Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Episodes 1-4 of Gen V
When weird, inexplicable things started happening at Godolkin University, it was common sense for Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and her friends to distrust the faculty. Their instincts served them well as they began to uncover the secrets behind The Woods, the horrifying Supe experimentation asylum hidden beneath the university. And just as they got to know The Woods #1 reluctant resident and brother of recently deceased Golden Boy (Patrick Schwarzenegger), Sam Riordan (Asa Germann), Marie and company wake up at a party to find they don’t remember anything from the past couple of days.
It doesn’t take long for the students to begin piecing together their fractured memories and, based on events from last week’s episode, we easily agree with Marie, Andre (Chance Perdomo), Emma (Lizze Broadway), and Jordan (London Thor/Derek Luh) when they assume it was Rufus responsible for their missing memories. As we found out the hard way in Episode 4, Rufus (Alexander Calvert) is a telepathic perv and student at Godolkin who can essentially mentally roofie anyone he gets in close contact with, incapacitating them and rendering them defenseless. However, when he tried this tactic with Marie, he left with a bruised ego and an exploded dick. Considering Rufus has the ability to mind control and a newfound vendetta against Marie, it makes sense that he’d do a favor for Dean Shetty (Shelley Conn) and mind-wipe the gang to forget everything they know about The Woods — including Sam. But Rufus was just a red herring to throw us off the scent of the true culprit. It should’ve been obvious to everyone considering there was only one other telepath close enough to mind-wipe them, but the notion was discarded as she was so close to the group no one would ever suspect her: Cate Dunlap (Maddie Phillips).
Cate Has Betrayed Golden Boy Since the Beginning of ‘Gen V’
We’re first introduced to Cate as the girlfriend of Golden Boy, Luke Riordan. As the girlfriend of the #1 ranking Supe at Godolkin University, it’d be easy to write Cate off as the typical mean girl, but her personality is actually the opposite. She’s kind and empathetic, possessing the ability to influence people through touch. Her abilities are clearly powerful, as she has to constantly wear gloves to keep from influencing people accidentally. She had planned on being Luke’s Supe manager instead of pursuing her own career with her abilities, and was very close with Luke and his family. Cate would accompany Luke to visit his disturbed brother Sam, and even had to put him to sleep at one point when Sam had a schizophrenic outburst. Later, Luke heard that his brother killed himself, which was a hard truth for Golden Boy to reconcile.
As it turns out, Cate’s the reason Luke assumed his brother was dead. As it seems, the process was an endless circle, Luke would discover his brother was still alive, being held captive, and try to do something to save him before Cate swooped in to console him, holding him long enough to forget what he was so worked up about in the first place and conditioning him to assume his brother was dead. But this time around, Luke killed Professor Brink (Clancy Brown) and blew himself up before Cate could intervene. Luke’s suicide is the catalyst that changes Cate’s simple role of controlling Luke into a double agent mission of controlling anyone and everyone who gets curious about The Woods. Cate’s role is clearly eating away at her, but it comes to a head when Marie comes to share her findings. Having found a tracker deep in her neck, Marie assumes everyone else involved must have one as well. She goes to Cate first to tell her, and Cate tries her best to act shocked. But as Marie searches her neck for the tracker, Cate’s eyes well up and we can hear her take off a glove. Focused on extracting the tracker, Marie doesn’t realize Cate’s bare hand reaching up to touch her before it’s too late.
Suddenly, it all starts to make sense. After the death of Luke, Cate is devastated and committed to helping her friends find out what happened, but she’s more responsible for his death than she lets on. Cate was always around during the investigation into Luke’s death, especially near Andre, as they started seeing each other in the wake of Luke’s death. But considering Andre, who inherited his magnetic abilities from his father, is perhaps the most volatile of the bunch, her sudden relationship with him could primarily be to keep him docile. It wouldn’t take long for Cate to soothe the mind of any of her friends who caught on to what was happening and it explains why they all forgot who Sam was after really getting to know him in the last episode.
‘Gen V’s Compelling Characters Make Cate’s Betrayal Hurt Worse for Viewers
Gen V gets us to care immensely about all of its characters in such a short time, as each character has their own compelling backstory and trauma that invests us in their endeavors. So, only knowing these characters for three weeks and five episodes, it still feels like a massive punch to the gut when it dawns on us what Cate has done. To make matters worse, Cate herself is experiencing the same emotions we are. She’s absolutely torn up about having to wipe her friends’ minds, her acts may have been reprehensible and immoral, but she does care for her friends, so much so that we almost… feel bad for her? After she reveals herself by mind-wiping Marie, we see her meeting with Dean Shetty in tears. There isn’t much context to their conversation and we aren’t able to glean why exactly she is mind-wiping for the Dean, but it is clear she doesn’t want to anymore. She tells Shetty that she can’t keep doing it and that they will figure it out eventually. Shetty (exerting that faux sympathy she’s already pulled on Marie) soothes Cate and tells her that helping people is her gift and that she needs to continue to try if she wants to keep her friends safe.
What’s Next for Godolkin’s Highly-Rated Supe Group
Cate has been brainwashed a bit herself, as Dean Shetty has convinced her that she has to mind-wipe her friends for their safety. Cate isn’t evil, or motivated by malice, she is using her abilities out of misguided love. If she can break free of Shetty’s grasp, there is no doubt that she won’t join the cause and fight alongside Marie to uncover The Woods’ true purpose and put a stop to it. However, this doesn’t mean her friends will see it that way. Realizing Cate has been manipulating them from the jump (and most likely for years beforehand with Luke) is not going to go down easy with the hot-headed top Supes at Godolkin. Andre is very quick to anger, as is Marie, and their powers are deadly. She may have come clean by the end of the episode, but without using her abilities to soothe their emotions, and having violated their trust countless times, the pain Cate has inflicted on her friends may never be reconcilable.
The Big Picture
- Marie and her friends uncover the truth behind The Woods, a secret asylum beneath the university, and suspect Rufus of causing their missing memories.
- However, it is revealed that Cate, Golden Boy’s ex and now Andre’s girlfriend, is the true culprit behind their missing memories and has been manipulating them all along.
- Cate’s betrayal is devastating for viewers, as the show has made us care about the characters and their individual traumas, but Cate herself is torn up about her actions.
