Drama
Doctor Who
The good Doctor’s been flitting around time, space and the BBC since 1963. Now he’s also a fixture in the US, toting his curiously British brand of sci-fi in his highly mobile TARDIS. Just how safe is this contraption?
Having superpowers isn’t always super. Just ask Marie.
When she was 10, she discovered that she could manipulate blood, and accidentally caused the gruesome deaths of her parents in the process.
But that’s all in the past; now, eight years later, Marie has a chance to start fresh. She’s offered a full ride scholarship to Godolkin University, a college where superpowered young adults can grow into their abilities, prepare for a life of saving the world, and discover their true, super selves.
At least, that’s what she’s told in the orientation videos. Marie soon discovers that “God U,” as the school is not-so-subtly nicknamed, isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be. The dorms are basically dressed-up concrete bunkers, heavily armored guards patrol the campus…oh, and occasionally a student will snap and cause mild destruction while trying to escape. No, not very super at all.
If Marie is going to fulfill her dream of saving lives as a superhero—and also proving to herself that she isn’t a monster, thank you very much —she’s going to have to get to the bottom of what’s really going on at God U, and she’s going to need help from her new classmates, some with powers a bit more helpful than others.
There’s a reason the world of Gen V, where superheroes are commodified and presented to the world in a nice shiny package, might sound familiar. The series is a spinoff of Amazon Prime’s The Boys, which wrapped up its third season in 2022. Inspired by the graphic novel of the same name, the show gained popularity due to its biting satire of our superhero-clogged culture and *cough* nameless multi-billion dollar media corporations. (Vought International, the mega conglomerate that manages the major supes, starts a streaming platform called “Vought+.” Not a lot of reading between the lines necessary here.)
What also made The Boys stand out from the crowd, however, was its excessive gore, shockingly explicit content, and language that would make even the most devious of supervillains squirm.
That no-holds-barred attitude has clearly made its way to the show’s spinoff. Gen V is full to bursting with gratuitous blood and gore, graphic nudity, drug use, foul language, and “heroes” that are morally gray at best, completely corrupt at worst. Marie may be hoping to use her blood-bending powers for good, but her sound intentions are strongly outweighed by the self-centered and egotistical students around her. It’s absurdly rare for a scene to pass without eyes—or ears—needing to be averted.
It’s easy to be drawn in by Gen V’s premise of a college for superpowered kids. But just like The Boys, the series uses shock value to stand out in our packed landscape of superhero media. And trust us, this is a shock your family will want to avoid.
Marie, an orphaned teenager with powers of blood manipulation, arrives at Godolkin University to begin her superhero education, and she soon finds that the school is not at all what she expected.
Gen V shows its true colors very early in its first episode. A young Marie goes to the bathroom and finds that not only has she started her first menstrual cycle, but she’s able to control and weaponize her own blood. When her mother comes in to check on her, Marie accidentally makes the blood fly through the air and slice through her mom’s neck. The result is horribly gruesome, and it only gets worse when Marie’s father comes in. Marie completely loses control, and blood explodes over the room, killing her dad and spreading the gore over every surface. We see brief flashbacks to this harrowing scene throughout the episode as it continues to haunt Marie into her adulthood.
In order to use her powers, Marie cuts into her palm with a knife, using the blood that floats from the wounds as a projectile. This happens repeatedly throughout the episode. During a training session, Luke, a popular student whose body can burst into flames, rips off his opponent’s arms and blood sprays excessively. (The student has the power to heal, however, and we get a close-up view of the arms and bones being reattached to his body.) Andre, a friend of Marie’s who can manipulate metal, accidentally slices a metallic bird across a woman’s neck. Blood sprays down her shirt and over those around her, though Marie is able to use her powers to save her life. Other distressing events involving children occur; a young girl is electrocuted and dragged into a van, and a boy trying to escape the school is tackled by guards and locked in a cell while he cries for help.
Sexual content also permeates this episode, both through visuals and spoken references. Marie walks in on a student watching superhero-inspired pornography, and we see very brief rear nudity on his screen before she makes him turn it off. While watching Luke train, Marie’s roommate Emma (who can shrink into a smaller version of herself), says that when he ignites, his clothes burn off. She makes jokes about his genitalia being covered in fire and quips about a sexual act. Luke burns his clothes off later during a fight, and we see a nude silhouette as his opponent punches him in the crotch. Graphic male nudity is also present when Emma brings a date home to her dorm; they kiss passionately and clothes come off, though the date asks her to “get little,” which she does reluctantly. We get an extensive view of full male nudity from her smaller perspective. Several references, usually from Emma, are made to masturbation and three-ways. We see two girls, one with a long forked tongue, kissing in a dorm hallway.
Jordan, one of Marie’s fellow students and new friends, has the power to change genders at will. Male Jordan is invulnerable and has super strength, while female Jordan can conjure energy blasts. Male Jordan often dresses rather ambiguously, wearing lipstick and makeup in case he changes into his female form. Marie, upon learning about this power, confusedly refers to Jordan as “he…she…they.”
Marie sees a bong mysteriously floating through her dorm hallway. Jordan and Andre snort cocaine while out at a club, and Luke says he’s “micro-dosing shrooms.” Though she initially refuses, Marie is pressured by her new friends into taking a tablet of ecstasy. The guards on campus claim that a student attempting to escape is “tweaking on meth.” Emma offers Marie a White Claw.
Young Marie watches a speech from superhero A-Train on TV in which he gives “all praise to God.”
The f-word is used 40 times in the pilot episode, while the s-word is heard 13 times, “a–“ four times and “d–k” six. A song plays in the background that includes “b–ch” eight times. “D–n” is used twice, and God’s name is taken in vain once.
Spoiler alert: Luke, having suffered a major breakdown over his brother’s death, ignites into flame, flies above the campus, and makes himself explode, raining down blood and organs on the small crowd watching.
Lauren Cook is serving as a 2021 summer intern for the Parenting and Youth department at Focus on the Family. She is studying film and screenwriting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. You can get her talking for hours about anything from Star Wars to her family to how Inception was the best movie of the 2010s. But more than anything, she’s passionate about showing how every form of art in some way reflects the Gospel. Coffee is a close second.
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