First Day was a solid second episode for Generation V, which helped further establish the characters and the intriguing mystery.
Following the Golden Boy tragedy, Vought’s top brass scramble to control the damage. This includes Ashley calling to denounce Indira Shetty who is to replace Professor Brinkerhoff as head of Godolkin University.
The first step? Identify the heroes who bravely defeated the psychotic Golden Boy. Andre and Marie are nominated although Jordan was actually the one who stepped up and fought head to head with Golden Boy. While Andre is the highest-scoring new student, Marie makes a surprise arrival as No. 8, an unprecedented feat for a freshman. With Brinkerhoff dead, no one knows he was planning to deport him anyway.
Jordan discovers that no good deed goes unpunished as they are relegated to the Top 10 instead of moving up from number 2. And now Marie can audit the superhero track she wanted to pursue when she signed up. Everything looks rosy for Marie’s first day of school.
Marie feels guilty accepting the acclaim and credit that should go to Jordan, but upsetting this newly fabricated status quo could get her kicked out. Sorry Jordan, mom is the word for Mary. This subplot is really strong and could go several directions. Marie will eventually be able to say shit and reveal the truth. Jordan might get so angry and get fired that he becomes a supervillain. Or they can both just play along to get along.
Aside from being the new big lady on campus, Marie gets the full rise-to-popularity treatment complete with a cell phone, a tablet, a photo shoot, and a social media manager (Dan Bierne). And a hero profile interview with Vought propaganda puppet Hailey Miller (Leigh Bush).
Jordan begs Marie to tell Hailey what really happened, but Marie takes an understandably selfish, largely selfish approach. If she shakes things up again, Marie may never have the chance to be part of the Seven. Or convince her sister that she’s not a monster.
Indira takes a slow approach appealing to Marie on a personal level as a mother figure she had long lost. This is standard Vought manipulation and it’s almost infuriating how well it continues to work.
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André is right next to Marie. He has the added “bonus” of his father, the super formerly known as Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), advising him. So far, Generation V is tackling many elements of young adulthood. Peer pressure, career path uncertainty, self-image issues, and the quest for popularity. Now we are under pressure from parents.
It’s a solid role for Thomas, who ably fills the role of the father who pushes a little too hard. It’s clear why Andre welcomes the opportunity to escape the pressure by celebrating with his team.
Emma’s subplot is also very strong. She reveals to her classmate Justine (Maia Jae Bastidas) that she can only shrink by purging herself. Justine seems to unintentionally break the news in her livestream by condemning the “male gaze”. It will be interesting to see if Justine is a wishy-washy potential influencer or a legit friend for Emma.
Cate and Andre begin sharing notes about Luke’s death in hopes of finding answers to his shocking suicide. They begin to go down a winding rabbit hole where Vought keeps all of his dirty secrets. The biggest being Luke’s presumed dead brother Sam is actually still alive.
Worse yet, he was the escapee that André and Marie helped slow down in the first episode. It was a sort of reverse origin of Spider-Man in that the hero characters did what they thought was the right thing. It’s just that this act helped the bad guys almost as much as letting the thief run from the police.
Andre and Cate discover a hidden message from Luke that involves many of God U’s higher-ups, including Professor Brinkenhoff. To get answers, Andre abandons Hailey’s interview and finds a hallway that leads to the infamous “Woods.” This is apparently God U’s underground facility for the less controllable students. Cate helped save Andre from death, but pushing her powers to the extreme puts her in a bad position.
First Day presented a terrific conspiracy, showed some welcome layers to the characters with some of that quality work from Vought.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Photo credit: Amazon
Check out Gen V: Day One on Amazon Prime.
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