Gen V (spin-off of The Boys)

The first three episodes are out. I’ve watched the first one. It is very slow in places, but in others they turn to The Boys and say “Hold my beer.”

I’m two episodes in. When you start thinking “they aren’t going to show what I think they are going to show, are they?” and the answer is “Yes, yes they are”.

I just finished episode three. The pace of the story is picking up.

I downloaded it to my Kindle, but I did about 15 minutes of ep 1. Seems more about shock value than story, a trend for The Boys as well.

I liked the first three episodes. It’s definitely more dramatic and less funny than The Boys, though. (I still dislike Amazon’s “one episode a week” release schedule; my preferred viewing timetable is one episode every day or two.)

One question: For the woman who released the video of Emma’s “eating disorder”, did they ever show what her superpower is?

Not that I remember. Not listed here, either:

Interesting sequel to The Boys. Very edgy look at super powered teenagers acting like super powered teenagers. Another similar series on Netflix is The Imperfects, people with enhanced abilities via genetic manipulation, maybe. The plot and backstory is not as edgy or well thought out and detailed as The Boys universe but the dialogue for the mix of teenagers as well as young and older adults is done better. It is more realistic in nature, although the primary characters have only recently discovered the existence of their enhancements.

Derek Wilson stole the show as Tek Knight in episode 4! I watched Future Man recently and I was wondering why he hadn’t been in more stuff since then; he’s a great comedic actor.

And then four episodes in…

Just finished it. I did not need to see that, but he did have it coming to him!

One of the best puppet scenes ever…

I’m liking it more than I thought I would. I like the fact when Cate uses her ability, it affects her, as well. Headaches/seizures It reminds me of Firestarter, when the same thing would happen to Charlie’s dad.

I appreciate the fact that these kids are having to deal with the consequences of using their powers, especially when it’s a cumulative effect. It’s a lesson that some in The Seven either never learned, or have completely forgotten about due to the effects of fame and celebrity.

I thought it was a nice touch to blatantly point out that Emma’s ability to shrink was not part of an eating disorder. She’s not bulimic; she just has to purge if she wants to shrink. Of course, ts certainly possible that it could develop into an actual disorder, and rather easily.

I’ll keep watching it. I’m intrigued enough to see where it goes.

I’ve been enjoying it a lot, for the most part. If it’s worse than The Boys, it’s not by a ton. It has the same sense of reckless fun, and I really enjoy the main characters. I also like that the ones who initially seemed like “mean girls” or jackass-popular-kids aren’t just caricatures (but are also not saints).

Some weaknesses:
-The villains and their motivations are SO generic and overdone
-An uncharacteristically stupid moment in the most recent episode in which Andre caught the date-rape-ESP-guy and… walked right up to him and got mind-zapped again. Obviously
-I have no idea what these “rankings” are supposed to be. The assumption would be that they would be based on performance in classes/fights/whatever… or at least there would be a facade claiming that they had some objective legitimacy. But they’re voted on by trustees? Do trustees keep such close track of hundreds of students that they can weekly vote on a new top 100? And why would anyone care in that case? Seems like some feeble worldbuilding.

I think they made it clear that the rankings are based almost entirely on “marketability” (e.g. positive trending on social media).

I mean, maybe? But then why was Jordan ever #2? They are clearly a bad-ass combatant, but as everyone is constantly pointing out is not what middle America wants. The impression I got was that the outside public (who does look at and know about these rankings) is hoodwinked into thinking they’re at least semi-objective? Unclear to me who actually knows they’re pure BS.

Because they were a favourite of Professor Clancy Brown (who presumably had a lot of influence).

Geez, cutting the palms? Cant Hollywood get over that?

Yeah, gotta be one of the most sensitive and hard to heal areas to choose. But every. show. does. it.

Which makes it plausible in this context. No reason she wouldn’t do what she thought was the “normal” way to do it.

I remember a couple of years ago, there was a minor trend of colleges requesting students receive affirmative consent for each individual sex act as an overall trend of raising awareness around consent. Predictably, there was a bunch of reactionary outrage and making fun of it as if it was going to be like, a giant form people filled out or some super stilted nonsense that they were making up.

I was always of the opinion that it wasn’t a super big deal and if it became a thing, people would eventually develop language and practices around it that made it seem unexceptional. I remember posting to SDMB about it about how we say stuff like “hey, would you mind passing me the salt shaker” that naturally incorporates consent into everyday conversation and we don’t even notice.

Anyway, this is all a long preamble for me to say I really appreciated the latest episode of Gen V for depicting a sex scene where consent was handled super well and demonstrated incorporating consent into sex in a way that made it hotter and more pleasurable for both parties.