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This article contains\u00a0spoilers\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>for “Gen V” season 2, episode 7 \u2014 “Hell Week”<\/em><\/p>\n In “Gen V” season 2, the biggest secret has been the true nature of Dean Cipher (Hamish Linklater, “Midnight Mass”) and his fascination with Marie Moreau’s (Jaz Sinclair, “When the Bough Breaks”) bloodbender powers. The penultimate episode finally reveals what Cipher is about … and true to form, the show has an ace up its sleeve. Instead of acting in his own agency, Cipher is merely a helpless meat puppet, piloted by the season’s true big bad:\u00a0Thomas Godolkin, the God U founder-slash-Cipher’s horrendously injured father.<\/p>\n As it turns out, there’s also another, equally fun revelation hiding behind the scenes. Perhaps to offset the character’s true nature and importance to the story, the actor playing the secret villain of “Gen V”\u00a0season 2 is Ethan Slater. A comparatively obscure name whose r\u00e9sum\u00e9 largely consists of guest star roles in shows like “The Marvelous Ms. Maisel,” he doesn’t particularly radiate villainy when we first see him in episode 1. In fact, his biggest screen role to date is the magnanimous Munchkin Boq in “Wicked:\u00a0Part I.” However, Slater is a considerably bigger name on Broadway. In 2018, he even landed a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a musical: “SpongeBob\u00a0SquarePants:\u00a0The Musical.”\u00a0Slater’s celebrated role? Why, SpongeBob himself, of course.<\/p>\n The casting game of “Gen V” has always been on point. Still, it seems to me that hiding the most ominous villain of the entire franchise behind a terrifying Hamish Linklater<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>hiring a guy who’s best known for playing SpongeBob and a Munchkin to depict him is next level stuff, and should by all rights earn Casting Director Jackie Davies a nice Christmas bonus.<\/p>\n