The Boys Season 5's Gen V Crossover Explained - How It Sets Up The Series Finale

Spoilers ahead for "The Boys" Season 5, Episode 7, "The Frenchman, the Female, and the Man Called Mother's Milk."

Season 4 of "The Boys" ended with Annie/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) on the run from Homelander's (Antony Starr) regime, and then Season 5 picked up a year later with her resistance efforts not making much of an impact. In between that, Annie guest-starred on Season 2 of spin-off "Gen V," which ended with her recruiting the show's teenage cast of heroes to her resistance.

The "Gen V" leads (whose own series was recently canceled) finally put in an appearance for the penultimate episode. The blood-bending Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and her boy-girlfriend Jordan (London Thor/Derek Luh) drop off some key intel to Annie and MM (Laz Alonso), but Annie tells them to pack it up because Homelander, who got the immortality-granting V-One in the last episode, has basically already won. Marie throws some of Annie's own words back in her face: "Since when did hopeful and naive become the same thing?" 

Annie's whole arc, going back to when she joined the Seven in Season 1, has been testing how much that hopefulness can stand. In Season 5 she's gotten much more cynical and now, finally, bottomed out. She inspired people to resist under her banner as "Starlighters," and only got them killed. 

In this episode, when she and MM infiltrate a screening of a Homelander propaganda film, Annie asks if people are even worth saving when so many of them worship the bad guys. But when Homelander's goons start killing that audience for not being faithful enough, Annie still leaps into save them.  Annie's own hope restored, she and MM go back to Marie and Jordan, because they need their help after all.

Back in "Gen V" Season 2, former Vought CEO Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito) revealed that Marie was created by the same company project that birthed Homelander. To catch up viewers who haven't seen "Gen V," MM mentions Marie has "Homelander-level strength," but Marie says that's an exaggeration.

So, what role do Annie and MM need Marie and Jordan for? There's a chance they only meant that they needed the pair to shelter the people they rescued, but the way the episode leaves the scene hanging it makes it feel like there's more to it. Marie's blood-manipulating powers could plausibly remove the Compound V from Homelander's blood, leaving him vulnerable enough to kill.

But if that was a solution, it feels like the Boys would've thought of it earlier. Marie's dialogue even explicitly disputes the idea she can take Homelander. During this episode, the Boys were dosing Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) with radiation, hoping she can develop the same Compound V-destroying nuclear blast as Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). That sets Kimiko up to be the one who takes away Homelander's powers, not Marie.

It remains to be seen what role the "Gen V" kids will play in the endgame of "The Boy," but they served their purpose this episode by adding to Annie's arc. "Gen V" was about young supes not yet corrupted by greed and/or violence who still wanted to do genuine good, the way Annie has consistently been. This penultimate episode reaffirms Annie as the closest thing to a real superhero in "The Boys," because she learned a lesson shared by Spider-Man, the X-Men, et al: People won't always be grateful for you saving them, but that's not why you save them.

"The Boys" is streaming on Prime Video.