Warning: This text incorporates full spoilers for Gen V Season 2, Episode 7!
From the start, all the most important mysteries in Gen V Season 2 have revolved round Hamish Linklater’s Dean Cipher. Who’s he, actually? Is he actually a supe, and in that case, how do his powers work? What’s Cipher’s connection to the burned man hidden away in his lavish house? In the end, the penultimate episode has given us the solutions to those burning questions, and our minds are blown.
Let’s break down precisely what we find out about Cipher in “Hell Week” and why the true enemy of Season 2 was hiding in plain sight the entire time.
Cipher’s Powers Revealed
Episode 7 sees Jaz Sinclair’s Marie Moreau and buddies flee the relative sanctuary of Stan Edgar’s hidden bunker to return to the God U campus. Marie is decided to confront Cipher and finish their battle as soon as and for all. Furthermore, she’s decided to take action with out placing her buddies at risk, even when she has to power them to stay on the sidelines. However with Annabeth (Keeya King) seeing visions of Marie bathed in blood, they’re not about to quietly stand by.
As for Cipher, he spends Episode 7 teetering between giving up and abandoning his plans and nearing whole victory. Having fled Polarity’s house and returned to campus with the burned man in tow, at one level Cipher contemplates killing his cost and calling the entire sport off. However in the end, he will get precisely what he desires when Marie tracks down the burned man (whom we be taught is certainly Thomas Godolkin) and does the unattainable. She heals his burns and restores him to full well being. And that’s the place issues go off the rails.
It shortly turns into clear that one thing is amiss when Cipher drops all pretense of being a demented, ruthless faculty dean and begins begging for his life. He claims to be Doug, an abnormal man lastly freed from the ever-present voice in his head. That’s concerning the time when it turns into clear that “Cipher” was by no means the one in cost. Godolkin is the one with the mind-control powers. All alongside, Godolkin has been controlling Doug like a puppet. Godolkin’s whole plan was to control Marie into curing him so he might lastly stroll free once more and cease residing vicariously by way of Doug.
Wanting again on the opening flashback scene from the Season 1 premiere, we are able to infer that Godolkin gained superhuman powers when he was caught within the lab hearth. He gained the flexibility to manage others (together with some extent of immortality, it appears), however that didn’t save him from getting horrifically burned, Darth Vader-style. Within the a long time since, Godolkin has been confined to a hyperbaric chamber, pressured to hold on his work utilizing Doug as a proxy.
In hindsight, quite a lot of scenes involving Godolkin make extra sense now. We are able to actually perceive why Cipher deigned to handle a helpless burn sufferer for thus lengthy, and why he referred to Godolkin as his “father.” This additionally resolves the thriller of whether or not Cipher is a supe or not. Doug isn’t. He’s only a man by way of whom the true supe can pour his energy and can. In the meantime, Doug is so helpless that he can do nothing however sit and blandly smile when Godolkin makes him stab his personal hand to show a degree.
That Cipher/Sister Sage intercourse scene additionally makes extra sense now, as Sage was clearly performing for Godolkin’s profit. And now we perceive that Godolkin was actively considering suicide on this episode, up till the second when Marie’s return supplied him the salvation he craved. God U’s scholar physique, and the world at massive, may need been a lot better off if Marie had merely stayed hidden.
What Will Occur within the Gen V Season 2 Finale?
Cipher might have turned out to be one enormous purple herring of a personality, however his bigger plan stays intact. Godolkin made it clear in Episode 6 that he views a lot of the superhuman neighborhood with contempt (to not point out his lingering jealousy of anybody with the liberty to stroll round and luxuriate in life underneath their very own energy). He desires to “cull the herd,” eliminating the supes with unimpressive powers in order that the sturdy, worthy few will stay.
As we see within the closing scene of Episode 7, Godolkin is losing no time in finishing up that mission. He forces the “Bondage Child” to choke himself, the primary in what’s going to absolutely be a campus-wide bloodbath to place even Season 1’s finale to disgrace.
Clearly, Marie and her buddies must monitor down and confront Godolkin earlier than he can homicide dozens, if not a whole bunch, of scholars. However as we’ve already seen, preventing Godolkin is simpler stated than carried out when he can flip anybody within the room into his private bodyguard. Marie made the error of making an attempt to go it alone, and look the place that bought her. She performed proper into Godolkin’s fingers. She’ll need to shortly be taught to depend on her buddies, even when it means placing them in hurt’s manner.
Then there’s the lingering subject of Annabeth’s visions. We haven’t seen that free finish repay simply but. Is Annabeth seeing her sister’s inevitable loss of life? Or are these visions teasing some new growth with Marie’s quickly evolving powers?
There’s additionally the query of what position, if any, Linklater will play within the finale. Now that the reality behind Cipher stands revealed, is there nonetheless a spot for Doug in all of this? Given how prominently Linlater has been featured in Season 2, it appears laborious to think about him fully stepping out of the highlight in Episode 8. Doug deserves some type of payback for every thing he’s endured.
And what of Marie’s powers? Now that she’s lastly reached the extent Cipher at all times envisioned for her, what occurs subsequent? Is she actually highly effective sufficient to rival Homelander? Will she issue into the ultimate battle between Billy Butcher, his scattered workforce members, and Vought in The Boys Season 5? So much relies on how the Gen V Season 2 finale performs out. Whether or not this collection itself even has a future might nicely depend upon how a lot of the varsity stays standing following the ultimate battle with Godolkin.
In brief, the stakes have actually risen main into the Season 2 finale. We’re nonetheless reeling from the large Cipher reveal, as previous scenes from Season 2 all of the sudden tackle new which means and significance now that we all know the true villain lurking behind all of it. Examine again subsequent week for our full-spoiler evaluation of Gen V Season 2, Episode 8 and our breakdown of the ending.
Till then, discover out what Stan Edgar’s return means for The Boys Season 5 and skim our spoiler-free evaluation of Gen V Season 2.
Jesse is a mild-mannered employees author for IGN. Enable him to lend a machete to your mental thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
