The Absurdly Petty Reason Gen V Is Getting Review-Bombed On Rotten Tomatoes

Gen V is back with season 2, and the internet immediately did what the internet does: argue about politics and tank audience scores. If you were hoping the Boys-verse would suddenly go subtle, yeah, that was never the plan.

The review-bombing mess, in short

Critics are into it: Rotten Tomatoes has season 2 sitting at 91% on the Tomatometer. Audiences? Not as warm, with a 62% Popcorn score and a lot of "it went too woke" complaints. The discourse is... not shy.

"It’s too political! Take your sensitive ass back to the summer I turned pretty bitch"

- a very online fan, summing up the vibe on X/Twitter

Whether you agree or not, the show is very openly doing political satire this year. It is not coy about it, and it knows exactly what buttons it is pushing.

So what is season 2 actually doing?

Quick reset: Gen V picks back up after The Boys season 4 (2024). Marie Moreau and her crew are shoved back into Godolkin University after months of fallout from last season, and the school has a new boss with a very different mission. The dean is training young Supes as soldiers. Not superheroes. Soldiers.

The show wrote in the death of Andre following the real-life passing of actor Chance Perdomo before production on season 2. Andre’s father returns to campus as a teacher, and he is not there to keep calm and carry on; he wants to tear the place down from the inside.

The big bad in charge: Cipher, the new dean of God U, whose whole vibe is authoritarian control with a smile. As the story unfolds, explicitly supremacist and 'superior' factions step out of the shadows. When Marie, Emma, and Jordan don’t toe the line, the school uses a new enforcement tactic: deepfakes and fabricated consent to force compliance. It is very 1984 energy, and the show knows you will clock it.

Homelander also swings by, flips everyone off, and poses under a banner that reads "Sorry, Snowflake." Subtle? No. Effective? Also yes. He’s still the franchise’s walking bullhorn for American rage politics.

The satire isn’t new — it’s just louder

Gen V has always run the same playbook as The Boys: Vought is the mega-corp that brands and sells superheroes, and Godolkin is their farm team. Students are literally competing for a shot at The Seven, like an influencer Hunger Games.

The social media stuff is extra pointed in this spinoff. Your clout is your currency, and friendships crack the second views are on the line. Season 1 used Marie’s blood-based powers as a reason she’s ranked lower and treated worse, and Emma’s power set created brutal body-image pressure — an on-the-nose look at eating disorders. None of this was apolitical then; season 2 just steps into current culture-war buzzwords with both feet: anti-DEI, anti-woke, anti-trans rhetoric, even a literal 'trans person in the bathroom' line. The show is mirroring 2025 America, and it is not whispering.

Season 2 at a glance

• Developed by: Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke
• Showrunners: Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters
• Main cast: Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, Maddie Phillips, London Thor, Derek Luh, Asa Germann, Shelley Conn, Sean Patrick Thomas, Hamish Linklater
• Studios/companies: Fazekas & Butters; Kripke Enterprises; Point Grey Pictures; Original Film; Kickstart Entertainment; KFL Nightsky Productions; Amazon MGM Studios; Sony Pictures Television
• Original run: September 29, 2023 – present
• IMDb score: 7.6/10 (as of now)
• Current RT scores: 91% Tomatometer, 62% Audience
• Where to watch: Streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.

Bottom line

If you want apolitical superhero comfort food, this is not that show and it never was. Gen V is using a megaphone this season, not a wink, and the review-bombing is just proof the satire is landing exactly where it aimed.