Secrets and lies…

I think that maybe, just maybe, Gen V is a work of genius. Three episodes in and we have a really clear idea of our protagonists and their challenges, we’ve got an unfolding mystery and there are a whole bunch of university tropes in play – from the money grabbing dean to overbearing parents and ridiculous classes and competitiveness.

All of that would make for a fun, gross out show. Riverdale with superpowers if you will.

Yet Gen V is doing a huge amount of work it doesn’t need to do and the result of this additional effort is to lift it up above anything I’ve seen in this space. The metaphors are so on the nose I had to check I’d not been punched but they’re layered, thoughtful and carefully written. There’s the parents who insist on deadnaming their kid, on refusing to see them for who they are and, as a result, treat them appallingly. They’re a walking argument for why laws that demand parental consent before young people can choose their own identity are made by bigots and need to be resisted.

There’s the mother who you might charitably call a helicopter parent but if she is, she’s hovering so close to the ground she’s liable to cut off her daughter’s head.

There’s the father who needs his son to be himself but better and sees any deviation, any resistance to this vision as a personal betrayal.

In all of these relationships there are intergenerational conflicts written with a deftness that is almost alarming. Whether it’s about a woman trying to control her eating because her size depends on it or the hero who needs to self-harm in order to use her superpower, this is not a show that is shying away from the challenges facing young people struggling to understand how they control their worlds.

Look, The Boys was often edgy in that teenage Edgelord way that young men think makes them interesting and different. I was ready for Gen V to be the same but it’s much deeper with almost everything on screen so far being there for a reason. The show’s satire is molten hot, grotesque but, unlike The Boys, thread through with compassion.

Although very loosely inspired by one of the comic book arcs this only really serves to allow the writers to take this and make it tighter and more focused than The Boys which still cleaves pretty closely to the source material (along with its problems).

Verdict: With overtones of Professor Xavier’s school for the gifted, every university show you’ve ever seen (including The Young Ones), Battle Royale and, to an extent, the beloved Akira sitting like a grandparent in the background, Gen V is doing something very right.

Rating? 7 forests out of 10

Stewart Hotston