Gen V 2×06 review: “Cooking Lessons”

In this week’s episode, Gen V slows its high octane plot to reposition characters and clarify motivations. It feels important, if not necessarily exciting. The actor performances remain a high note.

I guess there was no chance that Marie’s reunion with Annabeth would go better than this.

After last week’s bombshell cliffhanger where Marie brought Annabeth back from the dead, her sister isn’t exactly grateful. We already know Annabeth’s got a huge chip on her shoulder where Marie is concerned. Even Marie sympathizes: Why should Annabeth forgive the girl who killed their parents?

But we also learn that her resentment runs deeper. The Godolkin Guardians have a smooth exit from Elmira, and it’s only partially thanks to Sam punching through a wall: Annabeth uses precognition to guide them to their exit before it appears.

That’s right. Annabeth Moreau is also a superhero. She only wants a normal life, but she can’t have it, whether or not Marie is in the picture.

It adds a lot of context to her hostility. Marie wants to cling to the only family she has, but Annabeth wants to push everything away, including parts of herself.

Once on the run, the kids can’t get help from Polarity. He’s still stuck at home post-seizure with Cipher.

Their interactions are fascinating. Cipher keeps harping on about how stress can bring out the best in superheroes, but the dean seems to think this potential is limited to certain supes. He has a chilling plan to reduce the super-powered population by 75% to get rid of the useless ones, including the guy who has a quantum singularity in his butthole. He seems to think Polarity is similar.

By provoking Polarity, invoking the memory of his son, Cipher brings out a whole new level of his power. Polarity can resist Cipher’s control. He also manages to throw Cipher out a window, which isn’t obviously connected to his metal-manipulating Magneto-like abilities. Is it possible that Cipher has higher abilities like Marie? She can heal as readily as harm. Maybe Cipher can learn to manipulate more energy fields. It would be a satisfying way to prove Cipher is wrong-headed about his supe eugenicist plans.

If this were the focus of the episode, I’d be extremely engaged. Unfortunately, Gen V decides to pull out a couple more characters from The Boys and use them to grind our plot to a halt.

Stan Edgar reappears at just the right moment with his tentacle-mouthed daughter to rescue the Godolkin Guardians and take them into his bunker to hide. That takes up the remaining hour of the episode. He cooks, the supes wash up, and people have conversations about their relationships.

It’s not the most compelling way to develop their arcs, although I’m always happy to see Giancarlo Esposito, and Stan Edgar is a fabulous character.

We do learn that Marie is a result of the same program as Homelander, which isn’t much of a revelation at this point. They’re both meant to be god-tier superheroes, though. Annabeth is motivated to show some gratitude for Marie because Victoria Neuman’s daughter wishes she had a sister. Sam and Emma flirt a lot. That’s about it.

Even though nothing actually happens to motivate this progression–aside from a lot of chitchat–the actors manage to sell everything happening. They’re so compelling to watch working through their emotions, especially Annabeth, who I found to be the highlight.

In the end, Marie and Cate head out as a team to progress the plot somewhere else. Cate’s hoping that Marie can fix her powers–and maybe she can, but Marie doesn’t seem interested in trying yet. That might have been too exciting for this entry.

I can’t help but feel we’re in a holding pattern to let everything big happen in The Boys. On the bright side, the faction showdown they’re establishing could be absolutely nuts. Everyone wants a piece of Homelander now. Marie is the one who might actually be able to take him.

Gen V is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Author: SM Reine

Half-Tellarite SM Reine is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of fantasy. She’s been publishing since 2011 and a nerd since forever.

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