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| “ | I'm trying to show you what kind of a monster she is! She wants to wipe us off the face of the earth! They all do. So we have to strike first. Starting with her! | „ |
| ~ Cate before forcing Indira Shetty to commit suicide. |
| “ | But Marie… you are not a person. You are a product to them! A freak! I'm trying to save you! | „ |
| ~ Cate Dunlap to Marie Moreau. |
| “ | Anything you need, Homelander. | „ |
| ~ Cate pledging loyalty to Homelander. |
Cate Dunlap is one of the two deuteragonists (alongside Jordan Li) of the spin-off series Gen V, and a minor antagonist in Season 4 of Amazon Prime's The Boys.
She is a popular junior student at Godolkin University and was initially the girlfriend of the number one-ranked student, Golden Boy. While not initially a villain, she eventually develops resentment towards non-powered individuals, fueled by the mistreatment she endures from ordinary humans. This resentment escalates, eventually leading her to incite a riot against innocent non-Supes.
She is portrayed by Maddie Phillips (who also portrayed Harper Sayles in Supernatural) in the present, while her younger version, during flashbacks, is portrayed by Violet Marino.
Biography[]
Background[]
Like most supes, Cate was injected with Compound V when she was still an infant on behalf of Vought International with the permission of her parents, who were very likely compensated monetarily.
Cate's powers first manifested when she was 9 years old and was out camping with her family when her little brother was irritating her and so she told him to leave and never come back, while she wasn't aware of it at the time, powers actually caused her brother to obey and walk into the forest, after which he was never seem again even after a 3 week long search afford by the police.
Scared of her, her parents would keep her locked in her room for the next nine years of her life, where she was kept educated by online tutoring, and they also forced her to wear gloves to stop her from accidentally using her powers. At some point during her confinement, she learned about and developed a sexual attraction towards Soldier Boy, who became her imaginary friend.
At the end of her nine years of confinement, she was visited by Indira Shetty, who proceeded to help her by showing kindness towards her, giving her pills that limited her powers (making it so she stopped unwantedly hearing the thoughts of others, which caused her distress), and getting her admitted into Godolkin University, thus putting an end to her confinement.
Gen V[]
Season 1[]
At Godolkin University, Cate would meet Luke Riordan aka Golden Boy during her crime-fighting lessons. Golden boy would compliment her by saying she looks smart and asking if she could maybe help him cheat during tests. They would later become a couple. It was at this point that Shetty and Richard Brinkerhoff would enroll Cate in their secret experiments, during which they would attempt to transfer the powers from Sam Riordan, Golden Boy's brother, onto Golden Boy, which caused immense physical and psychological distress to the both of them. Cate's job in this ordeal would be to erase Golden Boy's mind after each experiment, keep him calm, and also make it so she forgot his brother was alive at all.
Eventually, Golden Boy would come to remember the fact his brother is alive, in part due to constant visions of a place called "The Woods" (which was the name of the facility in which these experiments happened), and all of that would culminate in Golden Boy confronting Brinkerhoff in an attempt to rescue his brother. Golden Boy would kill Brinkerhoff by burning him alive and, due to Marie Moreau witnessing it, would later kill himself by self-detonating.
After an investigation led by Andre Anderson, Golden boy's best friend, he finds out about Sam and decides to, with the help of Emma Meyer, rescue Sam from The Woods, which they successfully do, but not without attracting the attention of the University and Shetty, who became director after the death of Brinkerhoff. To help her friends escape trouble, Cate makes a deal with Shetty, who at this point sees that Cate has an adopted daughter, where Cate will erase Marie's, Emma's, Andre's, and Jordan's memories about Sam and The Woods in exchange for the university sweeping everything that happened under the rug.
Cate's plan, however, fails, and her friends eventually recover their memories with the help of Sam. Her friends confront her for having erased their memories, which causes her to, under immense stress, enter a coma-like state in which she has a very intense and hurtful dream, which her friends get pulled into by her powers. Eventually, Cate decides that it is not worth it to continue living and decides not to wake up, but her friends, Marie, Jordan, and Andre, convince her not to commit suicide.
All of them wake up and, now united, decide to confront Shetty for her crimes. They invade her house, and Cate uses her powers to order Shetty to be honest with them, making her unable to lie. Cate and Sam, at this point, want to kill Shetty, but her friends disagree. Cate ignores them and slits Shetty's throat while also using her powers to stop Marie from helping Shetty.
Cate using her powers
Shetty dies, and her friends disavow Cate and Sam for their actions. Now radicalized, Cate and Sam decide all humans deserve to pay for mistreating them. From the torture Sam endured during the experiments to Cate's 9-year-long isolation forced upon her by her human parents, they decide to free all the supes currently contained inside of The Woods, killing all of the guards guarding them and releasing all of them into the university, at which point they beg for a massacre of any humans they find.
"Guardians of Godolkin"
Marie, Jordan, Emma, and Andre, now set on stopping Cate, begin trying to save whoever they can from the newly released supes and fighting them directly which eventually leads to a direct confrontation between Marie and Cate, in which Marie uses her blood powers to make Cate's arm explode before being stopped by Homelander, who lasers Marie and stops her from stopping Cate and her massacre.
Vought International then frames the massacre on Marie, Jordan, Emma, and Andre while saying that Cate and Sam stopped them, thus being framed as the heroes, the "Guardians of Godolkin".
The Boys[]
Season 4[]
Cate and Sam are among the group of supes gathered in the Seven's meeting room to hear Homelander's declaration that they will eventually rise from superheroes into gods.
Another gathering has Homelander ordered his subordinates to murder Vought propagandist Cameron Cole, due to him being framed as the leak, who was actually A-Train. Cate mercilessly aided in beating Cole to death.
When the Boys separate for safety, so they can regroup later, Vought - likely via Sister Sage - orchestrated multiple ambush teams to capture the vigilantes. Cate and Sam, along with a support of black op troops, are sent after Frenchie and Kimiko. Cate used her power of mind-control to force Frenchie to follow her to be detained without resistance, while Sam used his super strength to overpower Kimiko, to prevent her from helping her recently started boyfriend.
Gen V[]
Season 2[]
A year has passed since the events of Season 1 of Gen V, and Cate has cemented herself as a loyal ally to Vought and as Godolkin's Top Student. It's revealed Cate has little ideological common ground with Vought, and her reason for joining was actually so that she could get her friends (Emma, Marie, Jordan and Andre) released from Elmira. Cate is partially successful, freeing Emma and Jordan--however she discovers that Marie had escaped on her lonesome, and that Andre had died while confined in Elmira. This revelation breaks Cate, and she goes to confront the new dean of Godolkin, Cipher, as to why he hadn't informed her of Andre's demise. After being brushed off, Cate attempts to mind control Cipher, who easily disarms her and nearly puts her hand into a blender, but stops after forcing Cate to agree to never try to control him again. Cate is later seen at a Frat Party, where she stalks Jordan and Emma from afar, and decides to follow them once she discovers they're trying to reunite with Marie. Cate crashes the reunion of Emma Marie and Jordan, begging Marie to come back to God U for her own safety. But after reading Marie's mind, she realizes Marie has met up with and made a deal with the fugitive hero Starlight, which sends her into a spiral. Cate immediately begs Marie to come back to Godolkin and state where she saw Starlight, fearing that if her non compliance and agreement with Starlight was discovered, Vought would torture Marie and possibly her friends as well. After Marie refuses, Cate attempts to mind control Marie, but is intercepted by Jordan Li who sends her flying into an electrical box that fries her brain and cracks open her skull. Cate begs for Emma Meyer to save her, but the rest of the group quickly leaves her to bleed out, fearing Vought's consequences.
Cate is hospitalized and revealed to be alive, but comatose, and is visited by Sam Rioridan. While visiting, Cate subconsciously possesses a nurse and speaks through her, before compelling said Nurse to stab the Senior Doctor in the eye, and giving Sam a vague message about Emma.
Cate awakens later on, but has lost complete control of her powers. She reluctantly agrees to play nice with Jordan Marie and Emma at Cipher's suggest, feigning friendship with the trio. She later attends Jordan's coronation as the new No.1 of Godolkin, where she is shocked to hear Jordan confess to assaulting her and is later forced to go on livestream calling it fake news and saying that Jordan would do "anything for the likes."
The group later seeks Cate out with the hope Cate could use her powers to help them sneak into his home and figure out who he is, as well as use her powers to possibly push him and prevent him from forcing a fight between Marie and Cate, a plan which she reluctantly agrees to.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Telepathy: Cate possesses diverse telepathic powers such as persuasion, alteration of emotions, manipulation of memories, and astral projection. Persuasion is her most used power, and she controls whoever she wants with the physical contact of her hands. She used her persuasion to enter parties without paying, erase memories, put enemies to sleep, cause suicides, and manipulate allies completely.
- Memory Imprisonment: Cate unintentionally managed to knock out Marie, Jordan, Andre, and Dusty and merge everyone's minds, sharing memories and secrets in an astral plane in her mind. Dusty was even unintentionally killed by Cate in the astral projection.
- Superhuman Durability: Like most other supes, Cate has a level of durability far superior to that of humans; she easily withstood being thrown to the ground by Sam, completely breaking a table in the process, and immediately got up with no injuries. She also didn't pass out after the blood loss from her arm getting exploded by Marie.
- Superhuman Hearing: All Supes have better hearing than humans, able to hear certain frequencies that humans cannot.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Like most other supes, Cate has a level of regenerative healing powers; she constantly heals from injuries in her eyes caused by the use of Indira Shetty's pills.
Weaknesses[]
- Overexertion Consequences: Using her powers excessively can lead Cate to suffer seizures and eye bleeding.
- High Frequencies: Because Cate is a Supe, she is vulnerable to high frequencies . When exposed to such frequencies, she experiences severe pain and can be temporarily neutralized.
Quotes[]
| “ | You're gonna take a little jog over to Dick's Sporting Goods. Buy yourself a nice Louisville slugger. Bring it right back to the quad and swing that bat as hard as you can into your nuts. Every hour, on the hour. And every time you swing, yell "Jumanji." Sound good? | „ |
| ~ Cate Dunlap to Rufus. |
Gallery[]
.webp "Cate Promo (1).webp (178 KB)")
Trivia[]
- She’s based on Emma Frost from the X-Men comics, being a beautiful young blonde-haired woman with blue eyes, who suffered from a problematic childhood and discovered her incredibly powerful mental abilities, eventually ended up among a group of similarly powerful people (Hellfire Club in case of Emma, The Seven in case of Cate), permitting herself to become convinced she and those like her were superior to ordinary humans. She is also based on Jean Grey, as Cate’s relationship with Thomas Godolkin/Cipher in the second season of Gen V echoes that of Professor X and Jean Grey.
- Also, her initial fear of her own powers, based on the possibility to uncontrollably harm people with a single touch, heavily resembles Rogue.
- She is also a villainous parody of Charles Xavier with her relationship - while made romantic - with a ferrokinetic Andre Anderson being inspired by Xavier's complicated bond with Magneto. Also, their roles are swapped as she is the supremacist, while he fights for humanity and supes united.
External Link[]
- Cate Dunlap on the Heroes Wiki
- Cate Dunlap on the The Boys Wiki
