Who knew that what would finally help Gen V find its stride was a villain we all can’t help but root against and yet be endlessly fascinated with? The arrival of Cipher (Hamish Linklater) has not only energized the many plots this spin-off of The Boys has long toyed with interweaving but has also allowed the show to really lean into the sardonic comedy its parent TV series has always depended on. Linklater is just a dream of a performer, capably making this neat freak, smoothie-loving figure equally charming and smarmy, his cutting, dry sarcasm feeling like a lovely balm against the arguably more earnest stance the show’s central characters are required to operate within.
This episode opens with a “one month earlier” title card, revealing that Cipher 1.) leads a rather dull and regimented life when it comes to his attention to the person inside his cryogenic chamber, and 2.) is entangled in an S&M-ish sexual (if perhaps not romantic) relationship with Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), a.k.a. Vought’s latest CEO. That second bit is a lovely cherry on top of the myriad of reasons why he makes such an intriguing, unflappable villain. He contains multitudes, as it turns out.
But he is, make no mistake about it, running the show. And nothing is getting past him: The fight, after all, was a success—both in the way it made Marie yet again a hit at the school and Jordan a much-needed pariah, but also in that it proved just how powerful of an adversary he really is. Except he wouldn’t use the word powerful: He talks, at length, instead, about “strength,” especially as opposed to “weakness.” He abhors the latter and makes it known to Jordan that that’s how he thinks of them. They’re weak in the way that Marie is strong, perhaps stronger than any other supe will ever be.
And thus, while the two erstwhile lovebirds are furious at what just took place, they’re left speechless when Cipher insists he’s done it all to ensure Marie can continue to see the potential in her blood (and bloodthirsty) powers. Moreover, he has an ace up his sleeve to further pressure them into complying with whatever he demands: He’s sent Cate to Elmira. And anyone could follow suit.
And this time around we finally get a look at what detention (or “adult rehabilitation”) center actually looks like—namely, like a dehumanizing prison that’s as cruel as it is brutal (and brutalist, at that). By the time she arrives, she’s stripped all the way down (yes, including her wig and her prosthetic arm). And soon she’s collared as if she were a dog, making her unable to use her powers whatsoever, reduced to being a helpless prisoner with little will to go on.
Back at their dorms, Marie and Jordan seem intent on trying to rescue their friend-turned-foe-turned-ally. It’s a sentiment Emma doesn’t understand. Sure, they all know firsthand how bad Elmira is, but might they really be so foolish as to try and break her out of there? Well, they are heroes in the making, so of course they decide to do so. Marie has already broken out of Elmira once; how hard would it be to help Cate do it with added help?
Knowing they’ll need all the assistance they can get, Emma calls up Sam—only, he wants nothing to do with that entire operation, saying “I don’t really give a fuck about Cate.” (Emma doesn’t disagree but posits that if they leave her to rot in Elmira they’re not any better than she ever was.)
And so they begin plotting away, even if Emma insists it might all be a trap. That is not a far off idea considering Cipher continues to prove himself quite the sociopath. During a lunch with Polarity (where he eats steak, Cipher merely sips a smoothie), it’s not long before the even-keeled dean reveals he’s long known Andre’s dad has been sleuthing. It’s clear Polarity wants to know what Cipher was doing at Elmira and how, if at all, he was involved in Andre’s death.
As he’s been throughout this season, Cipher is blunt: Yes, he was at Elmira. Yes, his research has long been on helping supes achieve the pinnacle of their powers (it’s all rather self-help-y) and does believe Marie will change the world once she works with him to truly ascend and take full control of her abilities. Because, as he insists, she’s strong in ways the others are not—like Andre, whom Cipher had pushed and pushed to his limit and clearly didn’t and couldn’t cut it because his body was too weak. (There’s that word again.) It’s all too triggering for Polarity, who threatens to slash Cipher’s throat with a floating knife against his neck.
Without even blinking, Cipher dares him to, then grabs the knife and stabs himself in the hand. “You really have no idea what you’re dealing with,” he says with chilling confidence, and I’m starting to agree. Because just as Jordan, Marie, and Emma arrive at Elmira to break Cate out, it becomes clear it is a trap and before they know it they’re all collared and locked away, Jordan and Marie in cells facing one another and Emma in a special Hannibal Lecter-looking one right next to Cate.
This was Cipher’s plan all along. If we wasn’t going to be able to train them on campus, he would sequester them and force them to train here. Goodbye carrot, welcome stick. Only this time, courtesy of Sister Sage, he has a surprise ace up his sleeve. His pitch remains the same: “Work with me,” he tells Marie. “All our lives will be better once you have ascended to your full potential.”
She doesn’t want to play along even as she knows she’s powerless to do anything about it. That is, until she’s shown an incentive she cannot deny: her sister Annabeth, locked in a cell in Elmira. The choice seems simple and also unavoidable: train with him, become powerful, and then do the thing she most wants to do: “I’m gonna fucking kill him.” But then a savvy Cate (who used one of her stitches in her skull to break her own collar) actually helps them all break out of their cells. Only, there are no guards and no other prisoners.
It’s all another exercise. Still, they have to keep going and find Marie’s sister before they try and escape for good. And that’s when they find Annabeth, on the floor, throat slashed and bleeding to death—or perhaps already dead. The sight alone has all of them in shock, but Marie seems immediately determined to undo the reality in front of her. She focuses. She closes her eyes. She pushes her powers to the limit and, as she makes all of her friends collapse from headache-induced nosebleeds, she achieves what feels like a miracle: Annabeth is revived. (Sidenote: Are we getting too close to Marie-is-Jesus territory with all of these blood-driven powers and now a Lazarus-type of resurrection?)
They’re all stunned, though Marie perhaps less so than everyone around them. But they have to move fast. Cut to the line that we’re left with as the screen goes to the credits: “They’re coming!” Is this another test that Marie just passed with flying colors? Does this mean she’s closer than ever to “ascend” (whatever that means which, again, sounds surprisingly Christian in rhetoric)? And will our scrappy motley crew of well-meaning supes ever be able to outsmart Cipher? As he told Polarity during their lunch in a winking, meta nod to the show’s constant use of cliffhangers, “tune in next week to find out!”
Stray observations
- • If you’ve been wondering about Sam, who’s been rather MIA, he spent this episode at his childhood home. There, he visits with his parents who, for years, thought he’d died and have a hard time reconnecting with their son who remains rather resentful about having been given Compound V as a kid. That’s what fucked him up, right? Wrong, his mother says after consoling him: They thought V would help heal him from his hallucinations and his anger issues. They hoped those mental-health problems which she’d seen in her own brother and Sam’s uncle (who’d tried to harm himself and others) would be solved by the V. That, of course, didn’t happen: “So I’m just like this? It’s not the V. It’s not you and dad,” he rails. “I was always going to be a fucking lunatic.” It’s quite a heartbreaking moment that, like Emma’s own journey, teeters on the edge of being a compassionate look at mental health while also still coding it as tied to superpowered volatile villainy. (Given that he’s prone to delusions and hallucinations, what are the odds this entire sequence at his childhood home is actually real?)
- • Don’t you love when erudite characters on TV announce that it’s cliché to like “Sonata In E Minor, K. 304: Tempo Di Menuetto”?
- • Gen V continues to hint at rather than truly tackle provocative campus-set debates: Did you miss the “trans athletes” question lobbed at Marie as she exited the fight? (See also: the Jordan-themed poster in the locker rooms that reads “My Pronouns Are Kick/Ass”)
- • What do we think is happening to Polarity who, last we see, is collapsing at his home, his powers clearly going haywire as all the metal around him goes every which way?
- • Word I learned while watching this episode: phlebectomy (a surgical procedure that involves removing varicose veins).
- • Favorite line of the episode: “You look like Weird Barbie.”
