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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[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Season 2 of Peacemaker.]

In Season 2 of the eight-episode HBO Max series Peacemaker, Christopher Smith (John Cena) discovered an alternate world where his father (Robert Patrick) and brother (David Denman) are alive and superheroes, forcing him to face his past and re-evaluate his own reality. At the same time, Rick Flag Sr. (Frank Grillo), the new acting director of ARGUS, pursued Peacemaker as a threat after the death of his son, Rick Flag Jr. (Joel Kinnaman), at his hands, putting pressure on Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) to betray him.

During this one-on-one interview with Collider, show creator James Gunn, who also wrote the entire season, discussed why Peacemaker should actually be titled Chris, how far ahead he thinks about the character’s journey, his 30 Seconds to Mars quip in the first episode this season, the fun of bringing Kinnaman into the mix, having John Cena face off with John Cena, just how big the finale will be, and how fans will react to the end of the season.

Collider: First of all, I want to say thank you for Season 2 of Christopher Smith. It’s much appreciated. It feels weird calling this season Peacemaker since it’s such an emotional deep dive this season.

JAMES GUNN: That’s right. I don’t know if you’ve heard me say it, but I think it should be called Chris.

Showrunner James Gunn Has Always Known How the Peacemaker and Harcourt Relationship Would Progress

“I always knew what he was dealing with.”

Image via HBO Max

When you were writing Season 2, how much did you also think about the next few years of the character?

GUNN: Some of it, I thought about, and some of it, I didn’t. I actually know where Peacemaker is going from here, so that was always a part of it. It was just, what’s the road from A to B, and figuring that out through Season 2. I always knew what he was dealing with, and I knew about the relationship between him and Emilia Harcourt and how that was going to progress, and where her character was going. Those were the basic things I knew.

Did you lay breadcrumbs that we should keep an eye out for?

GUNN: I think that by the time you get to the end of the season, you’re going to have a lot of answers. A lot of where we’re going with everything takes place in the last episode.

You wrote these episodes and you directed the first episode, so obviously you’re responsible for the 30 Seconds to Mars quip that’s in there with Harcourt saying “I’m not on good terms with 30 Seconds to Mars. How dare you.” How did that come about?

GUNN: Yep. I just felt mean about the Spin Doctors being thrown in there. I don’t think that was too fair for us to say Spin Doctors. Nothing wrong with the Spin Doctors.

You didn’t have to carry Joel Kinnaman or Rick Flag over from the original Suicide Squad film into yours, but you did, and then you brought him into this season of Peacemaker. Why did you want to keep telling his story?

GUNN: I always knew, from the beginning. Jen [Holland] and I knew that Harcourt and Flag had been having an affair when The Suicide Squad stuff happened. That was her reason for disliking Peacemaker so much, from the very beginning of episode one of Peacemaker. We knew that she had this relationship with him that was not only a sexual relationship, but that’s just the way that they deal with their stuff. It really was a friendship. And so, that was always a plan. And then, adding in geeky Joel Kinnaman was the most fun I had. Joel’s a good friend of mine. He’s an incredibly funny guy, and people don’t know it. He’s literally never been in a comedy. And so, just allowing him to go out there and be this ridiculous, namby-pamby character was so fun for me. When I was writing it, I was just laughing, knowing I would be making Joel do this. And then, Joel just did it perfectly. It’s so good.

Did you have to make sure he was actually able to do it before you wrote it?

GUNN: No, because I know him well enough that I knew he’d be able to do it. I think that he surprised me with how well he was able to do it. He completely just went for it. The scariest part was that I didn’t direct that episode. That was directed by Greg Mottola. Greg’s the one I trust the most out of the other directors, so I thought he would probably be good with it. It’s great. I loved it.

In Season 2, Peacemaker Wonders if He’s Living in the Wrong Reality

“I knew that was going to happen.”

A dimensional portal that leads to 99 other universes in your bedroom seems like both a great and really terrible idea because you might kill your other-dimensional self and have to chop him up and burn the pieces. Were you just looking for the right moment where John Cena would have to murder John Cena?

GUNN: I really wasn’t. It just ended up that way. It’s just where it led to. I knew that was going to happen. I didn’t know it was going to happen so soon in the season when I was first planning it out, but it makes sense. It fuels Chris’ belief that he’s in the wrong world. He is, at his core, a pretty nice guy and that Peacemaker is not, and yet everyone around that Peacemaker is.

I loved that you roped Freddie Stroma into helping John Cena clean up pieces of his own body. He just wants to be the best friend that he can be.

GUNN: Yeah. And Freddie loves doing that. He’s also very excited about an alternate dimension in which he can meet himself. He’s stoked about that. We’ll see how that ends up going for him.

In episode 3, you have a shootout, you have bombs going off, and there’s a helicopter exploding. What is it like to pull all of that off in one episode? Is it easier to go all out and do a ton of wild stuff in one episode because this is a show that you can balance with other episodes that are more character and relationship-based?

GUNN: Totally, yeah. When you see episode 8, it seems like it’s as big as any other four episodes. So, yeah, you do have to balance out throughout the season what you’re spending your money on. Peacemaker is a wild beast to ride because at times it’s very intimate and very personal. It’s two people in a room talking. I think perhaps our best scene of the season is with Jen and John talking for 10 minutes. It’s the much more raw emotional version of the Lois and Clark scene in Superman. But then, at the same time, some of the big stuff is really wonderful too. You’ve just got to balance it out throughout the season.

We see a Hawkgirl, Green Lantern and Maxwell Lord at the beginning of the season, and we see Rick Flag. Will there be more appearances before the end of the season?

GUNN: You’ll see one more character from Superman. There’s also one really big appearance by somebody in the end of the season that I don’t think people will see coming.

Creator James Gunn Says the ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 Finale Is “Bittersweet”

“Bittersweet doesn’t even begin to say how bittersweet it is.”

Image via HBO Max

You mentioned giving a lot of answers this season, but what do you think people will say with the last episode? How do you think fans will react to the season finale?

GUNN: Bittersweet doesn’t even begin to say how bittersweet it is.

Release Date

January 13, 2022

Network

HBO Max, Max

Peacemaker is available to stream on HBO Max. Check out the Season 2 trailer:

This recap will have spoilers for Gen V Season 2, including episodes 201 (“New Year, New U”), 202 (“Justice Never Forgets”), and 203 (“H is for Human”), Prime’s spinoff of The Boys.

School is OFFICIALLY back in session and Gen V Season 2 is off to a dramatic and gay start. I’m going to be recapping this season for you here on Autostraddle dot com, where we can break down all the queer shenanigans our favorite young adult supes get up to. This one will be a little more condensed because we’re covering three episodes at once, but I’ll be sure to include all the juicy gay details. Because while The Boys all but buried their gay (RIP Brave Maeve, I hope you’re living your best assumed-dead life out there), it seems Gen V is not unlike Gen Z in their penchant for a more fluid understanding of sexuality. We have Marie (Jaz Sinclair), who is definitely queer because they have a thing for Jordan (London Thor & Derek Luh), the bi-gender supe who can shift between male- and female-presenting forms on a whim, and Emma (Lizze Broadway) who hasn’t explicitly said she’s bi/pan but has been saying very queer things from the jump (like wanting to have a threesome with a m/f couple, for example) and talks really close to her female classmates’ faces so I’m going to go ahead and assume is queer until proven otherwise.

Also a note that I’m sure anyone reading this already knows but I want to acknowledge: The actor who played Andre in season one, Chance Perdomo, passed away in a motorcycle accident before season two filming began. Instead of recasting him, the team decided to rewrite the season to explain Andre’s absence, and the season is dedicated to Chance.

Gen V Season 2, Episode 1

Let’s start with episode 201, which actually doesn’t even pick up where we left off, but instead takes us to 1967 where we see something called Project Odessa go awry when people inject themselves with blue goo only to self-destruct moments later in front of a very distressed scientist.

Back in the present day, we pick up a few months after we left off and not too long after the events of The Boys Season 4. The country is split between supe supremacists and “Starlighters”; Homelander has more control than any one asshole should; and the new dean, Cipher, is promoting Godolkin University as a place where supes can experience “freedom from the woke agenda.”

Jordan and Emma, imprisoned all summer for crimes they did not commit, are surprised to find themselves let out of a transport van on the GodU campus, with Cate of all people to welcome them. Cate looks behind them and asks after Andre, but Emma snaps at her, not believing Cate’s ignorance. But it’s clear Cate was telling the truth when she reads Jordan’s mind and learns that Andre died in Elmira, the prison they ended Season 1 in.

Still confused as to why they’re there and also where Marie is, the troupe is interrupted by Stacy, head of student life and a real pain in the ass, who also possesses a literal pain in the ass in the form of a stinger. And she lives by honeybee rules: if you get stung, you die, but if she stings, Stacy will die, too. This feels like Chekov’s stinger and I am weirdly looking forward to seeing how this comes to fruition.

The deal is: Jordan and Emma can rematriculate if they give their Vought-approved speech and agree to play nice.

I don’t know how anyone bought that this was something they did willingly, they weren’t even trying to fake a smile.

They reluctantly agree — what choice do they have, really — but keep asking after Marie, who escaped from Elmira and hasn’t been heard from since. In fact, Cate starts to suggest that if Marie had just waited, if Andre had waited…but Jordan punches her about it. There will be no disrespecting their friends on their watch. But later, when it’s just Jordan and Emma, Jordan says they don’t need Marie, clearly hurt that she left them.

When Cipher gives his start-of-school speech to the students, he talks about not being able to trust humans and calling Starlight a race traitor. Jordan and Emma can tell they’re in enemy territory and will have to watch their step if they want to stay out of Elmira going forward.

Me in my Catholic high school listening to my principal spew hypocritical nonsense.

Meanwhile, Marie is elsewhere, slinking around the shadows going hoodie-up into a convenience store, choosing a Brave Maeve Pride Bar over some Firecracker Freedom Sticks. A friendly stranger spots her the two bucks she’s short, which will be important later. Marie goes back to her seedy motel room and continues what we can imagine she was doing all summer: calling people to try to find her sister.

Later, she spots the kind stranger standing with other Starlighter protestors and sees them get antagonized by Homelander stans, who are unfortunately called Home Teamers. One of them punches her, drawing blood, which was his biggest mistake, because she uses that blood to kick his ass. As she leaves, the kind stranger thinks he recognizes her, but she tells him she’s nobody and smiles as she walks away.

“I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too?”

Back on campus, Emma goes to see Andre’s dad, Polarity, to tell him about Andre, but he already knows. She tries to recruit him to help them solve some of the mysteries they have — why she remembers Cipher being at Elmire, for example — but he’s too busy wallowing in self pity to help…and Emma tells him so.

That night, Jordan and Emma try to go through the college motions and go to a frat party, but their hearts aren’t in it. Jordan punches a frat boy for being a dick, Emma knocks her ex-friend Justine over and blows off Sam’s request for a truce, dropping truth bombs on him as she storms past. The whole ordeal ends up being too much for her, so she goes to the bathroom and cries…and ends up shrinking. Instead of stressing too much about it, she decides to play beer pong…as the ball.

When Sam finds Cate to ask her about the stuff about Andre and Elmira Emma told him, starting to get worked up, Cate just uses her powers to zap his emotions away again, as she’s been doing since last year.

Back at Marie’s hotel room, she gets an unwanted visitor when the supe Dogknott shows up. They have a knock-down drag-out fight and Dogknott almost ends up injecting Marie with something, but Starlight shows up and saves her just in time.

Starlight — sorry, Annie — tells Marie she can’t be on the run forever and tries to convince her to take the offer her friends took to stay at GodU. She tells her it won’t only be safer for her, but also Annie needs Marie to research something called Project Odessa, because Annie is worried it’s starting up again.

Annie (or maybe Erin Moriarty?) kind of looked like she was losing’ the plot at the end of the last season of The Boys, so it’s nice to see her looking almost normal here with some spark back in her eyes.

Marie doesn’t want anything to do with it, she just wants to find her sister, but Annie says she sees the hero in her and warns her that she can’t stay out of the fight forever.

Marie’s dust-up with the counter-protestors ends up on the news, letting Emma and Jordan (and, clandestinely, Cate) track her down. When they find her, Jordan tells her that Andre tried to get the rest of them out after Marie left, but he ended up pushing his powers too hard and had a stroke and died. Seeing they’re having a hard time convincing her, Cate steps out of the shadows to try to help, saying they’re safer at school, but then she sees in Marie’s mind that she met with Starlight.

I love them, your honor.

Cate goes to use her powers on Marie, maybe to convince her to come back to school, but Jordan shoots her with their powers instead, and Cate’s head smashes against the wall. Cate is barely conscious and begs them to help her, but Marie can’t help her without touching her, and if she touches her, Cate could use her powers on her…so they leave her for dead.

Gen V Season 2, Episode 2

On to episode 202!

Marie tries to record a video about how she super duper can’t wait to start her sophomore year at GodU, and even though it’s deeply unconvincing to anyone who knows Marie, it’s enough to force Cipher’s hand into letting her back in. At her meeting with the dean, Marie finds out that Andre had the same condition as his dad; that is to say, every time he used his powers, his physical health deteriorated. Cipher also said Andre knew that when he pushed his powers to try to open a steel door that fateful day. Oh also? Cate is alive. This is a lot of information for Marie, but she and Cipher seem to be able to see through each other’s bullshit, for the most part, so this semester is sure to be interesting.

Emma is itching to do something. Research Odessa, finish the job with Cate, she’s not particularly picky, she just can’t sit around and do nothing. Marie agrees they should look into what Starlight asked them too, but Jordan thinks they’re both a bit crazy. But luckily, Andre’s dad accepted a job at the school, so they’ll have an adultier adult to help them out a bit.

Sam goes to visit Cate at the hospital, and though she’s still catatonic, when a nurse touches her arm, Cate sort of possesses her, says “They left me to die,” namedrops Emma, then uses the nurse’s body to go on a bit of a stabby spree.

Emma quickly learns the classes at GodU are a bit different than she remembers. Or maybe SHE’S different. She is in a social media class being taught by Modesty Monarch, a butterfly-lady trad wife who believes feminism ruined America and whose comments are often filled with, and I quote, “hairy, baby-killing lesbos” attacking her. Emma tries to opt out of the class that she once might have loved, at the height of her Little Cricket days, but MM tells her in no uncertain terms that she’s exactly where the dean wants her.

Marie tells Jordan what she learned about Andre, and they snipe at each other a bit. Jordan is mad, Marie is sorry, but they’re just not on the same page right now. But when they go to the dean’s special “hero optimization seminar”, Marie and Jordan naturally fall back into working together to pass the test.

Back in Marie’s room, Marie is thanking Jordan for helping her while also changing, and catches Jordan looking at her longingly. Marie apologizes again, a little softer this time, and Jordan admits that their lashing out earlier was misdirected anger. They start to laugh together about their favorite Andre memories, and before long Jordan admits it was easier for them to be mad at Marie than risk losing her.

They take a moment, pressing their foreheads together, before going in for the kiss.

The forehead touch of our people!

Jordan is still in their femme form and asks if that’s okay with Marie, and Marie says lovingly and earnestly, “Anything and everything you do is okay.” Relieved that they’re back with one of the only people who truly accepts them for all that they are, Jordan goes back in for another kiss, and they fall back onto the bed, smooching.

Meanwhile, Emma and Polarity sneak into the school’s archives and find a secret room with lots of literal Nazi paraphernalia and also the Odessa file they were looking for. Emma is so excited she found it that she gets BIIIIG. THEN she’s excited she got big all by herself, and it’s a miracle she didn’t Alice in Wonderland herself right out of the building.

Emma is so deliciously chaotic, I love her dearly.

Back in the dorms, Marie and Jordan lay in bed together, and Jordan asks Marie out on a proper date. Not just canoodling now and then between life and death experiences. But a proper date, like going to Olive Garden and playing League of Legends after.

Also feels worth noting that Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather was playing for some of their sexy scenes.

Marie likes this idea, and Jordan shifts and starts kissing her again. Marie says she loves them, which surprises Jordan. But Jordan’s surprise doesn’t make Marie take it back, or claim it was a heat-of-the-moment slip; in fact, she doubles down, asking if it’s okay. Jordan starts to mutter about it being fine but, before they can really talk about it, they’re interrupted by fireworks outside.

The fireworks are to celebrate that Vought caught the people who attacked Cate…they said it was a hate crime by Starlighters and pointed the finger at the protesters Marie protected, including her kindly stranger, who the news says was killed by Dogknott. Marie says this is their fault, her and her friends.

Speaking of, Emma catches up with them and gives them the file she found. As it turns out, Odessa is Marie, Marie is Odessa.

Gen V Season 2, Episode 3

And with that, we venture on to 203! Which is also where I’ll pause to mention that this season has some great needledrops. The music department really knows what they’re doing.

This episode opens with the campus cafe barista taking three Xanax before going to her job as a human employee at a school full of supes and supe supremacists, where she is constantly harassed for things like Starlighter resistance posters she didn’t even put up. In fact, on this particular day, there’s a poster that just won’t go away, causing her nothing but unending trouble.

Our main crew is busy trying to parse out what it means that Marie is in the Odessa file. In fact, she’s the only one listed in the file who is still alive. Polarity thinks she was designed to be a weapon, but Marie doesn’t feel like a weapon, and she says people who look like her aren’t usually the Chosen One. Jordan isn’t sure if they can trust Starlight, but Marie thinks they can. Marie decides to ask her mom’s best friend Pam if she remembers anything about Odessa, since she’s in one of the photos they found, even though Pam hasn’t spoken to her since she accidentally killed her parents. But it’s worth a try! And hey, she had tried to adopt Annabeth right after their parents died, so maybe she knows where Marie’s sister is, too.

Cate is well enough to return to campus, dressed in black and looking overwhelmed as hell…but not in the usual way you might expect a mind-reader to be in a crowd. In fact, she can’t hear anyone’s thoughts at all. Also, her return goes viral and she accidentally Regina Georges the beanie look — one she’s rocking because of her gaping head wound — and if you watch the rest of the episode, more and more students are wearing beanies, with most of them wearing one by the crowd scene at the end. This little detail tickled me.

“One time, she punched me in the face… It was AWESOME!”

Stacy leads her back on campus and is oblivious to the tension when Cate comes face to face with our main trio, barely holding it together in the face of her ex-friends who left her for dead.

College was awkward for a lot of people but not usually “having to face the person you left for dead and pretend everything’s fine and normal” awkward.

Marie tries to talk to Jordan about why she dropped the L word and admits they were the first person they slept with. Jordan is a little wigged out by this fact at first and says you shouldn’t say “I love you” to the first person you have sex with. They start to fight about it, but they’re interrupted by Stacy the Stinger putting up holographic posters of Jordan that shift between their two forms depending on where you stand. As it turns out, Jordan has rocketed up to #1 in the school’s all-important ranking system.

Being #1 comes with a car and some sponsorship deals and fans asking to take photos and asking them to shift (which they politely decline) and yet another pre-written speech by Stacy, who says she uses words like “transtastic” and wants them to emphasize how supportive GodU has been to them. Jordan tries to point out they’re not trans, they’re bi-gender, but Stacy basically tells them to shut up and sing. She adds, “Next time a fan asks you to switch, tuck the junk, inflate the fun bags, and do it.” A real charmer, that Stacy. And haven’t we all experienced the kinds of people who tell you they’re an ally with one hand while they’re slapping you with the other.

Cate goes to see Ciphon, wanting to tell Vought and the world who really attacked her, but Ciphon says they can’t do that without telling everyone Cate lost their powers, and tells her, in no uncertain terms, that her value is directly correlated to her powers. Dejected, Cate leaves the dean’s office, but not before noticing a very fortified almost submarine-like door. Suspicious.

Cate goes back to her room to inspect her head wound when Sam busts in; he’s been tweaking out and seeing puppets again and wants her to clear his mind. Cate says she can’t, but instead of telling him her powers are busted, she says she doesn’t want to push him too far like she did his brother.

Sam storms off and starts destroying things, but Jordan calms him down. They sit together, get high, and watch Avenue V (which is Sesame Street meets Avenue Q), clearly the source of a lot of Sam’s hallucinations. They bond over missing the people they’ve lost, and seem to bury the hatchet between them.

At the campus coffee shop, the barista is being harassed again, but this time Emma helps her out. She is in full Helper Mode, trying to be the hero Andre told her she can be, so she vows to solve the mystery of the reappearing Starlighter sign, and eventually tracks down her betailed friend Harper, whose powers are chameleon (she can borrow powers for 60 seconds at a time) and is a secret Starlighter with her roommate Allie.

Also this whole exchange felt sexually charged, especially when Emma gets Hannah to show her her powers by saying, “Do me.”

Emma hears the rebels’ plans for more vandalism, but Emma wants them to go bigger. Full sabotage, something that can’t be cleaned up with some Magic Erasers. Hannah and Allie are doubtful they can make a difference, but Emma believes in them and wants to empower them to be heroes.

Marie goes to Aunt Pam’s house and while Pam doesn’t know about Odessa specifically, she knows about the clinic her parents went to so they could get pregnant with her and shows Marie some more photos of that day, including one of Ciphon. Pam calls him Dr. Gold and says he’s the one who delivered Marie. Marie also learned that her parents didn’t just put her in the Compound V experiment for the money; they genuinely wanted a baby. On her way out, Marie notices a room that looks suspiciously like a teenage girl’s room and goes in to snoop around. Sure enough, she finds cards addressed to Annabeth and finds out she’s been living with Pam for years. Marie and Pam fight, Pam insisting Annabeth doesn’t want to see Marie because she’s scared of her, and Marie is furious that Pam still doesn’t get it, that her parents death was an accident. Marie is furious that Pam made her feel like a monster, and let her sister think she was a monster all these years.

Marie has gotten so much better about believing she’s not a monster and also standing up for herself AND I AM PROUD.

On Goldokin Day, Jordan’s banners are hung up alongside Maeve and other past and present members of the Seven. Before they go on to give their speech, they find Marie and tell them that they love her, too. They were weird about it all week because it freaks them out, but they don’t want to regret not saying it, since they never know what the next day could bring, especially in the hellscape they’re currently living in. Marie kisses them and beams at them as they run up on stage.

“If you go, I’m going too, ’cause it was always you.”

But Marie’s smile quickly fades as Jordan strays from Stacy’s script after a few cringeworthy moments like “we were all assigned awesome at birth.” Jordan tells everyone watching that Andre is dead, that his powers killed him, and that he died a hero. They also say Cate wasn’t attacked by Starlighters. In fact, Marie looks on in horror as Jordan confesses the truth: They were the one who hurt Cate.

MUST PROTEC

This season is already off to a stressful start, with the parallels to our world being as prevalent as ever, as this franchise is wont to do, and I’m glad they re-established Marie and Jordan’s relationship, even if it is about to get a lot more complicated for them. Who knows what will happen to Jordan; on one hand, they’re #1, and Cipher has been talking at length about how important this ranking system is. On the other hand, they were booed pretty heavily when they admitted to attacking the school’s golden girl, so Vought might want to make an example of them. But also their friends won’t let them go without a fight. So who knows what will happen! Only time (and the rest of the season) will tell.

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