GEN V’s Musical Scene Is a Disturbing Display of Meat Puppetry

One thing we at Nerdist love is a musical number in a not-musical TV show or film. Most of the time, it lands well and takes us out of a story’s normal elements to add in some singing spice. For example, The Boys fans loved it when Kimiko, who did not speakOpens in a new tab in the present day until the show’s season four finale, got to express herself in full song and dance with “I Got Rhythm.” In a show that is often bloody and bleak with dark humor, it was a breath of fresh air. The Boys spinoff Gen V took the musical route recently in its season two finale, but it was a disturbing scene full of bloody meat puppetry. 

The newly-regenerated Thomas Godolkin lures supes into a “seminar” where they can potentially earn a shot at being the #1 ranked God U student and join the Seven. Despite Marie’s subsequent warning to everyone to not trust a guy whom everyone thought was dead for decades, a few desperate people show up anyway. He uses his mind and body controlling powers to force the students to beat each other to a pulp. Their bloody and broken bodies are writhing all over the floor as they groan in pain. It is a sight that makes even someone as terrible as Sage cringe. 

She tries to talk him out of this horror show, but he insists on continuing and saying they need music. He uses his hands like a maestro, conducting the students’ bodies to dance. It feels very The Walking Dead-esque, except these are still living beings and not zombies. The song, which is Ella Fitzgerald’s version of Judy Garland’s “Get Happy” is the perfect update tune to contrast this strange yet effective musical scene in Gen V’s finale. In fact, the dancing students look like the dancers in this 1950 video clip from Summer Stock of Garland performing the song.