At long last, the first trailer for the widely anticipated second season of Gen V has finally dropped, and while it’s been labelled as a “teaser”, at over two minutes in length and positively brimming with juicy footage that hints at what to expect for the unruly students of Godolkin Academy, it’s certainly the most generous teaser I have ever seen.
Season 1 ended on a precarious cliffhanger, where the show’s heroes Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Andre (Chance Perdomo), Emma (Lizzie Broadway), and Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh) were detained in some type of a facility that is undoubtedly owned and run by Vought, after fighting former friends Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Sam (Asa Germann), who unleashed a murderous spree aimed at non-Supe humans on Godolkin’s campus. While the trailer does reveal that their time in detainment will be explored, it is not specifically revealed how they come to be released from the facility, though it likely has something to do with the new dean of Godolkin, Cipher, played by the excellent Hamish Linklater.
Cipher gets a surprising amount of screentime in the trailer, who is even shown at one point to be present at the facility the heroes are being kept at. The trailer opens with him welcoming Marie back to Godolkin, though her response is drenched in vitriol, which he acknowledges, saying that he can tell she is “an eye twitch away from leaping across this table and ripping my throat out with your teeth.” The trailer makes it abundantly clear that he is the polar opposite of his deceased predecessor, Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn), because while she was a regular human who actually hated Supes and secretly sought to wipe them out with a deadly virus, Cipher is a Supe who looks down on humans.
As much is clear from what appears to be his first address to students, telling them “It is time that humans learn that what runs through our veins is true Vought blue”, during which the trailer cuts to a shot of a sign that reads “Make American Super Again”, followed by the new measures brought against humans under his leadership, which includes tags labelling them as well as segregated entrances and exits specifically for humans. The universe of The Boys has never been known for its subtly, and he is a clear allegory for the toxic hyper-nationalist xenophobia that can be found in Trump’s America.
While his own powers have yet to be revealed, it’s clear that he is cynically pushing for his students to realize the full potential of their own powers, by having them compete in arena fights, showing Marie and Jordan set to battle at one point. It also shows a hammer-wielding Supe attacking them at Cipher’s instruction, likely training for their arena battles. Cipher will surely be a strong lingering danger to the show’s heroes and their ideals, viewing them, in his own words, as “soldiers”, not students, which fits perfectly into Homelander’s authoritarian regime.
Moving past Cipher’s prevalence in the trailer, the burning question for most fans, of course, is how the show would handle the tragic death of actor Chance Perdomo, who passed away from a motorcycle accident while travelling from New York to Toronto to film this upcoming season of Gen V. Thankfully, the trailer doesn’t shy away from how they will be approaching his absence, as it is strongly hinted that Perdomo’s character Andre likely died while in custody, with his father, the famous superhero Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), asking Cipher, “What really happened to my son?” Judging by the trailer, the writers behind the show are now expanding the role of Thomas’ Polarity in response to Perdomo’s passing, because in season 1 the character fell into a coma he did not seem likely to recover from, at least not to the extent that we see in the trailer. That being said, the trailer does show that Polarity will have to continue dealing with the brain damage he has suffered as a consequence of his powers.
The stacked trailer also features a number of action sequences with little context, from Marie duking it out with two men to two Supe students crashing through a dormitory wall and then a window. It also showcased cameos from The Deep (Chace Crawford) and Firecracker (Valorie Curry), which has the former wearing unusual, hooded attire that is sure to pique the interest of fans of the franchise. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait too long for the answers to our burning questions, as the trailer has confirmed a release date of September 17th, where the first three episodes will be available on Prime Video, while the rest of the eight episodes will come out on a weekly basis.
