'Gen V' Finally Reveals Its Cipher Twist, And It's A Doozy

One of the biggest mysteries in Gen V Season 2 has been “what’s up with Cipher?” The character played by Hamish Linklater has been the main antagonist of the season so far, both cajoling marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) and plaguing the rest of Godolkin University. And now we know what his deal is, and spoilers for “Hell Week” past this point: he’s just a regular guy named Doug Brightbill who has been puppeted by the real super-powered individual, Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater).

Okay, fine, this isn’t so Earth-shaking: most fans guessed some variation on this week’s ago, once it was revealed that there was a burnt man in a hyperbaric chamber in Cipher’s house. And yes, as expected, Cipher — or rather Doug — is a man who has been puppeted by Godolkin, who was horribly burnt during a lab accident in 1967 at Project Odessa.

Doug, we discover, has a cat Buster, and a red Honda Civic he lived out of “because I’d been fired from my job at Blockbuster.” That’s likely before he was taken over by Godolkin and puppeted for, at least, since Marie was born about 18 years ago.

To be 100% clear here, Godolkin was funneling his powers through the body of the man we knew as Cipher, who has no powers himself. That’s the whole deal, and has been the whole deal, this entire time.”No, there is no Cipher,” Doug explains. “It’s just him. There’s only him.”

There’s still some gaps to fill in here, but it’s fair to speculate that either while being burned or after, he took some variation of Compound V that gave him manipulation powers, as well unnaturally long life. And it’s also fair to speculate that at some point in there he took over Doug, and possibly other people as well.

The goal? It seems to have been to create Marie, basically, who now has more control over his blood powers and has thus far resurrected her sister Annabeth (Keeya King), and in this week’s episode heals Polarity’s (Sean Patrick Thomas) significant brain damage. And thanks to the training from “Cipher” that led her to that point, she’s now able to heal Godolkin as well.

It’s a bit of an oopsie on Marie’s part, but she heals Godolkin because she thinks he can help save them from Cipher… Not realizing there is no Cipher, only Doug. Oh, and this also seems to be Godolkin’s plan with Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), or at least part of it. And either emphasizing that or throwing a little wrench in the works, the first thing the newly rejuvenated Godolkin does is force a low-power student to strangle himself to death, promising that he’s going to weed out more useless Supes as he goes.

There’s one more episode to go in Gen V, so we’ll likely get more answers in the finale. As for who will survive Godolkin/Cipher’s rampage? Hopefully Doug, he likely doesn’t know he’s lost his job at Blockbuster. Because it doesn’t exist anymore.

Gen V Season 2 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:

Gen V season 2 will officially premiere on Prime Video on Wednesday, September 17. The season will be eight episodes long, with three dropping on premiere day.

Here’s the full list of episodes in Gen V Season 2, with premiere dates: