Ethan Slater On ‘Gen V’ Season 2 Finale And Playing A Villain

Ethan Slater as Thomas Godolkin on the season two finale of “Gen V.”

Jasper Savage/Prime Video

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the season two finale of Gen V.

Ethan Slater always knew he had the acting chops to play the main antagonist of season two of Gen V.

“It was just such an exciting opportunity to dig into a character that’s kind of unlike something I’ve played in my career so far,” Slater, who stars as Thomas Godolkin, said. “I haven’t played a villainous role or an older role or somebody with this kind of power since I was in college.”

Slater joined the college-set spinoff of The Boys this season as Godolkin, the founder of Godolkin University. While he’s initially introduced as a sweet scientist in the opening flashback at the start of the season, it’s later revealed that Godolkin believed in supe supremacy and set out to create god-tier supes through a program called Project Odessa. And God U, the school touted as the premier place to teach young supes to develop their powers, was founded so he could observe and learn to control them, and specifically turn Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) into the most powerful one.

He was believed to be dead for decades, when in actuality, his body survived a catastrophe in the Vought lab thanks to the Compound V he had injected himself with. Since the ‘60s, his burnt, incapacitated body was kept in a hyperbaric chamber while he used his powers to control an innocent person named Doug (Hamish Linklater), who posed as Cipher, the new dean at God U.

He successfully manipulates Marie into reviving his body with her powers, and once restored, he gets to work on his plan to reduce God U’s population by 75%, with only the strongest supes left standing.

Slater is aware that playing such a character might seem like an unexpected career move. He’s primarily known for his work as the titular, chipper character of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical and the good-natured Munchkin named Boq in the Wicked movies. But the Tony nominee knows what he’s capable of.

“We see ourselves differently than how other people see us,” Slater said. “So when I see a breakdown for a role like Godolkin, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that makes a lot of sense for me. I think I could do this.’ And I’m glad that the team at Gen V agreed.”

One of the challenges of playing Godolkin was trying to understand his warped point of view.

“You kind of have to love your character, unless they deeply hate themselves, and then you can be self-loathing,” Slater explained. “But I think that I had to learn to love Godolkin.”

As the story progressed, it became increasingly harder to love a character who believes he’s making the world a better place by eliminating the supes that he deems useless or weak.

“He is really bad,” Slater said. “His intentions are bad. He doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as playthings or less than him, and that is just really horrible and despicable. And yet when you’re playing that role, you have to be like, ‘OK, where is he coming from? Why is he doing this? And how can I believe it?’ because I need to believe it.”

Throughout the season, Godolkin works with The Boys character Sister Sage (Susan Heyward), a supe who’s the smartest person in the world. But he diverges from their plan and becomes fixated on controlling Marie and eventually Homelander (Antony Starr), both of whom are the only survivors of Project Odessa. Dismissing Sage’s warning that Homelander is a vital part of her larger plan on The Boys, Godolkin lures Marie to the hero optimization seminar room in the season finale, released on Wednesday.

“He sees himself as a kingmaker, whether it was the V that he was creating in the lab in the ‘60s, or it is project Odessa,” Slater said. “He made Homelander who he is, but he’s lost control. He’s lost the ability to control Homelander in any way. So he needs to make a new king who he does control.”

“And I think that it is really all about power. If he controls the most powerful supe and he uses that to get rid of everybody else, then he has the most power,” he added. “So I just think it really is this distortion of worldview.”

Unbeknownst to him, Marie sneaks in her friends as backup, and a showdown takes place. Godolkin briefly succeeds in puppeteering Marie, but Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) intervenes, breaking his hold and fighting him.

In the end, it’s Marie who delivers the final blow — or pop, rather. Using her blood manipulation powers, she focuses her energy and causes Godolkin’s head to explode.

“I was like, ‘Hell yeah. That’s so cool. I can’t wait to be levitated. I can’t wait to have my skin boil. I can’t wait to explode,” Slater recalls of the moment he learned about how Godolkin would meet his demise. “That’s the best way to go out.”

Godolkin’s story may be over on Gen V, and it’s still unclear if the show will get renewed for a third season. But he could return in another Boys project (there are two spinoffs currently in the works, Vought Rising and The Boys: Mexico), in the form of scenes set before his death. And Slater wouldn’t hesitate to pick up the phone if he got the call.

“Oh yeah,” Slater said. “First of all, I love Thomas Godolkin and I love The Boys universe, so just, flat yes.”

All episodes of season two of Gen V are streaming on Prime Video.