Warning! This piece contains spoilers for Gen V Episode 5.
Gen V isn't letting up when it comes to wild boundary-pushing action and shocking twists. The newest episode introduced us to a house party that could only exist in The Boys universe, filled with superpowered sex, hard drug use, and some very suspicious memory loss. It also featured a massive twist that turned a lot of what we know about Gen V on its head. So, of course we're here to break down what happened and work out what it might mean for the rest of the season.
Who Wiped the Memories of the Gen V Crew?
Last week's episode played a cheeky trick with a time blip that led to a million theories and a really, really messed up and shocking twist this week. After waking up at the house party from hell, Marie (Jaz Sinclair) and Jordan (Derek Luh and Jordan Thor) have no memories of getting hot and heavy which is alarming enough, but soon they reconvene with Andre (Chance Perdomo), Cate (Maddie Phillips), and Emma (Lizze Broadway) and all of the very hungover supes realize they have no memory of the night before. Unfortunately, one of them is lying and after Sam finds Emma and Marie — neither of whom have any memory of him at all — the pair begin to do some detective work leading to a Sam and Emma reunion and a harsh truth. The real culprit behind their memory loss is none other than Cate. It's a heartbreaking reveal but it actually makes a lot of sense, and as we learned it was far from the first time.
Why Did Cate Betray Her Friends?
Cate wiping her friend's memories wasn't some momentary mistake or something she was forced to do against her will. Instead it was a part of an ongoing campaign of control and manipulation that Cate has been a part of since her earliest days at Godolkin U. Just like Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) tried to take Marie under her wing and manipulate her, it seems she's been doing the same thing to Cate for years. During an intimate chat between the two, we learn it was Shetty who asked Cate to wipe the kids memories. And, as Sam tells Emma, it's not the first time. Turns out that Cate regularly wiped Luke's memory so that he wouldn't remember his brother.
Seeing as the world of The Boys is filled with heel-turns and betrayal, it's not entirely surprising that one of the core group is actively doing something evil (even if she does feel utterly terrible about it). One of the things that Gen V has done so well is explore the ways that Vought and Compound V have deeply impacted the children raised under their reign. In that way, Cate is just another victim of Vought and Shetty's manipulation. Though this is the kind of choice it'll be hard to walk back from, especially as she mind-wipes Marie again when she discovers the trackers that the school have implanted in their bodies. Come on Cate!
Is Cate Going to Become Gen V's Big Bad?
While it's understandable to think that Cate has done something truly unforgivable, it's far more likely that she's just a pawn in Dean Shetty's game rather than a real antagonist going forward. So much of Gen V's first five episodes have been about the exploitation and structures that have upheld the Seven and Vought. It feels more fitting that Cate is just trying to survive and keep her friends safe. From what we saw, it seems like she thinks she's been "protecting" her friends, but from what? Perhaps Dean Shetty has told her that if she didn't wipe their minds then they would be a target of Vought and whoever runs the Woods? But we also know that Shetty is actually one of the people involved with the nightmare torture chamber so she's really just covering her tracks and protecting her masochistic pet project.
What Will Happen to Gen V's Little Team Now?
The first big thing to ask here is whether or not Cate will survive episode 5. It sounds like a harsh question, but this is The Boys universe after all. The last words that we hear Andre say to her are "You're a f*cking monster," and obviously Sam, Emma, Marie, and Jordan all have a legitimate axe to grind against her. There's likely going to be a showdown between Cate and her ex-BFF, but it seems unlikely that they'll be the ones to bring her any true harm. Still though, what happens when Shetty discovers that the Top 5 have their memories back again?
And, ultimately, we need to find out more about Cate's motivations. She's a smart, brilliant, beautiful young woman. We know she had a rough childhood thanks to the use of Compound V and isn't close to her parents, so was likely an easy target for Shetty. But being insecure and traumatized doesn't immediately mean you're going to non-consensually brain-wipe your loved ones memories all the time, so we really need to know what's going on with her. That'll define her future arc whether as an ally and tool to Shetty, or maybe as a friend who realizes her mistakes and tries to make amends for them. But all of that depends on whether or not Andre decides to use all the iron in her blood to break her in half from the inside out...
Whatever happens next it's gonna be wild and with Cate in the pocket of Dean Shetty it's hard to know who to trust as we head into the last three episodes of Gen V.
Who Has the Special Interest in Marie?
Outside of all of the Cate drama, it appears that there's someone with a special interest in Marie and her powers. When Dr. Cardosa (Marco Pigossi) tells Shetty that having Marie to experiment on would move forward their quest for whatever curse, cure or poison they're trying to concoct in the Woods, Shetty tells him that she's off limits as she is of a special interest to a third party. Is there actually someone who has voiced an interest in the Guardian of Godolkin, or has GodU's Dean actually taken a shine to the girl?
Rosie Knight is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to horror flicks. She has over half a decade of experience in entertainment journalism with bylines at Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.
