little more alarmed by the comparison, like they’re noticing something they hadn’t before. Jordan tries to understand where Stan was going with this, saying, “If Marie is like Homelander…” but Marie once again declares she is nothing like him. Stan agrees this time, saying she’s not a deep abyss of sociopathy like he is, hence why she is sitting in his private safety bunker with him and all his blood. But Jordan continues their point: what is Cipher’s end game? Stan explains that while Godolkin wanted to control supes, Cipher wants to empower them. He wants what we’ve seen him sewing all this time: supe supremacy.

And Stan is who shut down Odessa in the first place, after Marie was born. Stan tells them that Cipher somehow put together all of Godolkin’s research after Godolkin supposedly died in a fire. When they hear the theory about how Godolkin could theoretically be alive, very old, and very crispy, Cate tells him about the burned man they found in Cipher’s house.

“No he didn’t go to Burning Man he HAS a burned man.”

Stan says he could have been keeping Godolkin prisoner and forcing the information out of him and says this information changes everything, though Marie isn’t sure how. Stan says he was ready to offer Marie comfort and safety in exchange for her service once he took back over at Vought — which he fully intends to do — but now he knows the answer to controlling supes could be in Godolkin’s head, potentially for him to access.
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Elsewhere in the bunker, Emma and Sam are reconnecting, Sam saying he’s on new meds and better than ever, and apologizing for how he treated Emma. He says he knows they can’t go back to how they were — and Emma agrees; they’ve both changed too much — but he’s hoping maybe they can try again someday.

After showing her around, Zoe bonds with Annabeth about how they’re both orphans now.

I don’t think Zoe is okay, psychologically, but gosh she’s sweet.

Zoe asks what it’s like having a big sister, and Annabeth remembers a time before their parents died, when she was too shy for Trick or Treating, so Marie would go out all night and then split her candy with her. She seems to soften, remembering this happy memory of the sister she’s spent so long villainizing.

Marie literally abandoned her friends and the love of her life in prison for you, girl!

Back in the main part of the bunker, Marie asks how Stan knows that Godolkin can help them, but the truth is he doesn’t. He shows her some of Godolkin’s research he’s salvaged, and she sees blueprints for the collars and sound blasters Cipher uses in Elmira. And Marie is starting to believe that maybe he could help them stop Cipher. But Stan is thinking bigger. He thinks Godolkin can help them stop Homelander.

Marie is ready to jump right in, but it sounds like Stan might not want her in this fight. He says, “Those who remain will reshape the world.” Which is cryptic and creepy but at least means he’s invested in Marie’s survival, so I’m here for it.

That night, Marie and Jordan are in bed together, and says they are with Marie, no matter what.

They’re a little more convincing this time, that they actually support Marie, even if she’s scarily powerful and it means Jordan will never be #1 again.

They say they should try to get some sleep, and Marie unconvincingly says maybe all this will make sense in the morning.

Back at GodU, Cipher is getting increasingly pissed he can’t find Marie now that Vikor was taken out of the equation. He plays “stop hitting yourself” with Polarity’s body for a while, doing a villain speech about culling supes, saying those like the guy with a gaping black hole in his ass aren’t going to be shepherding them into his supe supremacy future. He says by the time he’s done, the GodU population will be cut by at least 75%. He says the strong will survive and the rest will go the way of Andre. This pisses Polarity enough that he is able to wrest control of his body away from Cipher…and yeets Cipher out the window.

Back at the bunker, Marie sneaks out of bed, checks on Annabeth, then sneaks out of the bunker. She doesn’t get far before Cate catches up to her and offers to come with, but Marie resists. Cate then asks her to fix her brain, fix her powers, like she fixed Annabeth.

These two would be quite the formidable duo if they can start to trust each other.

Cate also thinks if she does, she can help Marie keep Cipher out of her head. This time, Marie doesn’t protest, and just turns around and keeps walking. Cate takes this silence as acquiescence and follows her into the night.

And so, some questions were answered, but still more go unanswered. Mysteries abound, and I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of friends from The Boys before this season is over.

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Welcome to day two of Amazon Prime Big Deal Days, filled with new finds and a quick look back at yesterday’s most loved picks. From Amazon’s own exclusives to our personal favorite styles and products, there is something here to fit every part of a busy lifestyle. Whether you are after fashion, decor, tech, or home upgrades, our latest edit highlights pieces worth adding to cart now. Explore today’s curated collection below, and remember you can always browse the full selection anytime in our Amazon Storefront.

Thank you to Amazon for sponsoring this post.

This year we’ve pulled out all the stops to bring you the very best deals from Amazon Prime Big Deal Days. From quiet luxuries to everyday essentials, our handpicked edit highlights the finds truly worth grabbing. Think of it as your shortcut to the can’t miss savings of the day. Scroll through our top selects below or head straight to our Amazon Storefront to shop them all in one place before they’re gone.

The Federal Trade Commission is taking Amazon to court this week over the tech giant’s moneymaker Prime subscription program.

In a trial set to last for the next month, FTC is claiming that Amazon tricked millions of customers into signing up for a Prime membership and then made it very tough to cancel said subscription.

“Millions of consumers accidentally enrolled in Prime without knowledge or consent, but Amazon refused to fix this known problem, described internally by employees as an ‘unspoken cancer’ because clarity adjustments would lead to a drop in subscribers,” the FTC wrote in a court filing from earlier this month.

“Similarly, Prime’s cancellation flow, known internally as “Iliad,” is a labyrinthian mechanism that Defendants know deters consumers from cancelling or misleads consumers into believing they successfully cancelled Prime when they in fact did not,” the FTC said.

The lawsuit was filed two years ago under Biden-era FTC, then led by big tech hawk Lina Khan. It is going to be Amazon’s first major showdown with the FTC, but there is a second one already on the horizon. The FTC separately delivered its first set of antitrust charges to Amazon two years ago, and the trial for that is set to start in early 2027.

Prime is a huge moneymaker for Amazon. The tech giant made more than $44 billion just from subscriptions last year. That number includes other subscription services under Amazon, like audiobooks and music streaming, but Prime is the leading source. On top of the billions of dollars in subscription revenue, Prime users also generate a lot of money for Amazon in online purchases.

Details of the case

FTC argues that Amazon buried price and subscription renewal terms in the fine print when users sign up for a free trial, and includes confusing language that tricks people into accidentally signing up for an Amazon Prime trial. The confusing language allegedly includes tempting users with free shipping when they check out, not sufficiently clarifying that clicking that link would sign them up for an Amazon free trial that automatically renews after 30 days.

Then, when users want to cancel their Prime subscriptions, Amazon makes them go through a multi-step process allegedly designed to convince them not to cancel. The process is allegedly referred to internally as “the Iliad,” named after the ancient Greek epic depicting the decade-long Trojan War, famous for its grand deception with the Trojan Horse. Very on the nose.

I went through to see this cancellation process myself, and it is long. It makes you jump through many pages, tempting you with exclusive offers and TV shows you can only watch on Prime Video.

While I wasn’t lucky enough to see this particular attempt, the FTC filing claims that in one version of the many webpages that Prime shows you before you can cancel you membership, consumers were greeted by a banner message that said “thank you for being a member with us. Take a look back at your journey with Prime,” a couple pages before the cancellation was confirmed and final. The FTC claims that might make some prematurely believe that their membership is cancelled, and they don’t have to do anything else.

These practices, the FTC alleges, violate Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits “unfair” commerce practices like unauthorized billing. They go against the Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act, also known as ROSCA, which says that companies should clearly disclose all terms to consumers before getting their billing information, get explicit consent before incurring any charges, and make cancellation simple.

Amazon is not the sole defendant

Amazon is also not the only defendant in the case. Three Amazon executives—Jamil Ghani, Neil Lindsay, and Russell Grandinetti—are all named as individual defendants. The FTC alleges that Prime’s vice president Jamil Ghani, and Amazon Health Services’ senior vice president, Neil Lindsay, approved clarity improvements to Prime’s enrollment flow but immediately rolled them back when management saw a drop in Prime enrollment. Amazon’s senior vice president of international consumers, Russell Grandinetti, is accused of dismissing internal concern over the unintentional enrollment issue in favor of increasing the growing paying subscriber base.

The trial will begin with opening arguments on Tuesday. But the government already had its first win. Judge John H. Chun of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington handed the FTC a preliminary win last week when it concluded that both Lindsay and Ghani would automatically be considered liable if the court finds Amazon guilty.

“The bottom line is that neither Amazon nor the individual defendants did anything wrong – we remain confident that the facts will show these executives acted properly and we always put customers first,” an Amazon spokesperson told Gizmodo.

‘Dark patterns’

“How do you trick someone into signing up for a service?” you may ask. The FTC claims that Amazon does that by cleverly crafted design choices that confuse customers into signing up for memberships, or make the cancellation processes confusing enough that you don’t realize you haven’t successfully cancelled the membership yet.

These deceptive design techniques are called “dark patterns” and are used by many online platforms to manipulate behavior. It’s when platforms carefully and knowingly craft users to do whatever they want them to do, whether it be agreeing to join a free trial for Amazon Prime or saying yes to a cookie consent form that wants to sell your data to a third party.

Dark patterns are increasingly coming under scrutiny. The European Union is preparing to address these concerns as well under the Digital Fairness Act next year.

Implications beyond Amazon

Amazon is hardly the first subscription service to employ a grueling membership cancellation process only akin to a notorious ancient war. But it is, the FTC argues, one of the largest subscription services to do so. If the court rules in the FTC’s favor in this case, it could spark a widespread chain reaction that affects the way other subscription services conduct their business.

It all stems from the FTC’s now-axed fight to make “click to cancel” the norm. Led by former commissioner Lina Khan, the FTC wanted to require all businesses to make subscription cancellation as easy as a single click. Under the Trump administration, that rule was completely struck down.

If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber and haven’t really gotten your use out of its massive Prime Video library of shows and movies, then you really should start checking out what the streaming service has to offer.

Every month Prime Video refreshes its list of offerings, with movies coming and going, which is why I’m here to offer some suggestions for movies I’ve watched and enjoyed on Prime, and that I think you will, too.

5

Wicked

The smash-hit adaptation of the smash-hit Broadway musical of the same name is now streaming in all its glory on Prime Video. Wicked was nominated for 10 Oscars, and while it only took home hardware for two of those, the musical film was widely praised for its performances, costumes, and spectacular design.

You probably know the story already, but Wicked covers the origins of Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), better known as the Wicked Witch of the West (eventually), as they attend Shiz University in pre-Wizard Oz. With sweeping musical and dance numbers, an insane cast including Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, and Bowen Yang, among others, Wicked is a fun, visual spectacle you’ll want to watch with your kids.

Prime Video’s Wicked offers some cool special features, too, including a sing-along version you can buy, and bonus content you can check out via X-Ray.

4

The Vast of Night

It’s always refreshing to find an extraterrestrial film that still manages to create tension and thrills with story and character instead of gobsmacking special effects and people being vaporized (more on that in a bit). 2020’s Amazon Original film The Vast of Night achieved just that.

A self-financed indie gem, The Vast of Night, takes us to 1950s New Mexico where a radio DJ and a switchboard operator uncover a deep UFO conspiracy in their small town after they discover some unexplained sound signals that might not be of this world. If you’re into Close Encounters of the Third Kind or old episodes of The Twilight Zone, you’ll love the grainy period production and slow burn of this Toronto International Film Festival honoree.

3

Pulp Fiction

I was a young and naive 20-year-old dork when Pulp Fiction hit theaters in 1994. And when I left the theater, I was a man … is what I’ll tell my kids when they’re old enough to finally see it. All kidding aside, Quentin Tarantino’s indie masterpiece not only changed the face of filmmaking, but it (and 1992’s Reservoir Dogs) kicked off one of the most successful careers in Hollywood, and jettisoned so many of its cast to new heights.

If you haven’t seen it, Pulp Fiction is the interconnected tales of several players in Los Angeles’ underworld, including hitmen Jules and Vincent (Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta), their gangster boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) and his wife Mis (Uma Thurman), an aging boxer with a gambling problem (Bruce Willis), and a pair of smalltime crooks (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) who pick the wrong diner to rob.

Dark, gritty, violent, shocking, endlessly referenced, and infinitely quotable with some of the best dialog of any film, ever. If you haven’t seen this film yet, go get yourself a Big Kahuna burger and get to it.

2

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Before Steve Carell was a household name for his comedic and dramatic film and TV work, he was honing his improv chops at Chicago’s Second City. It was there that the sketch that The 40-Year-Old Virgin would later be based on was born. With the help of Judd Apatow, it was their script (and Apatow’s directing) that gave us this, now 20-year-old, piece of comedy gold.

It’s the endearing story of Andy (Carell), a mild-mannered employee of a local electronics store where he lets slip to his numskull bro co-workers (played by Seth Rogen, Romany Melo, and Paul Rudd) that he is, indeed, a 40-year-old virgin. The hilarity is largely gleaned from the horrible advice the boys give Andy on how to get laid, leading to some idiotic grooming (“Kelly Clarkson!”) and freaky bedroom antics, when all Andy wants to do is be with Trish (Catherine Keener), an older woman who Andy falls for.

There’s also a Director’s Cut of The 40-Year-Old Virgin available to stream on Prime Video, too.

1

War of the Worlds

While the internet is trying to forget the 0% Rotten Tomatoes score this film’s recently-released 2025 rendition just snagged, let’s just turn our gaze to just how good the 2005 version of War of the Worlds was.

One of, if not the best, recreations of H.G. Wells’s classic alien invasion sci-fi film stars Tom Cruise as an every-day Jersey guy named Ray, who’s just trying to keep his kids (played by Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin) from getting vaporized by the towering, three-legged aliens. They’ve been dormant underground all over the planet, and have finally activated, blanketing the world to bring about the extermination of humankind.

War of the Worlds’ special effects were great for the time, and they still hold up today, but one of the best parts of the film is Tim Robbins turn as the creepy Harlan Ogilvy, whose paranoia makes him turn on humanity.

That Amazon Prime Video is a jungle (see what I did there?), and if you don’t know which vines to swing on you could find yourself lost and with nothing good to watch. I’ll stop with the ridiculous puns now, just check out this roundup of solid movies, now.

Amazon Prime Days are in full swing, and today’s edit is centered on home and littles, with a focus on our personal favorites, including pieces we use and love daily. From charming accents to practical essentials, this collection is filled with thoughtful picks we’re excited to share.

Whether you’re refreshing a space at home or packing up for a weekend away, now is a wonderful time to shop these Prime Day finds before they’re gone. Browse the full selection below, and visit our JB Amazon Shop and Amazon Storefront for even more, updated often with what we’re currently loving.