‘Gen V’ Star Maddie Phillips On Cate’s Season 2 Redemption Arc

Maddie Phillips as Cate Dunlap on season two of “Gen V.”

Prime Video

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

Maddie Phillips never saw herself as someone who liked to stay in one place for too long, professionally or personally.

“I have always had a fear of being trapped on a show, because I love to switch it up in my life in all kinds of ways,” Phillips says over Zoom. “I don’t like feeling settled. I have a beautiful place that I share with my best friend here in Vancouver, but I also float around a lot, and I love to stay with friends in different places.”

But for the past couple of years, the actor has made a home for herself playing a telepath named Cate Dunlap on Prime Video’s Gen Va college-set spinoff of the hit superhero satire series The Boys.

Returning for season two of Gen V was a fresh challenge for Phillips and she felt like she was playing “a totally different character” this time around.

After instigating the massacre at Godolkin University in season one, Cate spends much of season two seeking redemption and trying to convince everyone that she’s not the same person who did Vought’s bidding.

“Her intentions are always aligned with what her current perspective is,” Phillips says. “And I find that I keep talking about perspective when I’m talking about Cate.”

Maddie Phillips as Cate Dunlap and Lizze Broadway as Emma Meyer on season two, episode five of “Gen V.”

Jasper Savage/Prime Video

Phillips has a lot of sympathy for Cate, whose supe abilities of persuasion and memory manipulation manifested for the first time when she was 9 years old, got irritated by her younger brother and told him to leave and never come back. He was never found, and Cate’s parents locked her away because she was deemed dangerous.

Because Cate grew up in an environment where she couldn’t assimilate into society, she became impressionable and easily manipulated by people like last season’s villain, Dean Indira Shetty (Shelley Conn).

“As soon as somebody influences you that also makes you feel safe, your perspective becomes really warped,” Phillips says. “And every time she does something, makes a decision, it always comes from a place of her truth, which is why it’s so frustrating for her when people don’t understand her and don’t think that she’s doing the right thing, because in her mind, it is the right thing. That’s what she’s been programmed thus far to believe.”

After suffering a brutal skull injury early in the season, which damages her powers, Cate struggles to feel useful. And Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair), who has healing abilities, refuses to help Cate because she can’t trust her with that kind of power again.

“It’s tricky, because as the actor, you have to really deeply understand where they’re coming from,” Phillips says. “And so I did find that I was feeling really defensive of Cate.”

In episode sevenMarie, determined to face Cipher (Hamish Linklater) alone, uses her powers against her friends and tells Cate that she’ll heal her if she promises to push them to go away to protect them. As much as Cate desperately wants her powers back, she refuses because she vowed never to use her powers against any of them again — and she meant it.

“I think that was a really great example of Cate being able to see what it looks like when somebody uses powers against somebody else for what they think is a good reason,” Phillips says. “And I think it took that for Cate to really understand the broader picture of it all.”

Maddie Phillips as Cate on season two, episode seven of “Gen V.”

Prime Video

In the finaleMarie finally understands how Vought convinced Cate that she was special, just as Thomas Godolkin (Ethan Slater) manipulated her. In an emotional scene, Marie tells Cate that she forgives her and finally heals her.

“I remember reading that part of the script and having a huge sigh of relief and gratitude, and I felt really emotional,” Phillips says. “I feel emotional even talking about it now. I really hoped that would happen, because I do believe that Cate and Marie are mirrors for each other in some really interesting ways.”

Filming the scene was just as emotional for Phillips.

“I love working with Jaz,” she says. “I feel so supported by her, and I have so much trust when we’re working together, and we do have a really beautiful friendship outside of the show, too. And so it was really easy for me to just tell the truth in my lines, and sort of fall into her eyes and just really have this pure moment of, ‘I understand you, you understand me. So let’s just put everything else aside and just surrender to that feeling.’”

Maddie Phillips and Jaz Sinclair on the season two finale of “Gen V.”

Prime Video

At the end of the finale, after Cate and her friends defeat Godolkin, they flee the campus and join The Boys characters Annie January/Starlight (Erin Moriarty) and A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) in the resistance against Vought and Homelander (Antony Starr).

Phillips says that Moriarty and Usher “have always been extremely sweet and supportive to all of us” since the beginning, and they brought “lightness” to the set while filming their cameos.

After two seasons of Gen V Phillips would happily continue playing the often-misunderstood telepath for as long as The Boys co-creator and showrunner Eric Kripke decides.

“I have so much trust in Eric Kripke, so whatever he thinks is best, I am on board with,” Phillips says.

“The arc is so dynamic,” she adds. “The layers are also so dynamic and so interesting and fun. And so I just know that if this keeps going, I’m going to be having a good time and feeling fulfilled.”

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