I’m not a chef, I’m a writer, but the quesadilla I made last night was, as they say, chef’s kiss. That is, until Gen V ruined it.
Allow me to set the scene: you’ve been patio furniture shopping all day with your spouse because you just moved, you’re so starved you could bite a stranger’s head off, you still have to go grocery shopping because it’s Sunday and you’ve waited until the last minute, and, to top it off, you now have to cook the food you just bought before it gets dark and you ruin the next morning by eating too late (we love getting older).
Then, a full hour and a half after putting pan to stove (it was an elaborate recipe), you finally sit down to shovel this crispy, ooey-gooey, delicious concoction fit for a Michelin-starred restaurant into your pie hole. The plate is on your lap, you’re leaning forward with the quesadilla halfway to your mouth, eyes looking up at the TV, and then bam — the sight of blood, brains, and intestines turn your stomach to Jell-O. You slowly set the plate back down. You feel your mouth water — in a bad way. Just like that, your hunger has become nausea.
I should’ve known better. The night before, I ate a bag of chips for dinner while watching the premiere episode, but I didn’t finish the whole thing, so, really, that should’ve been my first warning. But you know what they say — the worst decisions in life can be traced back to when you had your last meal.
I guess my ire is twofold. On one hand, there goes, like what, six bucks? (It was a vegan quesadilla, don’t at me). On the other hand, it was simply a really good quesadilla: a buffalo chickpea filling with a spicy/creamy interior and crunchy, dare I even say sexy, exterior. It should have been the best part of my evening. Instead, it now sits in my fridge, cold and probably too far gone to re-heat.
Sure, I saved myself about a thousand calories, but was it worth it? That’s the question.
Gen V started off on a good note. The premiere episode did a solid job of reeling us in with the devastatingly brutal origin story of our main character Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair). By the time we follow her to Godolkin University, the Vought-founded school where young supes train to become superheroes, we’ve already been inundated with cameos from The Boys. It’s heavy-handed enough to be funny, but also intentional enough it doesn’t ruin the show’s sardonic tone.
A lot happens in the first episode, replete with blood and guts, and also an underlying issue that will see the show to its finale (and possibly beyond). We have a cast of young supes each unhinged in their own right, and the in-universe playground upon which the show operates provides plenty of opportunity to play. However, maybe it’s the actors or maybe it’s the writing, but by the end of the second episode Gen V veers on feeling like a soap opera whereas The Boys hardly strayed from feeling like a gut-punching drama.
Executive producer Erik Krype knows what he’s doing, there’s no doubt about that. Gen V deserves the praise. I’m still not sure whether it’s worth ruining a perfectly good quesadilla. That’s my barometer, I guess. If it manages to soar as high as The Boys, I may reconsider. For now, I’ll be eating my dinner at the kitchen table on Friday nights.
