Prime Video’s The Boys built its reputation trafficking in the excesses of violence, satire and a very macabre sense of humour. But what made its profane addition to the superhero canon work so well was the way it folded very real anxieties into a genre that rarely allowed for them. Its campus spin-off, Gen V, inherits that instinct. The show follows young supes at Godolkin University who are still learning how to live with powers that both expose and endanger them.
Season two carries the debris of everything that’s come before: the eclipsing shadow of Homelander, the fall of Victoria Newman and the loss of Andre, played by the late Chance Perdomo. Within that landscape, the cast return to characters that are at once extraordinary and ordinary, but also impossibly human.
Jaz Sinclair plays Marie Moreau, the orphan with the ability to control and manipulate blood. Her abilities are grotesque, but her reading of them is not. “I think it’s a reflection of her emotional state, for sure,” she says. “In season one, Marie thought she had to hurt herself to use her powers. And then in season two, she discovers all the other ways, you know, to feel powerful. So I feel like that’s a pretty emotional journey as far as her powers go.”
Jaz Sinclair in a still from ‘Gen V’
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Prime Video
Marie’s tether to Claudia Doumit’s now-deceased (by evisceration) Victoria Neuman, with whom she shares powers, is severed before it can deepen. “With Victoria’s death and getting thrown into Elmira and having to survive that and then breaking out of there, it just reemphasises how Marie’s perception of this world is just so f****d up and that nobody’s safe and that you can’t trust anyone. So no more head-popping. Not from her.”
London Thor and Derek Luh return as Jordan Li, a single character split across two binaries within the same body. In male form, Jordan is invulnerable; in female form, Jordan channels explosive energy. London remembers the early challenge of making the details align. “We did come up with some fun quirks in season one that we kept throughout both seasons,” she says. “The walking was definitely tricky; we did try to match our walks for a while. And eventually we tossed that away too because it felt better to just be.”
Derek Luh and London Thor in a poster for ‘Gen V’
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Prime Video
Derek finds another kind of precision in Jordan’s sensitivity. “I think I’m a very sensitive person,” he says. “So I think the vulnerability was, I don’t want to say easily accessible, but I think I related to it so much because I understand that idea of having to be tough and having to not cry and being conditioned to be like a man and not show my emotions. So when I got an opportunity to fall in love with this character and open up and be vulnerable, I think it was really nice and cathartic.”
The two actors indulge in some banter about Jordan’s musical taste. “There’s a good mixture of classic stuff and darker stuff, some hype music, and some rap stuff that was good,” London says. Derek grins. “Absolutely. I’m picking the 2000s. My version is like 2000s pop Jordan. Is Jordan Backstreet Boys or NSYNC? That’s like a big choice. That really defines who you are as a person.”
He turns to London. “Let’s say it on three…?” They count it down together. “One, two, three…”
“Backstreet Boys,” they shout in unison, before breaking into laughter.
There is, of course, a shadow hanging over the season with Chance Perdomo’s sudden passing. London keeps the memory simple. “I think a lot of the credit goes to how the writers and the creators of the show took care of this situation and really wrote Andre and Chance’s spirit into the whole season, which was not a small task, and they did very well to honour him respectfully and beautifully. And I think, honestly, just us all being together on set made it better. We never really talked about it much, but I think just being together felt like honouring him and felt like he was there.”
The late Chance Perdomo and Sean Patrick Thomas in a still from ‘Gen V’
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Prime Video
Sean Patrick Thomas plays Andre’s father, Polarity, a once-celebrated superhero whose magnetic powers are now eroding his mind. He draws the line between character and life without hesitation. “Honestly, it’s a direct parallel to where I am right now in my real life in terms of being a father,” he says. “I’m very knee-deep and hands-on with being a super dad as best as I know how to be. So that dovetails very well into Polarity’s storyline on the show and his parenting, how he went about it and the mistakes that he made.”
Even the physicality of that decomposition becomes a part to inhabit. “I think my thought of it was that he’s always in some type of constant pain or discomfort. And there’s something about that, at least for most of us, that makes you a little grouchy, and so I just kind of try to stay in that kind of realm of like, never really at ease because he’s always in pain. And just take it from there.”
Hamish Linklater joins the season as Dean Cypher, who can bend minds through speech. He approaches villainy with a shrug and describes his character without embellishment. “Definitely slippery is something I strive for,” he says. “I often find that when I go to my costume fitting, I sort of figure out what the character is gonna be and sound like. Like, ‘Oh, he would never wear those pants!’ And how do you know? But then you put on a pair of pants that you would think he would never wear, and you’re like, ‘Oh, actually that’s the guy.’ So I have a very sartorial process.”
Hamish Linklater and Jaz Sinclair in a still from ‘Gen V’
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Prime Video
The character channels familiar Supe eugenics rhetoric of superiority, purity, and power, and Hamish treats it plainly. “Somebody’s got to play these parts, these horrible people. And so you sell it like you mean it. And hopefully that’s gonna put across the message that this is really, really bad and very, very current.”
Sean also sees the political weight as a responsibility. “I feel like it’s a golden opportunity to speak to what’s going on in the moment. You feel powerless about what you can do, what you can say, and how you can affect the conversation. And the privilege of being on a show like this, and telling a story like this, makes you feel less powerless, if that makes any sense.”
Hamish’s metaphor is more decadent. “Genre is like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. And when it’s done well… gosh, it’s delicious and hopefully enervating for an audience.”
He is also the latest Batman for Prime Video’s Caped Crusader. “They’re different worlds, but they’re both such a privilege to be a part of,” he says. “I cannot wait for Prime to put me in a romantic comedy, maybe where I don’t wear a super suit.”
Gen V Season 2 is currently streaming on Prime Video
Published – September 29, 2025 02:04 pm IST
