Gen V Season 2 Episode 6 Review: Cooking Lessons

Maybe it’s time to rename Gen V Season 2 as The Boys Season 4.5 because once again the show brings us a step closer to a showdown with Homelander. Gen V Season 2 Episode 6, “Cooking Lessons,” reveals a surprising connection between Marie and the villain thanks to an appearance from Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito).

Although it’s Sam showing up and busting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man that frees them, it’s Stan Edgar showing up at their makeshift hideout that changes the direction of the season. The group is rightfully suspicious of his intentions, but it’s nice to see that Victoria Neuman’s daughter Zoe is safe after she was taken to the Red River Institute in The Boys Season 4 finale.

Good ‘ole Stan is more than a deus ex machina to rescue the gang from Vikor who was sent to retrieve them. He’s also a great plot device to give us an exposition dump on Project Odessa and Cipher.

Finding out Cipher is a genocidal maniac set on superhero supremacy and culling the superhero population so only the strongest survive isn’t the most shocking thing. The Boys has never been shy about making characters straight up Nazi eugencicist.

Neither is the reveal that the man in the hyperbaric chamber is actually the presumed dead Thomas Godolkin. I mean, c’mon, who else would it be at this point?

However, Gen V saves itself from being too obvious with one major twist. It turns out there was one other successful Project Odessa baby, and that was Homelander himself.

Between Marie and the possibility of finding Thomas Godolkin’s research into controlling Supes, it seems like the end of Homelander is in sight. Which is great for the world, but not so great in terms of storytelling for the Gen V characters.

It’s hard to watch the show without speculating how the characters (mostly Marie) could fit into the final season of The Boys. It doesn’t completely erase the importance of the other characters, but it does feel like their stories are wrapping up in a anticlimactic way.

Jordan’s gender identity has been used from some important social commentary, but the character is mostly used as a support system for Marie now. Emma and Sam find some sort of reconciliation this episode, but neither really fit into this master plan.

Even Polarity, who spends most of the episode being controlled by Cipher in an attempt to find Marie, is a walking dead man. Which leaves Cate, Marie, and Cipher… and Annabeth who still hates Marie despite the fact she herself is actually a supe too.

There isn’t much time to appreciate the emotional impact of their reunion when Marie has a bigger mission at stake, though hopefully the sisters patch things up by the finale.

Marie leaves the compound in the end, presumably to find Thomas Godolkin on her own, with Cate trailing her in hopes Marie can fix her powers. Once again she is abandoning her friends, who I’m sure will take this very well!

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Gen V streams Wednesdays on Prime Video.

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