[This story contains spoilers from Gen V season two, episode seven, “Hell Week.”]
For Keeya King, the Gen V actress portraying Marie Moreau’s estranged sister Annabeth, her surprise onscreen debut in the season’s fifth episode was actually her last to film. “As an actor, you’re kind of like, ‘How am I supposed to do this and we haven’t even got the story?’ But that’s the point of acting, and you always shoot things out of order. I went on my own and imagined the scene, and then when it came to shooting all the other stuff, I had that in my memory.”
The moment is a near-death experience, in which Marie (Jaz Sinclair) pushes her powers to save Annabeth after the younger Moreau’s throat is slit in Elmira. The sequence was “a blast,” according to the actress. “Actually shooting that sequence was insane. We just had a blast doing the cut on my neck, and then all the blood everywhere. We have a great makeup team.”
Annabeth’s emergence was two seasons in the making, and sets the Moreau women on a path of reconnection after years of resentment and guilt around their parents’ death. Over the course of several episodes, the two have gone from reluctant roadtrippers to a tentative supe team and family, thanks in part to friends like Emma (Lizze Broadway) and Jordan (Derek Luh, London Thor).
Amid the constant do-or-die situations, the sisters have expanded their relationship and — as is later revealed — both of their powers as the threat of Cipher looms. Yes, Annabeth is also a supe with a form of precognition, or the ability to know or become aware of future events before they happen. Though how she got those powers versus her sister — from V or something else — is not made totally clear.
As for when she got them, while Marie was sent away and abandoned after their parents’ deaths, Annabeth hid her powers from Aunt Pam (Judith Scott) and others, which viewers learn emerged even before Marie’s. So early, in fact, that Annabeth saw the duo’s parents die before it happened.
Regardless, with episode seven, Marie finally has her sister back and the two seem to be healing. But being so focused on protecting her newly found sister, as well as others she loves like Jordan and her friends, has left Marie’s relationship with her ragtag family strained. And that’s largely thanks to a potentially dangerous singular vision that she and only she can stop Cipher and possibly even Homelander (Antony Starr).
As Marie dances with the darker potential of her powers and how to reckon with her Odessa origins, Annabeth plays a key role alongside Polarity (Sean Patrick Thomas), Cate (Maddie Phillips) and Jordan in helping keep her powerful sister — someone she’s always thought of as a monster — from crossing the line into the thing they both hate, and ultimately someone who could more closely resemble Homelander.
In the conversation below tied to episode seven, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with King about Annabeth’s own supe origins, getting over the fear of her sister and the monstrous supe trope, and the family and collective power Annabeth is building with Marie’s friends and partner on her own journey ahead of the season two finale.
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In episode six, while in the bunker, Zoe Neuman (Olivia Morandin) positions Marie as a savior, very different from how viewers understand Annabeth’s relationship to her sister. How does that moment, alongside the fact that Marie essentially saved Annabeth from death, affect her opinion of her sister and whether Marie’s actually a hero or villain?
In season one, we see [Annabeth] say, “You’re a monster. You killed them.” So she has that feeling that her sister is a monster. But then we see Zoe say [she’s] a savior, and it starts to change. She’s like, “What do you mean? This young woman is looking at my sister as a hero? That’s not what I know.” We begin to see little glimpses of Annabeth starting to change her mind, not only about Marie, but also about supes. Annabeth is a supe, but she hates being a supe because of her experience when she was younger. Supes are monsters. They’re not good people. That’s what she believes.
But then she started to spend time with all of these strangers, and is learning maybe these powers can be used for good. I also do think there’s jealousy when she sees Zoe, this young girl having a relationship with her sis. She wants that. She has Aunt Pam, but Aunt Pam actually isn’t blood related. She’s our mom’s friend. So we start to see, especially in episode six, Annabeth wanting to have a sister relationship again. But that would mean complete forgiveness and complete understanding of Marie, and also supes.
In episode seven, viewers see Marie use her powers against her friends following this conversation in Stan Edgar’s bunker about whether Marie is similar or different from Homelander. In that somewhat unsettling scene, the camera focuses on Annabeth’s face, and she has a big reaction. What is running through her head in that moment?
That reaction is so complex. I think it’s a bit of, “Wait, is Marie turning dark, evil? What’s happening there?” But this is also coming from the visions that she’s having. So it’s also like, “Wait, what are these visions trying to tell me?” Because she’s also trying to understand her powers. So what are the visions trying to show, how do we fix it, and how do we get out of it? It’s a layered set of emotions. Ultimately, I do think Annabeth is trying to believe Marie is a good person even though she did some horrible things; she killed our parents. She does want Marie to live and survive, but is she going to be taken over? Is she actually strong enough to handle it?
When talking to Pam in episode three, Marie discovers that Annabeth was the “real miracle” and that no medical intervention was supposedly needed in her conception. Viewers later learn Annabeth is a supe like her sister. Did the writers address with you whether Annabeth received V from her parents? And why do you think she holds them in such high regard and resents Marie, despite the fact that they’re the reason both Marie and Annabeth have their powers?
I was sat down by our showrunner Michele [Fazekas], who told me I was also given powers at inception. I was also told that my powers developed before Marie. But the thing is, she didn’t understand what they were. She just thought they were dreams, [that] something was wrong with her. So a lot of her hatred for Marie is actually hatred for herself. We’re human beings, so sometimes we blame other people, but eventually, girl, you need to take some accountability. They’re [also] kids who don’t know what they have. No one’s there to explain it to you. These kids are given these powers they just don’t know how to control yet.
I do think Annabeth resents her parents as well, and is upset with them. It’s so interesting having you bring up this question. So Annabeth dies, obviously, and is resurrected by Marie, but I toyed with the idea of what would it be like? Who do I see in the afterlife? I saw images of my parents and what they would say. As I was thinking about it, they were like, “I’m sorry. We’re sorry, but we love you both, and you’ll be back. Marie will bring you back.” So I embedded that in my performance, as in, they told me that they apologize and they love us, and eventually they would love for us to sort of reconcile and be a family again.
By episode seven, Annabeth has settled in a little more with Marie’s friends, learning more about Marie and her relationships and life, and what it is to be a supe. Do you think she accepts herself at this point? Do you think she wants to be a part of and has found power in this collective family with Marie, or does she still want to go back to Pam ahead of what’s on the horizon?
There’s still a lot of grief about our parents passing, about a lot of time wasted. What’s really cool is that we see later on Annabeth has to spend time with Jordan and Emma, and she sort of embraces this supe life, and what it could look like, how you could do it, or how you can exist in a way that’s helpful to humanity [with them]. Maybe they’re not so bad. I do think she eventually starts leaning towards thinking, maybe what’s inside of me isn’t so bad. Maybe I should give this life, especially with Marie, a chance. She starts leaning towards that, and I do think it’s greatly in part, because of her time with Jordan.
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The Gen V season two finale streams Wednesday, Oct. 22 on Prime Video.
