Gen V season 2 'helps set up the climax' of The Boys finale — and Jaz Sinclair might be the key (...

Jaz Sinclair (bloodbending Marie Moreau), Hamish Linklater (new Godolkin Dean Cipher), and producer Eric Kripke tees up the spinoff's sophomore year. Gen V seas

Jaz Sinclair (blood-bending Marie Moreau), Hamish Linklater (new Godolkin Dean Cipher), and producer Eric Kripke tees up the spinoff's sophomore year.

Gen V season 2 'helps set up the climax' of The Boys finale — and Jaz Sinclair might be the key (exclusive)

Jaz Sinclair (blood-bending Marie Moreau), Hamish Linklater (new Godolkin Dean Cipher), and producer Eric Kripke tees up the spinoff's sophomore year.

By Nick Romano

Nick is an entertainment journalist based in New York, NY. If you like pugs and the occasional blurry photo of an action figure, follow him on Twitter @NickARomano.

EW's editorial guidelines

August 27, 2025 9:00 a.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau on 'Gen V' season 2. Credit:

- The *Gen V* team explains how season 2 will "carry the torch" between *The Boys* seasons 4 and 5.

- Jaz Sinclair wraps her head around the potential for blood-bending Marie to take down Homelander (Antony Starr).

- Hamish Linklater teases the new Godolkin dean, Cipher, who lives up to his name as an enigma to decode.

Jaz Sinclair is still wrapping her head around her new place within the world of *The Boys*. She might be the key not just to unlocking the mystery of her own corner of this interconnected universe, spinoff series *Gen V*, but of the entire superhero TV franchise as it stands.

A few things are clear: The freshman season of the college-set spinoff series saw Sinclair's Marie Moreau, with the ability to command and weaponize blood, withstand a full optic blast to the chest from this world's most indestructible supe, Homelander (Antony Starr).

"I hoped that they would write more into that [for season 2], and they definitely did," the *Chilling Adventures of Sabrina* alum tells **. "It's kind of like Harry Potter with Voldemort with the death curse. How did he survive?"

Then there are the trailers revealed during Comic-Con. The one for *Gen V* season 2 (premiering Sep. 17 on Prime Video) sets up Marie to potentially be more powerful than Homelander himself, while the one for *The Boys* final season sees our titular unorthodox heroes coming to recruit Marie to join the last standoff.

"I was always hoping that they would write me to kill Homelander. I always really liked the idea of taking him out 'cause he's such a royal ass, you know?" Sinclair says. "Marie's such an underdog. The expansion of my powers in [*Gen V*] season 2 is really exciting. So the weight of that and the implication of what that could mean for Marie was really fun for me this season."

Derek Luh as Jordan Li, Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, Lizze Broadway as Emma Meyer in 'Gen V' season 2.

Eric Kripke, showrunner of *The Boys* and the chief architect of this interconnected universe, pumps the breaks just a bit. He's not ready to confirm whether Marie is indeed this savior, but rather, just like how the mothership series deconstructs the concept of the superhero, *Gen V* will now "take the piss" out of the "chosen one" archetype with its sophomore run.

He and *Gen V* showrunner Michele Fazekas started to really think of Marie in these terms toward the end of season 1. "If she can control everybody's blood, then what *can't* she do? How is she *not* the most powerful superhero on the planet?" Kripke says. "Just because she has the potential to be, doesn't mean that she is. It felt like a very organic adolescent problem, which is these expectations are placed on you to be this truly great thing, but you're not quite ready to step up to be truly great."

'Gen V' boss says Chance Perdomo 'exists throughout' season 2 (exclusive)

When does 'Gen V' season 2 come out? All about the spinoff's return to God U — and how it intersects with The Boys

It's part of what's riding on the shoulders of *Gen V* at the moment. Season 2, Kripke points out, will "carry the torch" between the events of *The Boys* penultimate and final seasons, while also maintaining its identity as a standalone series. (Season 5 will likely arrive sometime in 2026.) "There's a lot in *Gen V* that really helps set up the climax of this final confrontation in *The Boys*," he says.

*Gen V* season 2 picks up several months after *The Boys* season 4. If Homelander's takeover of the United States government and rounding up of his chief dissenters took place around Inauguration Day in January, Godolkin University's fall semester kicks off around the end of August. We discover the strange facility where Marie woke up in the season 1 finale — alongside Lizze Broadway's size-shrinking Emma Meyer, London Thor and Derek Luh's gender-shifting Jordan Li, and the late Chance Perdomo's magnetic Andre Anderson — was the infirmary wing of Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center, "which is, in effect, a supe prison," Kripke notes.

For reasons Kripke doesn't wish to divulge at this time, they are carted back to God U for the new calendar year, only Homelander's America has completely infiltrated the campus. He's also fully aware of the parallels to Trump's America, since the president's administration is doing everything it can to control the curriculum and circulation of the top schools.

London Thor as Jordan Li, Hamish Linklater as Dean Cipher in 'Gen V' season 2.

"The vibe we really wanted the audience to walk away [with] was like, 'Phew! We really dodged a bullet,' but instead the bullet hit us in the face," he comments.

Cipher (Hamish Linklater), who worked at Elmira, is now the new Dean. He's the perfect guy to run Godolkin under the Homelander regime, which is telling. "Homelander isn't gonna put someone in charge of the Ivy-iest League of his schools if that person isn't gonna be towing the line and putting forward his agenda," the actor, also known for *Midnight Mass*, says.**

"Morally dubious" is a phrase Linklater uses to describe Dean Cipher, adding, "Cipher is an elite nuanced dancer of the human psyche. He's trying to get everybody to level up. That's the job of the dean — and by any means necessary."

It's also not a coincidence that his name is Cipher. The character is an enigma for the audience to decode. Linklater won't even divulge what his supe powers are, other than to say, "He's pretty deliberate with his cutlery," referring to a scene from the trailer where he stabs his hand with a knife.

Marie remains a wild card. While she seems to be playing along with his plans, the trailers show her teaming with Erin Moriarty's Starlight to go undercover at Godolkin to stop an initiative called Project Odessa. It's some kind of top-secret program first mentioned on *The Boys* season 4 when Homelander returned to the facility where he was engineered.

Asa Germann as Sam Riordan, Chace Crawford as the Deep in 'Gen V' season 2.

To that end, Ethan Slater of the two *Wicked* movies, including this year's *Wicked: For Good*, now arrives in season 2 flashbacks as Thomas Godolkin, the school's founder. "It's not really a spoiler to say that the whole reason he started Godolkin was to pursue Project Odessa," Kripke teases. "It's the origin story of the entire school."

In some ways, this arc is filling the mystery void of the Woods from season 1, but Sinclair adds, "When you think you know where it's going, you're wrong and then it changes. I definitely think that this season, as far as tempo, has some different twists in it."

***Sign up for **'s free daily newsletter* *to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.***

The question still remains: Is all of this leading up to another confrontation between Marie and Homelander, with the former now embracing the full scope of her powers?

All Kripke will say is, "I'm very sensitive to the fact that *Gen V* should be primarily about the characters from *Gen V* and *The Boys* should be primarily about the characters from *The Boys*. While there can be crossovers and assists and help, it's a little bit of a rug pull and not a great way when you've committed to watching, say, *Boba Fett*, and then for two episodes of *Boba Fett*, it's just the Mandalorian. I don't wanna do that. We have stories to tell in each one."

Sinclair keeps the spark of hope alive. "I just like that she's an underdog, and I like that she's a Black woman, too," she says. "This super sexist, patriarchal bad guy. I would love to see him get his ass handed to him by a Black woman."**

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL TV"

Read More

---

Source: VOGUE MAG

Full Article on Source: VOGUE MAG

#LALifestyle #USCelebrities