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The Boys universe is many things, but subtle is not one of them. And thank god for that! The same goes for its spinoff, the college-set Gen V. Superpowers, algorithmic manipulation, family drama—it all operates at a bloodied yowl. So it’s fitting that the editing of Season 2 feels like grabbing a live wire. And returning editor Maura Corey (also a returning Crafty friend!) didn’t hesitate to come back for more. Specifically Episodes 4 and 8, both high-concept, high-drama hours.

“I have such a great rapport and shorthand with Michele Fazekas,” she says of the showrunner. “ I speak ‘Michele’ when it comes to storytelling. We did two shows before that only made it one season, so having a second season with her… I just could not say no. And I love that this show stretches different muscles for me.”

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Her recent work on Nobody Wants This leaned comedic and grounded, but Gen V demands something else entirely: action slashed through with satire, sincerity twined with spectacle. It also demands fluency in the language of modern chaos. By Season 2, the show’s fictional world—once a satire of contemporary politics—had swerved closer to reality than anyone intended. “It’s so reflective of Gen Z, and how our worldview gets shaped by  algorithms,” Corey says.

Cutting Superpowers Out of Thin Air

One of the most exhilarating (and ridiculous) parts of editing Gen V is the raw footage itself. “ Superheroes, a lot of times their power is manifested in a look on a face or a hand being outstretched and and that’s it,” she says. “That’s what you get. They’re miming their power. So if you didn’t have the sound effects and you didn’t have music, it would look pretty silly.” (I immediately imagined watching Bewitched on mute.)

Corey starts by shaping the rhythm of a scene using those gestures. Then the VFX team creates temp effects, and she looks again to see what the scene now requires in terms of pacing. Only then can she see whether a moment needs more punch. In the Season 2 finale, a fight originally cut as a straightforward brawl suddenly felt empty. “We realized these [previously unseen] kids would have powers,” she says. “So we added things. Like she shoves a guy, and laser eyes go spinning around. That’s something that came after the fact. That’s the malleability of special effects.”

It’s creative problem-solving blended with budget reality. “If you have enough money, effects are limitless—but nobody has that money,” she says. “Except maybe Marvel.”

Music, Algorithms, and a Dancing Sociopath

Season 2’s finale also contains one of Corey’s favorite sequences: the villainous puppeteering dance to the death set to “Get Happy.” The song wasn’t locked at first—and no, her first cut wasn’t short. “My first edit was probably 40 seconds longer,” she says, laughing. “They had me cut it back.” But the sequence’s DNA was baked into the script: a musical window into a character shaped by another era. Corey loved crafting cues that grounded Ethan Slater’s aged Goldokin in time and culture—sometimes picking era-specific songs to find the perfect fit. “ When we see him eating and it’s ‘What a Day for a Daydream,’ I picked that out of a hat because I thought it was montage-y when I got the footage. I’m like, ‘He’s eating all this stuff. It’s gross. It’s funny. What would somebody be listening to?’”

Balancing Heartbreak and Chainsaws

Tone is always the tightrope. Gen V moves from shocking violence to earnest emotion within minutes, and the edit has to keep the urgency intact. In Episode 8, a key breakup between Marie and Jordan had to land emotionally without derailing the ticking clock of an apocalypse. “If an emotional scene goes too long, you undercut the life-and-death stakes,” Corey says. “You want to feel it, but not overwhelm the urgency.”

That philosophy also guided a major restructuring of a scene: removing a character from a found-family conversation. Initially, Annabeth was seen in the room the whole time, silently listening to a heart-to-heart. “It diluted the scene,” Corey explains. “We cut around her and made it about the core trio. Suddenly, it worked.”

Editing in a Universe With Rules—and Rule Breakers

Corey cuts on Avid, mostly for its multi-user capabilities. “My assistants and VFX editor can drop things in instantly. It’s a communal experience,” she explains. Learning each show’s internal “language”—like what a producer might mean by the cryptic “make it smile”—is part of the job. That includes learning the lore of an entire universe and the recurring sound effects. “ I’ll be like, ‘OK, who’s got the sound effect for Kate when she can’t get her powers working? Can somebody find that for me?”

The Wild Ride of Episodic TV

And finally, there’s the thrill of unpredictability. With most TV shows, every episode has a different director. “They come in with their own palette, so you have to balance what their palette is and give it the best story you can for them, but also maintain the show’s visual style guide. But everybody’s got their own nuance. And same with editors. I think that’s what makes episodic television awesome to watch. Episode 4 has a different feeling than Episode 8, but it doesn’t feel like a different show. It’s just got a different flavor to it.”

And after a long day in the Gen V edit bay, Corey turns to a very different flavor when it comes to her personal viewing.  “The things I watch on TV are like sitcoms. Party Down, that’s a chill show for me. But when I’m cutting comedies like Nobody Wants This, I’m like, ‘Ooh, give me deep sci-fi stuff, something with a lot of effects.”

Maura Coreyis a three-time Emmy nominee and two-time ACE Eddie Award nominee, including a nod for her work on the Nobody Wants This pilot. Her credits include Acapulco, Teachers, and Key & Peele. Her go-to at crafty? String cheese.