Superhero stuff is famous for making death not definitive, and ever since it began as a pocket galaxy in The Boys TV universe, Gen V has made bloodshed and death as casual as dropping a class. So while it’s not surprising Cate Dunlap survived Jordan power-pulsing her bodily into a brick wall in Episode 1 of Season 2, it’s even less surprising that Vought International is propagandizing off the incident. A Guardian of Godolkin was viciously attacked, yadda yadda yadda – Emma, Jordan, and Marie decide maybe campus really is the safest place for them, because at least they’re inside the belly of the beast. They make a TikTok where Marie uses therapy buzzwords to describe her return to school, her awakening. It’s funny the way Jaz Sinclair plays it – her fake smile is giving Grimacing Emoji – but the viral clip’s enough to establish Marie’s supposedly willing return to God U. “Sophomore year is gonna be lit!”

The crew is under constant surveillance. Student Life Stacey (Stacey McGunnigle) is always hovering, and not just because she’s part honeybee. (Watch out for that stinger.) And while Dean Cipher seems to know Marie’s eagerness is fake, he doesn’t care, and instead becomes her and Jordan’s professor in a “Hero Optimization Seminar.” As Vikor (Tait Fletcher), a Vought supe dressed like a He-Man character, breaks supe students’ backs over his knee, Cipher says “None of your power sets are fixed,” that they can all level up when pressured. It seems to be part of his plan to force all young supes into the role of soldier, and part of the monitoring that outpaces simple loyalty tests. It’s as if Cipher and Vought want to co-opt the identities and abilities of Marie, Jordan, and Emma while forcing them to enjoy it. 

They have other ideas, obviously. Emma’s Polarity pep-talk in Episode 1 helped; he’s now on board to help them fight Vought, though he’s still driven mostly by Andre’s memory. (“Do you think it’s a coincidence the only one who didn’t make it out of Elmira is a young Black man?”) Emma and Polarity sweet-talk their way past Godolkin U archivist The Rememberer (Stephen Guarino), and they’re about to give up searching the room’s regular files when they find a secret room that leads to the secret files. And Nazi shit. And Klan shit. Shit that would be cartoonishly evil if it wasn’t so actually evil. And finally, a file cabinet full of birth certificates and pictures of babies marked “ODESSA.” In her excitement over the discovery, Emma, who may or may not be super-zooted on Molly during all of this, consciously gets big for the very first time.

With Marie’s return, Jordan made the anger clear, that whole leaving them in the lurch while at Elmira thing. But later, when they’re alone, it’s quieter. Jordan was angry with Andre for rashly trying to bust them out on his own, and she was really angry with Marie because she didn’t want to be alone. Marie places her hand on Jordan’s thigh – “You’re not gonna lose me” – and their romantic feelings from last season return. The first time they spent the night together, it was partly a wash, a function of Cate amnesia-fying everybody at a party. No such funny business this time. “Me like this is OK?” Jordan asks in her female form. “Anything and everything you do is OK,” Marie answers. Cue a sticky-sweet cover of The Outfield’s “Your Love,” because our favorite Gen V ‘ship looks like it’s back in business.    

While Cate survived getting tossed into a wall, she’s still in a hospital room, mostly comatose. (Gen V finds a gore moment when a nurse touches Cate and becomes a vessel for her mind control. Scalpels and bedpans find their way into faces.) And that means she can’t be out on campus keeping tabs on Sam Riordan. Without her controlling touch, Sam’s mind, still tortured from being a Woods experiment, falters in and out of stability. And when he sees Emma on campus, he confronts his former flame. “Cate said your name. Well, she didn’t say it – she possessed a nurse that said it and that nurse stabbed another nurse in the face.” It’s not a coincidence, Sam tells the voices in his head, that Emma and Marie and Jordan were in the vicinity of Cate’s attack. Why would they harm her after she helped them get out of Elmira? 

Emma’s like: “Wake. The. Fuck. Up.” She tries to reason with Sam, tries to make him see that Cate twisted his thoughts into more Vought-aganda. Tries to make him understand she brainwashed his late brother Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger), too. Tries to talk sense into a guy who spent the end of last season putting his fist through innocent Godolkin students’ faces. “Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to face up to what you’ve done.”

But that won’t be tonight, because God U is alive with celebration. Vought “caught” Cate’s “attackers,” pinning the entire incident on the Starlighters, those progressive-minded followers of the most hated member of The Boys. (Vought News chyron: “Starlighter F*@#ks Around And Finds Out.”) Unlike superhero deaths, the regular human Starlighter shot and killed by chief Vought bounty hunter Dogknott won’t be coming back. And Marie is distraught, thinking their actions led to his death. Unwittingly, of course. But the lie machine is already running in the red, and they’ve only been back on campus for a day.

The other big problem? Those files Emma found in the archives. She runs to meet her friends, stuffs the manila folder full of birth certificates into Marie’s hands. “I know what Project Odessa is! It’s you. You’re Odessa.” On Gen V, sophomore year is definitely lit. By the glow of a dumpster fire.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.