After “God U” gave us a thrilling, fun introduction to this series, “First Day” feels like a slight downgrade. We’re full steam ahead on the plot, with the investigation into Brink and Golden Boy’s deaths already beginning to reveal some of the administration’s carefully guarded secrets. But what interests me most so far are the character moments.
Most of the episode is focused on the incident’s aftermath at the crime-fighting school. In the opening scene, we see the board of trustees discussing how to handle the situation with Ashley Barrett from Vought, essentially determining the exact PR strategy that will fuel the rest of the episode. They agree on the basic story they’ll run with: Luke Riordan’s murder-suicide resulted from drugs and a psychotic break. Andre and Marie, in this telling, are the heroes; without them, many more lives would have been lost.
Of course, Jordan was the actual supe who fought Luke, but the trustees aren’t interested in giving them any credit. In their eyes, Jordan’s “pronoun fuckery” makes them a tough sell to middle America, whereas centering Andre and Marie will at least appease the NAACP. So, while Jordan finds themself downgraded in the rankings and forgotten by the administration, Marie wakes up to a world that feels completely different. Suddenly she’s getting all the attention that used to be reserved for those top-ranked upperclassmen. She’s ranked No. 8 making her the first freshman ever to crack the top ten.
Marie is clearly a little traumatized by what happened yesterday, but there’s no time to rest; Vought already has plans for her, including a live TV interview with Hailey Miller (who also appeared briefly on The Boys last season). A visit to the shady dean helps clarify the stakes for Marie: A track to joining the Seven means power, money, and influence, which would help her locate her estranged sister. On a deeper level, Marie doesn’t just want to find and reconnect with Annabeth; she wants to prove to her that she’s not a monster. Maybe by doing that, she can prove it to herself.
Marie’s script requires her to repeat the story that Vought invented: Golden Boy killed innocent people, and without her and Andre, far more would be dead. But Jordan asks her to do the right thing and give them the credit on air, so Marie is faced with a tough choice.
From the moment we saw Marie rehearsing her flip-the-script moment, I figured she wouldn’t go through with it; this is a series where characters typically make the selfish choice, not the heroic one. And while Jaz Sinclair’s performance isn’t necessarily captivating me the way I’d like it to, her character can only benefit from the moral shading. She’s more interesting this way, justifying self-serving actions with her complicated background and lack of privilege. It makes sense that she’d feel like she needs to look out for herself. What she refuses to understand is that with Brink dead, Jordan doesn’t have anyone in their corner anymore, either. And what she can’t bear to admit is that she kind of enjoys the attention, especially during that glamorous photoshoot with Andre.
Marie’s story is easily the most legible and complete in this episode, grounded as it is in her point of view. But Emma’s subplot, siloed as it is from the rest of the story, is also on the right track. It feels like a high school story: She opens up to a new friend about her eating disorder, and in return, that new friend stabs her in the back by telling everyone. It’s disappointing to see Justine sell Emma out so quickly and twist her story into a contrived message about the patriarchy, even if her general mean-girl attitude and influencer role foreshadowed this turn. It was so nice to see them connect earlier on, with Justine vowing not to typecast Emma the way Justine gets typecast herself. But maybe they’ll still manage to build a real friendship later on. It’d be nice to see more development in general when it comes to the various friendships and pairings on this show.
Outside these more grounded stories, it feels like “First Day” really presses on the gas pedal, diving headfirst into the web of conspiracies that brought about Luke’s death. Andre tries to loop Marie into his investigation, but her steadfast refusal to get involved means he has to find help elsewhere. So he pairs up with Luke’s girlfriend, Cate, who also seems like a potential new love interest for Andre himself.
Before Luke died, he alluded to giving something to Andre’s father, the trustee and respected superhero Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas). But it turns out Luke was referring to the metal statue of Polarity on campus, where he encased a phone. Andre and Cate find the phone (accessible only with Andre’s metal-bending skills) and watch the video message, in which Luke exposes the existence of a hospital beneath the school called the Woods. His brother Sam, who they thought committed suicide at Sage Grove, is trapped down there. Brink was complicit.
We see that Sam is indeed in the Woods, and Andre confirms it for himself when he breaks into a laptop in the crime-fighting school. In fact, the super-strong kid on meth from “God U” is Sam. But the story doesn’t come to a truly satisfying end. Instead, everything goes to hell in the final minutes, as Cate saves Andre’s ass from a team of armed intruders and suffers a seizure from using mind control (or “pushing”) too much.
On a character level, the basic idea here is that Andre is torn between his father’s expectations and his own need to solve the mystery of what happened to his best friend. He misses the interview with Hailey Miller, leaving Marie to take all the credit herself and pissing off his dad in the process. But I would’ve liked to feel the weight of that choice in this episode. Instead, we get more violence and the second raunchy use of mind control in the episode.
Your mileage may vary with the comedy. I generally laugh pretty often watching The Boys, and I laughed a fair bit during the premiere, but the flashlight-deepthroating is a little juvenile for my tastes, especially so soon after Cate commanded Rufus (Alexander Calvert) to bash himself in the nuts with a bat while yelling “Jumanji!” It’s all a bit too Suicide Squad-y, and I say that as somebody who generally enjoyed both James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and his TV spinoff Peacemaker. I’d like to see more of Cate’s abilities without resorting to randomness and crotch-related violence every time.
But The Boys is an unapologetically goofy show, and Gen V looks to be the same. The dick jokes and weird violence are all part of it. If Gen V does prove to be a bit more childish than The Boys, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; we’re still in school, after all.
Extra Credit
• While Jordan did most of the actual hand-to-hand combat with Golden Boy, I’m also not sure they deserve as much credit as they think they do? It was a pretty brief fight, and it’s not like they saved anyone besides Marie.
• We meet Courtenay Fortney, an EP for Vought, who apparently appeared once in season one of The Boys. She’s another classic PR-brained Vought caricature, but it’s great to see Jackie Tohn from my beloved GLOW.
• It’s also a nice touch to bring in Adam Bourke (P. J. Byrne), who directed Dawn of the Seven in the parent show. Apparently, he’s teaching at Godolkin because he exposed himself to Minka Kelly.
• The final scenes frame both Marie’s cutting and Emma’s vomiting as a form of serious self-harm, so interested to see where the show goes with those ideas.
