In Episode 3 of Gen V Season 2, when Jordan called out Vought’s perpetual lie machine and the coverup surrounding Andre’s death, we were like: Fuck yes. It’s heartening when anyone fearlessly speaks truth to power against manufactured bullshit and media distortions, whether they’re a late night host on TV or a bi-gender character in a superhero show. Still, in Episode 4, Firecracker’s already on Truthbomb dominating the discourse, elevating “patriotic blonde” Cate Dunlap over “cultural Marxist” and “He/She/They” Jordan Li. Sometimes Gen V’s satirical bent doesn’t feel satirical at all.       

With Vought-aganda permeating campus, and with Dean Cipher threatening to send them all back to Elmira after Jordan’s speech, the crew decides they’ve gotta find out what he’s really about. Especially since Cipher’s concocted a kind of MMA show trial for God U’s troublesome top-ranked supes. Jordan and Marie, “The Gender Bender vs The Blood Bender,” will duke it out in the Vought Sports octagon, with Marie as the predetermined victor. More red meat thrown to the Make America Super Again masses.

Unless Cate can get inside Cipher’s head. It’s a somewhat uneasy alliance, but Marie convinces Jordan and Emma that the ex-pal who’s been helping to set them up probably hates Cipher as much as they do. While Marie attends one of the dean’s one-on-one superpower training sessions, Jordan and Cate gain access to his residence, hoping for usable dirt or maybe even a glimpse inside that weird vault door he’s got in there. Instead, they find a man in a hyperbaric chamber, his skin ravaged. He wakes up and they bolt. 

The interesting thing about Cipher with Marie and her power set is that his intentions, while almost certainly terrible, are still informed by a sense of real urgency. Hamish Linklater switches his character’s casual evil on and off whenever he’s with her, and Cipher’s eyes grow bright when he describes his belief in what she could do. “Thomas Godolkin was devoted to developing ever more powerful supes. If you listen to me, that could be you. The most powerful supe to ever come out of Godolkin. Hell, the most powerful Vought has ever seen.” 

At their training session, where he sets up a mental blood-moving test, Marie scoffs. More powerful even than Homelander? Why would Vought want that? An even more interesting thing about Cipher is that he lets that inquiry linger, and instead transforms into her Force-sensitive personal trainer. “Stop thinking and feel it,” he breathes, as she attempts to move bags of blood with her mind. Because what are people other than walking bags of blood? Marie’s like, “Ease up, Yoda.” But despite herself, she’s visibly impressed when it works. 

Emma has developed her Secret Starlighter friends, Harper and Ally, into a side crew. It seems like she’s taken a liking to Harper’s friendly brother Greg (Stephen Thomas Kalyn), who’s in her Modesty Monarch lecture, and Harper acts as Emma’s own coach, helping her channel her small/big ability without having to feel self-hate to do it. Emma also learns of Ally’s power, which is manipulation of her hair. Just not the hair on her head. As they formulate a plan to expose Cipher’s lies on the night of the big fight, she bestows on Ally her superhero name: “Bushmaster.”

Marie’s sensory blood-moving session with Cipher revealed something else. There does not seem to be any Compound-V running through his bloodstream. Is the virulent anti-human dean of a supe university himself human? How could that be? On Fight Night, Emma’s got a plan to get small and gain access to the dean’s VIP room, where she can place a tiny Bluetooth camera. Cate is already in there, trying to cajole and/or blackmail the dean into stopping Marie and Jordan from fighting. (Her mind control powers are still malfunctioning, and besides, she’s never been able to see his thoughts.) Besides Emma getting an eyeful of Cipher’s undercarriage while her miniscule self climbs out of the toilet – thanks for that image; never change, Gen V grossout humor – the plan seems to be going well. Until, of course, he reveals that he knows all about it. They can’t get in this guy’s mind or get anything past him!

In the octagon, Marie and Jordan circle. The crowd chants “Fuck you Jordan!” and Marie reminds them it’s all a constructed sham, a forced fake, and that she loves them for who they are. Marie even kisses Jordan in the ring, just for a little of that bold hero juice from Episode 3. But then she’s hit with one of Jordan’s pulse-blasts, and when they speak to her, it’s with Cipher’s words. “Like a meat puppet with no strings.” Jordan has become a blood bag he is manipulating from his perch in the VIP. 

Maybe Dean Cipher really is secretly human. Or maybe he’s got body-and-mind-controlling supe powers. Or maybe he’s a whole different thing. Some kind of fucked-up hybrid. After all, this is a guy who worked in the Vought fertility lab that conceived Marie as part of Project Odessa. Who knows what substances are churning in his veins. Compound-V was never the end-all of Vought’s superpower experiments. In the meantime, the crew’s attempts to expose him have only created more trouble for themselves. It sucks when the right side of society is seemingly powerless against bullies. 

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.