That Big Cameo In Gen V's Season Finale Was Inevitable

This article contains all sorts of bloody spoilers for the season finale of "Gen V." 

How fitting was that? For a spin-off that was first announced to a mix of anticipation and, in some corners, confusion over a pitch that felt like a discarded story beat from "The Boys" (raises hand sheepishly), the season finale of "Gen V" brought the timeline of the show all the way back around to its parent series in seamless fashion. While some of the wayward students of Godolkin University staged a prison break of the victims held in the Woods that rapidly spun out into a murderous riot that put innocents in the crosshairs, our superpowered heroes did everything they could to help stem the tide and prevent casualties ... to little success. With Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) dead and Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) hiding out with her entire contingent of Vought executives while the campus falls apart around them, they have little choice but to send up the Supe-signal for someone that fans of "The Boys" are very familiar with.

Yup, it was only a matter of time before Homelander (Antony Starr) himself finally waded into the fray and got directly involved in the Supes conspiracy tearing God U apart. A spin-off series can only reference main characters from the original show so many times before Chekhov's gun comes calling and, thankfully, the writing team behind "Gen V" heeded that call. In fact, they made sure to save their silver bullet for maximum impact, unleashing the most unhinged villain in the universe of "The Boys" in the waning moments of the finale. And if you stuck around for the end credits, you were rewarded with another "The Boys" cameo: Karl Urban's foul-mouthed Billy Butcher.

Things have gone wrong indeed when Vought is forced to call in a weapon of mass destruction as volatile and unpredictable as Homelander to get them out of a jam. When he isn't fighting Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles) to the death or murdering protesters in broad daylight to satisfy his own whims, the main antagonist of "The Boys" might as well be the ace in the hole for anyone misguided enough to be allied with him. Unfortunately, Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), Jordan Li (Derek Luh and London Thor), Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo), and Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway) end up in the wrong place at precisely the wrong time. Forced to fight against former friends Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) and Sam Riordan (Asa Germann), our protagonists are caught right in the act of using their powers on fellow Supes and, as Homelander chillingly puts it, "attacking your own kind."

As violent and gore-soaked as this debut season has been, nothing quite rivals the tension and fear evoked by seeing Homelander float down from the skies, turn his dead-eyed gaze on Marie, and quickly make it clear that he's not happy to see her preventing her Supe brethren from unilaterally putting down defenseless humans. As shocking as it is to see him laser Marie through the chest, it's much less surprising that Vought and God U conspired to hang the entire debacle on our quartet of heroes, who admittedly make for very convenient scapegoats. As for Homelander, he only appears for a few brief moments on campus and, later on, observes news footage of the campus rampage. It's all he needs to make his presence truly felt, however, in one of the most effective moments of shared-universe connections enhancing a story, rather than detracting from it.

We've had one "The Boys" cameo, yes, but what about another major cameo? "Gen V" delivered a double dose of appearances from significant characters from its parent series, as it quickly followed up the Homelander action with his arch-nemesis. When last we saw Billy Butcher, he'd been coming to terms with his terminal diagnosis as a result of using the V24 super-serum in his fight against Homelander and Soldier Boy while swearing revenge on Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit), the secret Supe politician who did her fair share of villainous deeds in earlier episodes of "Gen V" and generally wreaked havoc behind the scenes of the last season of "The Boys." That seemed to indicate the direction that season 4 would likely follow, but the concluding mid-credits tease in the season finale makes the case for a more "Gen V"-centric storyline than fans may have expected.

The release of all the victims of experimentation under God U, as it turns out, doesn't mean we're out of the Woods just yet. After the ending credits kick in, we suddenly return to those creepy, low-lit hallways beneath the university for Supes. The mysteriously hidden figure with a flashlight, exploring the various cells and the obvious evidence of torture, reveals his identity with little more than the silhouette of his distinctive trench coat and a close-up of his very familiar mug. Billy Butcher has followed the breadcrumbs all the way to the Woods, apparently, and the expletive he drops (which we can't reproduce here without getting in trouble) makes it clear that he's just put a new target on his list.

The only question left is when fans will see this cameo pay off, whether in "Gen V" season 2 or season 4 of "The Boys."