Gen V Season 2 Episode 6 Cooking Lessons: Every Twist Explained and Our Verdict

Locked inside a prison built to neutralize supes, the Guardians are cornered—and Marie (Jaz Sinclair) has just pulled her sister Annabeth (Keeya King) back from the dead, igniting fallout that could shatter their circle. Was the resurrection worth the collateral damage, and who pays the price next?

Gen V swings for the fences with Cooking Lessons, an episode that finally starts peeling back the big, weird onion the show has been teasing all season. It is very bloody, very nerdy about in-universe history, and it drops a jaw-dropper or two that hardcore The Boys fans will clock immediately.

Big spoiler warning: I am talking about everything that happens here, plus some light theory-crafting at the end. If you are spoiler-averse, hit pause.

What actually goes down

We pick up with Marie (Jaz Sinclair) having yanked her sister Annabeth (Keeya King) back from the dead, which is one of those choices that sounds great in the moment and then ruins your week. Vought soldiers storm the place immediately, and our core crew — Marie, Jordan (London Thor and Derek Luh), Cate (Maddie Phillips), and Emma (Lizze Broadway) — fights off the first wave. Annabeth directs them toward what looks like a dead end just as Sam (Asa Germann) Kool-Aids through a wall in an escape van. On the run, Marie clocks something huge: Annabeth has powers of her own.

The convoy heads toward Canada because of course they do, and Annabeth spirals, understandably. Everyone is also starting to realize Marie’s blood-bending is way stronger than anyone thought. Meanwhile, Cipher (Hamish Linklater) gets the call that Marie slipped the net. He’s in a room with the Burned Man — yes, the charred mystery patient — and after telling Vought that only Marie matters, he starts slapping the Burned Man around like a stress ball. Totally normal behavior.

The group lays low at an old school to change and eat. Emma hops on a computer and DMs Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) for help. Sam teases her about a contact named Greg because even fugitives find time for petty. Marie finally has a real talk with Annabeth about the V in Marie’s blood. Annabeth says she’s a precog — she gets flashes of the future she cannot control — and she just wants to go back to her life. Marie says that’s not possible; Vought will kill her. Annabeth shoots back that everything bad in her life tracks back to Marie. Painful sibling honesty hour.

Cipher plays house call, Viktor plays whack-a-mole

Polarity wakes up in his own bed to find Cipher sitting in the dark like a sleep paralysis demon. Cipher insists he only wanted to help Andre’s treatment and that Marie might be able to fix Polarity’s condition. Polarity refuses. A call from Harper (Jessica Clement) comes in, and Cipher casually puppeteers Polarity to answer it, squeezing him for Emma and Marie’s location.

Back at the school, Annabeth has a panic attack. Marie grounds her, tells her she’s grateful for the life Pam gave her, and says she will do whatever it takes to put the pieces back. That moment gets obliterated when Viktor (Tait Fletcher) smashes through the wall swinging a hammer. He blasts Marie outside, tangles with Sam, and drops him too. He charges Marie again… and runs into a very bad day.

Zoe Neuman (Olivia Morandin) strolls in. Viktor mouths off, not clocking the threat, and Zoe unleashes her signature eels-from-the-mouth move that literally tears his head in half. She calls out to Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), who calmly introduces himself to the gang like he’s walking into a board meeting. Zoe reveals her mother was Victoria Neuman, which, yes, is a big deal and instantly makes Marie take Edgar more seriously. Marie agrees to go with him if he protects everyone. He says yes.

Welcome to the bunker. Let’s talk Odessa Project.

Edgar shuttles the team to a safe bunker. On the elevator ride down, Marie and Zoe quietly bond over losing Victoria. In the bunker, Edgar explains how Viktor found them: tracking chip. Marie asks why he’s so interested in her, and Edgar does what the episode title promises — he cooks and explains.

The Odessa Project, started by Godolkin himself, was an attempt to engineer the best possible superheroes. It flopped for years, then hit the jackpot exactly twice: once with Homelander, and once with Marie. That’s the inside baseball the show has been hinting at for a while, and it lands here with weight.

Separate corner: Emma and Sam talk. He apologizes, owns his choices, says he misses her and wants another shot. He leans in; she pulls back. It’s tender and awkward and honest.

The Burned Man theory everyone is afraid to say out loud

Edgar lays out more context for Marie, Jordan, and Cate. Cipher’s body was never recovered, and if he were still around, he’d be very old. Jordan floats the elegant, terrible possibility: the Burned Man is actually Godolkin. If that’s true, Cipher might be using Godolkin to supercharge his research. And — this is the chilling part — with Godolkin’s work in hand, Edgar could theoretically control superpowers wholesale if he wanted to. File that under things to keep your eyes on with Stan.

Elsewhere, Annabeth and Zoe talk about family and power. Annabeth’s still uneasy about what she can do; Zoe frames it as something she can use to protect her grandfather. Annabeth also admits there were real good moments with Marie, which matters after what she said earlier.

Edgar shows Marie the receipts: Godolkin’s early control tech, including high-frequency whistles and those collars that basically nuke a supe’s powers. He makes his pitch — embrace your power and help me stop Cipher, maybe even stop Homelander. Marie and Jordan end up falling asleep together, a rare quiet beat in an episode that does not have many.

Cipher finally says the quiet part loud

Cipher gets bad intel on Marie’s whereabouts and takes it out on Polarity. Then he lays out his master plan: kill 75% of the students at God U. Cull the so-called weak so the strong rise higher. It is eugenics dressed up as strategy, and the show underlines that by reminding us we have already seen Godolkin’s work linked to KKK robes and Nazi garbage. When Cipher goes to hurt Polarity again, Polarity fights back, hurling him through a window. Polarity looks down — Cipher is gone.

Marie wakes alone in the bunker and slips out. Before she can get far, Cate stops her with a hail-mary request: use your blood power on my brain so I can use my abilities again and go to war with Cipher at your side. No speeches, no big argument — they just start walking down the road together.

Bigger-picture takeaways

• Edgar confirms the Odessa Project tried to build perfect supes and that it succeeded exactly twice: Homelander and Marie. That is massive canon backdrop for The Boys and not a detail you drop lightly.
• Zoe Neuman reveals she is Victoria Neuman’s daughter and proves she is not to be trifled with by turning Viktor into a biology lesson. Her partnership with Edgar feels strategic, not naive.
• Cipher’s endgame is openly genocidal: wipe out 75% of God U students so the remaining quarter become apex predators. This ideology tracks with the ugly artifacts linked to Godolkin’s research we have already seen.
• Annabeth is a precog. She cannot control it, it only hits occasionally, and it scares her — but it is potent. She also blames Marie for the wreckage in her life, which sets up obvious emotional landmines.
• Emma and Sam are not magically fixed. He wants back in; she is not ready. That tension feels honest.
• Edgar quietly shows how to control supes: whistles, collars, the whole toolbox. He also cooks and speeches while doing it, which is very Stan Edgar.
• The Burned Man might be Godolkin. If so, Cipher is either exploiting him or something even stranger is happening with who actually has powers in that duo.

Is Cooking Lessons worth your time?

Yep. If you are in this for The Boys universe connections, this episode is a buffet. The cameos have evolved from winks to meaningful plot machinery — Sister Sage, Starlight, and now a full-on Stan Edgar play. Prime Video is clearly stitching Gen V directly into The Boys season 5 runway, and I would be shocked if some of these characters do not cross over.

On the character side, the episode splits cleanly: Marie wrestling with the cost of her power (she resurrected her sister and may have obliterated her life in the process), and the escalating hunt for Cipher, who keeps revealing uglier layers the closer we get.

Where my head is at going into the last stretch

I do not love Marie and Cate’s plan to poke around in Cate’s brain with blood magic and then charge a guy who may not even be the real engine behind the threat. It feels like walking into a buzzsaw.

Here is my theory: Cipher might not have powers at all. We have seen him not register pain the way he should, and there is that lingering point about no V in his blood. If the Burned Man is Godolkin — and if Godolkin’s power set involves possession — he could be riding Cipher like a mech suit. That would also explain chain-reaction pain we have seen in others, like Jordan, if the source body is a mass of burns and nerve endings screaming all the time. If this is right, Marie’s target is not Cipher; it is the thing inside him.

Odds and ends

Cooking Lessons premiered October 8, 2025. New episodes of Gen V drop Wednesdays on Prime Video. Buckle up; the show is clearly setting pieces for a much bigger game.