I Watch TV: Gen V

 

Gen V

A spin off from The Boys, pitch black gritty superhero farce/satire, here framed as a college drama. Marie Moreau exhibits super powers when she reaches puberty; unfortunately she has blood powers and at her first period accidentally kills her parents. Put in a group foster home she beats the odds and gets into Godolkin University, the training facility for supes.

Things go wrong, slightly at first – she doesn’t get into the crime-fighting course, instead into the school for performing arts. She does make some friends; her room mate for one, and when on campus someone in a grey tracksuit is attacking people she and Andre Andersson, a high-flying student, stop him. He invites her to go out partying with other prominent students, Luke Riordan, Jordan Li and Cate Dunlop. Unfortunately while high Andre injures a woman and Marie uses her blood powers to save her. All the blame is put on her and she’s going to be expelled by Professor Brink. At that moment Luke interrupts, kills Brink and goes berserk; Marie is saved by Jordan, then when Luke gets outside Andre tries to talk him down; Luke explodes.

Marie is propelled forward by this into both the university and the national limelight. The manipulation of media and image that is a theme in The Boys is even more to the front here. In The Boys we see supes who have made it trying to maintain their popularity. In the university they’re struggling to make an impression.

On top of this there are mysteries. Why did Luke kill himself? Where did the grey tracksuited guy come from? What is the university hiding? All of which is approached in The Boys usual style – often gross with blood and other bodily fluids, with supes killing in bizarre ways, with graphic images.

Watch This: Superhero university story combining violence, mysteries, grotesque powers and a not unsympathetic look at trying to navigate the hideous social media superhero landscape as a young adult
Don’t Watch This: A long sequence of horrible betrayals and worse deaths