“Gen V” executive producer Eric Kripke said the explosive death of character Luke “Golden Boy” Riordan (Patrick Schwarzenegger) was a fixed plot within the “Gen V” that never changed during the writers’ creative ideation.
Spoiler alert: Continue reading for plot reveals from the first three episodes of “Gen V”
“Look, just to pull back the curtain, it’s just good pilot s–t. Your job in a pilot is to blow people’s minds so they want to keep watching,” Kripke told TheWrap on Thursday in a paired interview with the series’ showrunner Michele Fazekas.
“And it’s like undeniable proof that something is really wrong here,” Fazekas added.
As Fazekas put it, there is something very wrong at Godolkin University, which viewers learn in the first episode of the series “God U.” Hidden beneath the campus and past the corridors where invisible, nude Supes walk the halls, is a dark laboratory called “The Woods.” In the secret lab, students are subjected to brutal experiments under the tight grip of superintendent Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn) and Dr. Edison Cardosa (Marco Pigossi).
But the only student (as far as viewers know) who is on to Shetty and university professor Richard “Brink” Brinkerhoff’s (Clancy Brown) insidious scheme is star pupil Luke, aka, Golden Boy, who is in on a mission to free his brother Sam (Asa Germann) from his imprisonment in The Woods. However, Luke’s character ultimately takes his own life at the end of episode after God U freshman Marie Moreau witnesses him confronting and murdering Brink over Sam’s whereabouts.
When asked by TheWrap if there were any thoughts about keeping Luke’s character alive instead of killing him off, Kripke replied that Luke’s death was cemented in the storyline.
“Pilots go through a million iterations, and it’s always telling of what are the moments that were there from the start and stayed forever. One of them was Golden Boy always, always died at the end,” Kripke revealed. “That always kicked off the mystery and the story because it suddenly left this huge vacuum at the school that everyone, all this energy, and character were now rushing into.”
There’s no question that the love from fans for “Gen V” was in part due to the wide success of “Gen V’s” mother show “The Boys,” which also was developed by Kripke, Craig Rosenberg and Evan Goldberg. “Gen V” expands the universe of “The Boys” by setting its story at Godolkin University, which was founded by Vought International, a company that houses the prestigious group of crimefighting superheroes The Seven.
Fazekas and Kripke have worked in the TV industry for over 20 years. Fazekas is best known for creating the mystery-themed thriller series “Emergence,” while Kripke gained prominence for creating and launching the fantasy drama “Supernatural.” Kripke said one of the keys behind making exceptional television that keeps watchers wanting more in a show is by nailing the pilot.
“Michele and I both come from network, and you don’t get to have that…I’ve gone on the record before about how much I hate that [notion], like, ‘[TV] is really just an eight-hour movie.’ Like, f–k you, go make a movie. We make TV shows, and it’s our job to make sure that when one ends, you’re entertained and you need to go see the next. We’re going to kick off the pilot the way a pilot should go,” Kripke said.
Fazekas chimed in, saying: “To force people to want to come back.”
The cast of “Gen V” includes Jaz Sinclair, Lizze Broadway, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Maddie Phillips, Chance Perdomo, London Thor, Derek Luh, Asa Germann, Shelley Conn, Sean Patrick Thomas, Clancy Brown and Colby Minifie.
Fazekas and Tara Butters serve as showrunners and executive producers for “Gen V. New episodes air on Prime Video every Friday.
