Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Amazon
Losing your virginity is a teen rite of passage that can often be anxiety-provoking—even on television. On this week’s most recent episode, the extraordinary adolescents on Gen V are nervous about doing the deed for the first time—it turns out that having superpowers doesn’t immediately translate to sexual prowess. Making the sequence even more memorable, The Boys spinoff throws a puppet into the mix—all while nodding to an iconic Titanic scene.
Gen V is about a prestigious college with a unique entry requirement: You have to possess superpowers to attend. The young “supes” were injected with the Compound V serum as babies with extremely varying results, and this school looks to harness their remarkable abilities. Popularity, partying, and good grades are far from the only concerns on a campus that stokes rivalries. Divided into entertainment and crime-fighting majors, these students vie for lucrative opportunities laid out by the sinister multi-billion dollar conglomerate Vought International. However, as with The Boys, there is more to this superhero story than meets the eye.
While coercion is a repeat theme on Gen V, this isn’t a case of someone manipulating two puppets to simulate fornication, nor is it a superpower that can transform another person into an off-brand Muppet (like that episode of Angel). Instead, Sam (Asa Germann), the younger brother of the recently deceased Luke aka Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), has more than one power in his arsenal. Until a couple of episodes ago, Sam was being held against his will and experimented on in a facility beneath Godolkin University known as “The Woods.” His super strength was being used to augment his brother’s power, but he also hallucinates people as puppets during heightened intensity—whether threatened, scared, or aroused.