Chilling Adventures of Sabrina star Chance Perdomo died last March in a motorcycle accident. It was a tragedy, and one that left The Boys spin-off Gen V in something of a predicament.
As Andre, the actor played one of the show's main characters. When we last saw him, he'd been taken to the Elmira Adult Rehabilitation Center along with his fellow young Supes. Speculation about whether the role should be recast or if Andre would die off-screen soon did the rounds online; however, Gen V's creative team quickly made it clear that Perdomo wouldn't be replaced.
Gen V season 2 opens with a simple tribute, "For Chance," and later reveals that Andre discovered a narrow maintenance pipe he and Marie could escape through. However, he refused to leave their friends behind and went back to get them.
By then, the pipe had been blocked off, leaving Jordan and Emma to watch on as Andre did his best to break through the massive steel door before the overexertion of his magnetic abilities sent him into a stroke, caused by the Neural Micro-Tears his father also suffered from. As you might expect, his heroic sacrifice isn't shown, but is recounted by other characters.
Talking to TV Line, showrunner Michele Fazekas explained, "We wanted to honor him, and in order to honor the person that Chance was, we have to treat this like what it is, which is grieving someone who is gone. But knowing that you’re doing a television show about superheroes at college, how do you fit that very real, very serious emotion into the world of this show?"
"The answer is that you just fit it into the world of the show, like people fit grief into their lives. Sometimes people are inappropriate, sometimes people are cracking jokes and sometimes people are angry."
Marie is devastated to learn that Andre has died, and Fazekas made a point of praising the cast's performance in these scenes. "We really did try, in a show about superheroes at college, to make [this loss] as real as possible. I think it really worked, and I think the actors are so good at it. Lizze [Broadway] and Jaz, they all really sort of showed a piece of themselves in the show."
In Gen V season 2, the acclaimed spin-off series set in the Emmy Award-winning world of The Boys, school is back in session. As the rest of America adjusts to Homelander's iron fist, back at Godolkin University, the mysterious new Dean preaches a curriculum that promises to make students more powerful than ever.
Cate and Sam are celebrated heroes, while Marie, Jordan, and Emma reluctantly return to college, burdened by months of trauma and loss. But parties and classes are hard to care about with war brewing between Humans and Supes, both on and off campus.
Gen V season 2 stars Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau, Lizze Broadway as Emma Meyer, Maddie Phillips as Cate Dunlap, London Thor as Jordan Li, Derek Luh as Jordan Li, Asa Germann as Sam Riordan, Sean Patrick Thomas as Polarity and Hamish Linklater as Dean Cipher.
The first three episodes of Gen V are now streaming on Prime Video.