Hamish Linklater as Dean Cipher in 'Gen V.' Prime Video Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment Logo text [This story contains spoilers from the Gen V season two finale, "Trojan."] In the finale of Gen V season two, star Hamish Linklater gets to do something he couldn't do all season long: be the good guy. As viewers saw in the season ender "Trojan," and the penultimate episode "Hell Week," Cipher's mind and body reverted to Doug after Marie (Jaz Sinclair) healed Godolkin. Meaning God U's murderous namesake no longer needed to puppeteer Doug like a meat suit. While immensely kind and appreciative to Marie, Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) and the gang for helping free him from a decades-long nightmare, Doug was not long for this world. Related Stories TV How 'Gen V' Sets Up an Epic Homelander Battle for 'The Boys' Final Season TV 'Gen V' Star Sean Patrick Thomas on Post-Finale Fate and Honoring the Late Chance Perdomo As Polarity worked to get him to a doctor and treat his wounds following a battle with Cipher on school grounds in episode seven, Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) - from The Boys' The Seven - landed on top of Polarity's vehicle and drove a sword through its roof - and through Doug. His death was ultimately at the hands of Sage, in an effort to erase any trace of Godolkin's violent spinout. In some ways, Doug's death signaled two tragedies, as Sage's grand romance also came to a climax and an end over the course of Gen V's season two finale. That strategic love affair with Godolkin as Cipher in Doug's body produced several colorful interactions between the two, who were building their own plan for the future of supes as "Homelander's scheme was not sufficient to achieve the ends they wanted to pursue," Linklater told The Hollywood Reporter. Their scheme, as viewers discovered, was to use Marie - the only other survivor of a Godolkin experiment that also produced Homelander (Antony Starr), which viewers officially know as The Odessa Project - to build a new world order. "He sees her as a tool," Linklater says while discussing whether Cipher ever saw Marie as an equal or merely a means to an end. "We talk about it as if she's the second coming. She's going to be the Messiah. The danger of that, of course, is getting a Messiah Complex along the way. But he's trying to encourage that to work to his ends. She's his nuclear option. He's just gotta get her to split those atoms." All that effort by Cipher-Godolkin also produced its own series of colorful interactions with Marie, Polarity, Jordan (London Thor, Derek Luh), Cate (Maddie Phillips) and other members of the God U gang across the season. Manipulation, threats, acts of physical and psychological violence (to oneself and others), as well as actual body snatching, were all part of Cipher's brand while Linklater embodied Gen V's season two big bad. As were those weird shakes. To cap the season, THR spoke with Linklater about how Dean Martin helped him embody Cipher's power, getting to also play the sweet character Doug, what Godolkin misunderstands about power and strength, who Linklater sees the Gen V and The Boys' villains as in everyday life, and the experience of eating those very weird shakes. *** There's a moment in episode six where Cipher reveals, in an antagonizing way, that Andre (Chance Perdomo) had seizures in his final days. Cipher bullies other characters across the season about their powers, but because of Andre and Polarity's degenerative abilities, this underscores the eugenics behind his beliefs. How do you think Cipher defines strength and weakness, and what do you think he misunderstands about what makes someone strong? I think he has your badly read Charles Darwin definition of strength and weakness. It's all about the survival of the fittest and breeding upwards, which is always breeding downwards because it's inbreeding. It's not good genetics, it's not good ethics. It's the sort of thing that generally a villain believes in, or a, you know, president of the United States. (Laughs.) With Cipher, you could punch a lot of holes in his theories about strength and weakness. This thinking also came out in the cage match between Jordan and Marie, which was positioned as punishment for Jordan speaking out during the rally. It was also a test to push Marie along in her powers. Which do you think Cipher cared more about, and in light of Andre's fate in Elmira, was Cipher willing to risk Marie killing Jordan? The match served a number of different objectives for Cipher. Number one, Jordan speaking out publicly brings the wrong kind of attention to the university at this time. He doesn't actually want Homelander's attention on what he's doing. So he's pissed, but once it's happened, he's like, "Well, since the spotlight's on us, how do we take advantage of this situation