The Boys Season 4 Just Brought The Gen V Spinoff Series Into Play

Spoilers for "The Boys" season 4 follow.

"The Boys" season 4 has been teeing up that Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) is seeking a supe-killing virus, one introduced on season 1 of spin-off series "Gen V" (set between seasons 3 and 4 of "The Boys").

The fifth and latest episode — "Beware the Jabberwock, My Son" — sees the Boys going after the virus, which Butcher calls "the answer to our prayers." Vice President Elect Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) got her hands on the remaining virus samples in "Gen V" and this episode reveals she's overseeing further experiments with it. The Boys recruit former Vought International CEO, and Neuman's adoptive father, Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) to help them track down Neuman's secret lab.

The virus isn't the only "Gen V" connection; two of that show's main cast members show up in "Beware the Jabberwock, My Son." "Gen V" is set in a superhero college, Godolkin University, and most of the cast are "God U" students. (Read our full guide of the "Gen V" supes here for more info.)

Two of those students show up in "Beware the Jabberwock, My Son." If you watched "Gen V" season 1 to the end, you probably already know which pair. If you didn't watch "Gen V," will you be left out in the cold?

Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips) is a telepath who can command people to do anything she wants by touching their skin. As such, she often wears gloves to make sure she doesn't accidentally use her powers, a la Rogue from "X-Men." When she was a little girl, she told her brother to walk off into the woods — so he did, never to be seen again. Cate has thus lived her life thinking she's a monster.

Sam Riordan (Asa Germann) is a super-strong supe and an escaped test subject from "The Woods," the lab where the supe-killing virus was made. As their powers make them into most dehumanized supes on the "Gen V" cast, Cate and Sam prove the most susceptible to the dark side.

In the "Gen V" season 1 finale, Cate led a supe-supremacist uprising at the God U campus; Sam was the only other lead character who joined her. Homelander, who liked what he saw, had the teen heroes who stopped the riot framed as the terrorists and imprisoned. Cate and Sam were hailed as the "Guardians of Godolkin."

"Beware the Jabberwock, My Son" picks up from there. Cate and Sam are attending a Vought presentation at Comic-Con, alongside the Seven and supe-detective Tek Knight (who also debuted on "Gen V"). Specifically, the pair are starring in a movie about their fabricated experiences as the Guardians of Godolkin.

Homelander, who's been at his most Donald Trump-esque this season, is plotting a coup to make supes rulers of America and normal humans second-class citizens. He asks the other present supes to join him as "wrathful Gods" and Cate agrees, "Anything you need Homelander." To seal their pact in blood, the supes kill Vought news anchor Cameron Coleman (Matthew Edison), who was framed by Ashley (Colby Minifie) as the Boys' mole inside Vought. (It's really A-Train.)

"The Boys" is a superhero satire — so it's a bit amusing to see it pull the same annoyance of straightforward superhero media, where series intersect and you have to keep up with many of them to just get one story. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, now running almost 20 years, inherited this structure from its comic source material and is now discovering why new readers feel like Marvel Comics offer them no on-ramps.

Honestly, I think while comic continuity is more complex than ever, there are also tools that make it easier to navigate — mostly the digital reading libraries Marvel Unlimited and DC Universe Infinite. If an issue ends by saying you should pick up the next part of a crossover in another series, all you have to do is type in that issue title in the library search bar. But lots of people still don't want to have to do this; the backlog and non-linear structures can make reading comics start to feel like homework, not leisure.

"The Boys" creator Eric Kripke is aware of this and it's shaping his approach to crossovers now that "The Boys" is more than just, well, "The Boys." Speaking to Variety, Kripke said "'The Boys' season 4 is designed so you don't have to watch 'Gen V.'"

"I live in total fear of this notion that you have to watch both of them to understand the other one. [...] They're each their own story. They each have their own reason for being. They each need to be good enough to exist without the other one existing. But I'm not giving the audience homework."

Ideally, this is how shared universes should operate; each series can stand on its own, but if you want to get more detail, you can (not have to) read/watch the others. Knowing the whole story is an option, not a requirement. TV is more like comics than movies are (serialized chapters that make up a longer story), so it's easier to make the crossovers smaller-scale. "The Boys" and "Gen V" have eight hours (spread across many installments) to fit in guest stars, subplots, and crossovers, which is less distracting than how MCU movies still need to fit sequel hook detours into an unbroken two hour time-frame. 

Cate and Sam showing up in "Beware the Jabberwock, My Son" feels like, say, Spider-Man making a guest appearance in an issue of "Daredevil" — it's only additive and minor enough that you don't need foreknowledge to grasp the real story being told. Movies, on the other hand, should ideally have tighter focus, so the "continuity" of it all sticks out more.

Continuing the comics analogy — Kripke is treating "The Boys" and "Gen V" like two separate ongoing series. The MCU has stopped doing this and basically treats every new movie, regardless of which characters star, like a new issue of the same series (and frankly, their comics' model isn't far off). Some of the lessons of "The Boys" are endemic to it being a TV show, but the central tip — make entertainment, not homework — is one Marvel Studios should heed.

"The Boys" and "Gen V" are both streaming on Prime Video.