The Boys creator Eric Kripke explains the role of Gen V‘s Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Sam (Asa Germann) in Homelander’s season 4 plan. After first premiering on Prime Video in 2019 and becoming a major success, the hit superhero parody show returned for season 4 earlier this month. The Boys season 4, episode 5, “Beware of the Jabberwock, My Son” sees the series crossover more with spinoff Gen V, with characters Cate and Sam being propped up as Vought heroes and brought under Homelander’s wing.

In a recent interview with TVInsider, Kripke explains Cate and Sam’s introduction into the world of The Boys and how they’ll factor into Homelander’s plan moving forward. According to the creator, both characters mark the start of Homelander’s evil superhero “army.” Check out Kripke’s comment below about why episode 5 felt like the right place for Cate and Sam to crossover:

“It felt like the right episode for a couple of reasons. One story is about acquiring this virus, which was born in Gen V. So thematically, this was the episode where Gen V was starting to bleed into The Boys and then this notion of this fan expo [where] they’re promoting all their movies, but what they’re really doing is bringing all of these heroes together so that Homelander can enlist them as the beginnings of an army, which is really quite scary.

“Cate and Sam, as is unfortunately typical in our world, are being rewarded for their horrific behavior in the Gen V finale, and turned into celebrities starring in ridiculous teen comedies who have a level of fame and notoriety now, whereas the real heroes of that day are languishing in some undisclosed location somewhere that you’ll learn about when Gen V Season 2 drops.

“So I think Kate, who’s very anti-human and pro-Supe, drinks a lot of [that up], and I think Sam is probably a little more reluctant, but also Cate’s pretty good at touching him and making him not feel things, which I think keeps Sam happy and on mission.”

How Much Will Cate & Sam Factor Into The Boys Moving Forward?

The Gen V Characters Could Become Major Players

Kripke has shared that he doesn’t want audiences to feel like they have to watch Gen V in order to understand what’s going on with The Boys, but season 4, episode 5, certainly sets Cate and Sam up to play an important role in the story to come. With Homelander taking them into his inner circle, they’re now poised to represent a major threat to Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie (Jack Quaid), and the rest of the show’s protagonists. As younger fighters in this brewing war, Sam and Cate could go out into the world to recruit more supes to Homelander’s cause.

Gen V has finally ended, with it possibly raising more questions than it answered. Here’s what happened, including how it set up The Boys season 4.

The end of The Boys season 4, episode 5, sees Homelander telling The Seven and Cate and Sam to essentially be ready for a coming takeover. It’s unclear, however, how much Cate and Sam’s role in this will play out in The Boys and how much will play out in Gen V season 2. In order to avoid the shows crossing over too heavily, it’s possible that Cate and Sam’s sinister mission will be a larger part of the spinoff than it is the mothership show.

Gen V season 2 doesn’t yet have a release date, but filming started in May 2024.

If Cate and Sam do have a larger role in The Boys, however, they will very likely become targets in Butcher’s campaign against supes. The end of episode 5 sees Butcher in possession of a scientist who knows how to make more of the supe virus, and it certainly seems like, other than targeting Homelander, he won’t be very judicious in how he deploys it. It’s unclear how involved Sam and Cate will be in The Boys in the episodes ahead, but they certainly seem poised to play a crucial role in the show’s larger universe.

New episodes of The Boys release on Thursdays on Prime Video.