This article contains light spoilers for season two of Gen V on Prime Video.
Where are we?
As it turns out, the final line in season one of Gen V would come to define where the show picks up.
The end of season one shows a seemingly hopeless situation. Marie, Jordan, Emma, and Andre were swiftly imprisoned in the Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center after being wrongfully framed as villains.
Where do they go from there?
“All the stakes are raised for all of us,” London Thor told me over Zoom, “We’re at an all is lost moment when the show starts, which is always fun to climb back out of. And then we’re thrust into this crazy, weird world that we’re not used to.”
Jaz Sinclair elaborated on this further, “I think the whole season one is like, the worst thing that could ever happen to you is that you get locked in Elmira, right? So at the beginning of Season 2, it’s like, the worst has occurred, so now what?”
During this Zoom call, the cast of Gen V reflected on the biggest challenges of preparing for and filming season two.
For Lizzie Broadway, this meant submerging in a pool for long hours to climb out of a toilet in the season’s fourth episode. (A what now?)
“As an actor, they ask you, ‘Can you swim?’” Broadway began to explain, “…but being in the pool for 14 hours, climbing is another thing. So that was the most challenging — just the physical labor of climbing a wall and being in water for 14 hours.”
“It was insane,” she added.
Maddie Phillips, too, found filming to be physically taxing.
Maddie Phillips (Cate Dunlap)
“I found it more physically stressful than I did last season dealing with the one arm situation and a prosthetic on my head a lot of the time,” Phillips shared, “A lot of time in the trailer getting that done, having to hold my arm behind my back for many hours was painful and uncomfortable, the weight of the prosthetic arm was uncomfortable.”
Phillips also pointed to filming a nude scene in season two as one of her biggest challenges, crediting director Karen Gaviola and the show’s intimacy coordinator with making her feel safe and supported.”
“I think another sort of stressful thing that I had to that I actually got pretty desensitized to quickly was being more naked than I ever have been on camera before,” she explained “…and when you have a crew that’s so supportive and wonderful, and a great intimacy coordinator, a great director [like] Karen, and she made me feel super comfortable.”
While Broadway and Phillips gravitated toward discussing the physical challenges while filming, Sean Patrick Thomas recalled confronting his character, Polarity, emotionally — especially after he had lost his son, Chance, in season one.
“An obvious challenge that I would speak to,” he said, “is just not having chance there. It was something that you always felt, especially when we first started Season 2. You just felt like, wow, we have to really do this in a way that brings him honor and really gives resonance to who he was.”
Similarly, Jaz Sinclair shared how she faced Marie’s internal struggles after it was revealed she broke out of Elmira.
“I think she’s just mostly in survival mode,” Sinclair explained. “It’s her first time free in the world ever as an adult personI would like to say that.”
“She’s feeling really guilty about leaving everyone.”
She goes on to explain how Marie’s decision to do so hinged on a bigger goal.
“She’s putting all of her effort towards [finding her sister]. She wants that with her whole self, and it’s just a matter of finding someone who doesn’t want to be found by you.”
Season two of Gen V is now streaming on Prime Video, with new episodes premiering weekly on Wednesdays.
