Prime Video rolled out the trailer for the second season of its The Boys spin-off Gen V at Comic-Con tonight, including quite a few chances for new cast member Hamish Linklater—possibly best known for Midnight Mass, but who, given the superheroic context, will always be Clark Debussy from Legion to us—getting to deliver dry but enthusiastic monologues as the new dean of Godolkin University.
The biggest question hanging over the season, meanwhile, gets addressed pretty quickly—at least, once the show establishes why Jaz Sinclair’s Marie Moreau is coming back to this awful place: The trailer seemingly confirms that the magnetically powered Andre (played by the late Chance Perdomo) has died along with his actor between seasons. (With Sean Patrick Thomas, who played the character’s father in season one, having a more prominent presence in the footage scene here, and a photo of Andre/Perdomo showing up in the trailer.) In interviews surrounding the panel, the show’s cast and crew noted the importance of paying proper tribute to Perdomo, with showrunner Michele Fazekas stating that “The thing I’m most proud of, when you watch the entirety of the season, is he is there the whole way, in a way that feels real—because it is real. I’m very proud that we honored him beginning to end.”
Elsewhere, the promo shows off those things you’d naturally expect to see in the Boys universe: Lots of violence, temptations to power, and some light quipping about destiny and chosen ones. The panel also took time to shore up links between Gen V and The Boys—highlighted when some of the characters from the spin-off showed up, in particularly unpleasant ways, at the climax of The Boys‘ last season, and then some Boys characters returned the favor in the trailer—in the most overt way possible: Showing off the first teaser for the mothership show’s fifth season, showing Antony Starr’s Homelander in full dictator mode, promising to transform America into “a safer, more god-fearing nation.” (And for those who like more Easter eggs, fewer depressing political allegories: Series creator Eric Kripke reportedly also worked in a Supernatural bit, showing off characters played by his old stars Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins.)
Gen V returns for its second season on September 17.