Who is Thomas Godolkin? The real mastermind behind Cipher in Gen V season 2, explained

Gen V season 2, the Prime Video spin-off from The Boys, premiered on September 17, 2025, is set at Godolkin University, a training ground for young superheroes. The show follows Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), a freshman who manipulates blood, as she competes for Vought International’s favor in a brutal, high-stakes environment. 

Alongside her are Jordan Li (London Thor and Derek Luh), a shape-shifter switching between male and female forms, Emma Meyer (Lizze Broadway), who alters her size, and Andre Anderson (Chance Perdomo), a magnetic supe reeling from personal loss.

The season dives into Vought’s shady experiments with Compound V, the substance that creates superpowers, and uncovers Project Odessa, a secretive program tied to Marie’s origins. The plot thickens with Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater), a cruel figure pushing Marie’s abilities to dangerous limits.

Episode 7 delivers a bombshell: Cipher is a facade. The real villain is Thomas Godolkin, the university’s founder, a telepath who controls bodies remotely. Using non-supe Doug Brightbill as his puppet, Godolkin manipulates events to resurrect his original body, which Marie unknowingly heals. His plan to eliminate 75% of supes for a superior race flips the narrative, turning a presumed ally into the season’s deadliest threat. 

Thomas Godolkin: The mastermind behind Cipher in Gen V season 2

Thomas Godolkin isn’t just Gen V’s puppet master; he’s a cornerstone of Vought’s sinister past. As the university’s founder, his ties to Frederick Vought, a N*zi scientist who developed Compound V, put him in the company’s darkest chapters. Flashbacks in Season 2 show Godolkin as a white supremacist obsessed with supe supremacy, experimenting to control and enhance them. 

A catastrophic lab fire, depicted in episode 7, supposedly killed him, but he survived, barely, in a scarred body sustained by a hyperbaric chamber. From there, his telepathic powers let him possess others, like Doug Brightbill, to pose as Cipher.

This ruse explains Cipher’s mysteries: no Compound V in his blood, no past records, and a body in the chamber he claimed was his father’s. Godolkin’s schemes span decades, from running Project Odessa—linked to Marie’s supe origins—to conducting brutal experiments at Elmira prison, where Jordan recalls his cruelty.

His alliance with The Boys’ Sister Sage and his manipulation of Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas) to investigate Andre’s death tighten his grip on the narrative. Godolkin’s goal, revealed to Polarity, is to strengthen supes by killing 75% of them, sparing only the most powerful. Marie’s power to heal, pushed to its limits by Cipher’s training, becomes his ticket to resurrection. In Episode 7, her attempt to ally with Godolkin against Cipher backfires when she heals his body, unleashing a killer who immediately slaughters students. 

Stan Edgar’s episode 6 claim that Godolkin could rival Homelander (Antony Starr) underscores his threat—his telepathy can hijack anyone, from friends like Emma to foes. This twist reframes the season’s stakes. Marie’s crew, already fractured by loss, faces a villain whose immortality and mind control make him nearly unstoppable. Godolkin’s vision of a supe elite mirrors The Boys’ critique of power, blending real world issues like eugenics with the show’s dark humor and gore.

Ethan Slater: The man behind the role

Ethan Slater, born in 1992 in Washington, D.C., plays Thomas Godolkin with chilling precision. A Vassar graduate, he’s best known for starring as SpongeBob SquarePants on Broadway in 2017, earning a Tony nomination and Drama Desk Award.

Slater’s shift from SpongeBob’s cheer to Godolkin’s menace shows his range. He also played Boq in 2024’s Wicked movie and will appear in Wicked: For Good in 2025. He also appeared in Fosse/Verdon as a dancer, plus Murphy Brown and Assassins on stage. Slater told TheWrap -

“I was pretty stoked about it. It was fun to play a contrasting character, to get to do something that feels like [something] I haven’t gotten to do exactly, professionally, at this point."

He also added-

“It is a funny thing to see people be like, ‘Wait, SpongeBoq is in this? I played Spongebob and I play Boq, and Thomas Godolkin is not either of these people, and I am really appreciating that people are able to see that.”

Gen V Season 2 finale will drop on Prime Video at 3 a.m. ET on Wednesday October 22, 2025.

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