Powers

[This story contains spoilers from the fifth episode of Gen V season two, “The Kids Are Not Alright.”]

When Asa Germann sat down with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of Gen V’s latest episode to talk about the show’s midseason developments, much of the conversation was focused on one thing: Sam and the truth about his powers. 

In the fifth episode of season two, “The Kids Are Not Alright,” Sam opts out of using his abilities to help Marie (Jaz Sinclair), Jordan (Luh and London Thor) and Emma (Lizze Broadway) on their mission to rescue Cate (Maddie Phillips) after she’s thrown into Elmira following the last episode’s supe match-up. 

Instead, he makes a surprise return home to the family that he believed shot him up with V causing his hallucinations, before abandoning him to the torturous and deadly Vought machine. Despite a single moment of paranoia resulting in an unintentional outburst of violence, going home to his parents ultimately delivers a deluge of truths and some reconciliation. 

As Sam learns, his parents gave him V hoping it could address his psychosis — something he was born with, not something that manifested as a result of the serum. His family also never abandoned him to Vought or The Woods, but were told he was dead, and once the truth that he was alive emerged, they made multiple attempts to reach him, though they were stopped by Vought. 

Some of these revelations have implications not just for Germann’s character, but in understanding the nature and mechanics of powers in The Boys YA spinoff, which has so far spent the first half of its second season repeatedly picking at what’s actually fueling supe abilities, courtesy of Cipher (Hamish Linklater). It’s also yet another episode that deftly delivers on Gen V’s ongoing examination of coming of age, social politics and superheroes. 

Speaking to THR ahead of Wednesday’s episode, Germann unpacks what Sam’s trip home means for him going forward, the nature of Sam’s violence, depicting those puppet hallucinations in season two, whether he could still show up for his friends, and how a scene between Sam and Jordan honors Andre and Chance Perdomo. 

***

Sam goes back home and discovers a number of truths. Some of that comes through a scene with his mother, which has a lot of conversations — macro discussions around male and gun violence, and society’s focus on institutionalization and punishment versus support and treatment around mental health, and the more micro discussions about trying to understand one’s diagnosis, including questioning if what’s happening is me or the condition. Can you talk about that conversation Sam has with his mom and what it means for him in season two?

You never know what you’re going to get in the show, so I had no idea this was coming down the pipeline. But in the first season, I was getting to play this character who was clearly going through this version of socialized radicalization and embodying all of these elements of the world. He didn’t really know how to even have a set of criteria to evaluate himself with. So much of Sam’s journey up to that point in the show is one of being both told what has happened to him and following the lead of other people. What was so profound to me about that moment in the episode is that it becomes a story for Sam about responsibility. Taking responsibility for his actions, and also — one of the things that I personally relate to with Sam — understanding that existing in the world in the way that we do is not necessarily something we get to choose. But it’s the hand that we’re dealt, and we have to do what we can with it. 

So that’s a point where we see it’s really up to Sam to do the right thing or continue to do the wrong thing. Hopefully, by making the right choices, he can become a voice of reason and a positive role model for people like him in a similar situation, which is ironically the reason he’s in that place. He has no one to look to; no role models. He has no one pointing him in the right direction. It’s not talked about, really, in that scene, but in a way, that is what the role of a parent is, and some of us aren’t fortunate enough to have great parents. We don’t have role models, and we have no one to look to, so people become disaffected, and they can do awful things that hurt tons of people. It’s up to those people if they can get a second chance to do the right thing for others.

Many times on Gen V, characters talk about their parents with a sense of betrayal — this conversation over agency, respect, consent, and the material and immaterial impacts of V. But Sam discovers that his parents’ motivations weren’t like some of the others on this show and that they gave him V hoping it would help him avoid his uncle’s fate. How does knowing that people — his parents and, of course, his brother — wanted him and didn’t willingly abandon him affect his journey going forward, and what side he might pick? 

There’s safety in being alone when that’s what you’re used to. There’s a safety in feeling like the situation you’re in is just the one you’re in. For Sam, this state of loneliness is so much of his existence that having a connection with people is so foreign. There’s not a ton of learned experience of what it was like being close with your mom or your dad or your brother, and certainly not with friends. So that is both an incredibly revelatory thing for him in discovering that these people are actually really rooting for him. It’s also a really scary thing because it means that all of a sudden, it’s up to him to do something different. It’s up to him to make the right choice.

Reading that scene, there’s a way to look at it as a really sad moment, perhaps, where there’s regret and things should have gone a different way, and they didn’t. There’s a way of looking at it, also, where there’s a bit of joy and relief in learning that not only did your family seek you out, but that there’s beauty in embracing the challenges that we face in the world. That’s something that Sam struggles with, feeling different and making that your superpower is really his best superpower. It’s not the strength or the jumping, it’s the fact that he is different. He has challenges that other people might not have, but that also give him an ability that is incredibly profound.

Someone steps up to help Sam get to this place of understanding, and it’s Jordan. It’s fun in a sense because their episode three fight calls back a little to the season one finale, where Jordan’s sizing up whether to take on Sam. It’s also meaningful because of how Sam and Jordan are physically strong but emotionally vulnerable and have both struggled with managing their emotions, especially around the loss of people they love. Can you talk about why their shared moment is so significant for both of them? 

One thing we definitely didn’t see a ton of from Sam — and at least in this season, we get to deal with that more — is the vocalization of these incredibly traumatic things that happen and finding community and solace and relating with other people who are going through something similar. Certainly, in the first season, there wasn’t a lot of that from Sam or from most of the characters. So frankly, that moment is not only about identifying hardship, but it’s also very pointed toward the future. What that symbolically meant to me in a way — and it was very timely, too, obviously — is that even when someone is gone, they’re still with us, and it’s kind of up to us to carry them forward. Back to the theme of responsibility, which really was my throughline for the whole season, it’s up to you to do that. It’s up to Sam to carry Luke with him. It’s up to Sam to live up to Luke’s message. It’s up to Jordan to do the same for Andre. And to zoom out, it’s up to all of us to do that for Chance. That’s an incredibly profound thing to know as a human being, and I aim to do that. That’s a goal of mine.

This season, Sam has another full-blown puppet hallucination, which captures both the comedy and scariness of his condition in this come-to moment — a mix of dealing with the truth about his own actions via a sandwich and conspiracies via a felt sun. What was it like filming that scene this season, and how do you think about balancing the humor with the terror of those hallucinations? 

They’re so fun to do, first of all. That scene in the script, we shot a lot more of that that wasn’t in the episode, unfortunately. I had a whole conversation with that sandwich that is not in the episode. I understand why it’s not in there because it doesn’t necessarily narratively need to be in there, but it was really fun. The actors who play the puppets are absolutely incredible. Obviously, when you’re doing the scene, there’s not really a felt sun there. There’s like nothing there. I think we had a trash can and a felt puppet, and then a couple of sandwiches and things like that. But other than that, there’s nothing there. So I didn’t know what it was going to look like, and I could just hear Marty [Stelnick, puppeteer] improvising lines as the sun about JFK and other things. So it’s hard to remain serious because of that, but like you said, it’s also so clear the dichotomy of it’s a really safe space, but it’s also the root of all of your trauma. Both those things have to exist, and humor is a great way to deal with those things.

Emma and Sam begin the season on not good terms, understandably. But there’s one moment in episode two, where they have a run-in in the hallway, and Emma is visibly scared of him. It’s a real shift in the relationship from season one, where it often felt that Emma was not only the lone person who didn’t have to fear him but who could help calm him. Do you feel like Emma was in danger in light of what Sam had done between seasons and in season two?

That was the first scene of the season that we filmed chronologically. The first day of shooting, and that was both mine and Lizze’s first scene. What’s so interesting about that scene specifically is that it’s the climax of the first two episodes. And if I feel like Emma was in danger, I don’t know. I think that for Sam, the turmoil is always so internal. Some of the other characters that do bad things their aim is more pointed than Sam’s. Sam is oftentimes flailing around. He’s like a 14-year-old, so it’s more of an outburst. Does that mean somebody can get hurt? Definitely. But I don’t think that he necessarily ever has the intention to hurt somebody. So is there a world where Emma could have gotten hurt? I don’t know, but my hope is that the answer is no. 

Emma extends a chance for Sam to help them save Cate, and he turns it down. It’s understandable in terms of what happened last season, but they then worked for Homelander, and Sam started the season begging her to erase his feelings instead of having to be accountable for his actions — something he spent a lot of season one focused on, in terms of making people remember and be accountable for what they did to him. What was underneath that choice not to help her, and what is the nature of their relationship at this point? 

So much of the first season is about making other people accountable in the best way that he can think to in that moment, which is really the byproduct of what other people are telling him to do. But it’s an easy path, obviously. The thing about Sam that is hopefully redeeming in some way is that there’s definitely a consciousness there. In spite of whatever’s happening, there’s always a feeling, this question underneath that. The weight of making decisions that are questionable is probably a lot of guilt and moral ambiguity, and I don’t think, in general, Sam really knows how to handle any emotion or feeling. So his relationship with Cate is certainly one of utility. I never felt like he had a very strong tie to Cate. Cate was pretty clearly always this force of negativity in his life, pretty much more than anybody else — pretty traumatically awful — so there’s utility in that. But then in dealing with the feelings, as you see throughout the season, it really becomes about how can I address the way that I’m feeling instead of how can I act upon it, or how can I aid it from existing. And that’s the third and hardest thing to do for anybody.

Do you think he could change his mind in light of what happens to him this episode? Do you think he could choose to support his friends? 

The thing that is true throughout both seasons of the show is that Sam always has a desire to do what he thinks is affecting the greater good. So in deciding not to save Cate in that moment, he’s making a choice he thinks is better for the greater good. I don’t think that’s a choice against Emma or to punish people. Even his choice to follow Cate. I always felt like in the first season, Sam had the most reason out of anybody to be angry at the school, let’s be honest. (Laughs.) So it doesn’t mean he made the right choice, but there’s always hope for him to make the right decision. I don’t know if that necessarily always means he’s going to be rewarded either, but he’s going to try. We have to deal with the consequences of our choices. That’s inevitably true in this life. But it’s never too late to make the right choice. 

***

Gen V season two releases new episodes on Wednesdays, with the first five episodes of season two now streaming on Prime Video.