How does generator * / splat unpacking work?

Let’s say I have some function f that will accept a variable number of arguments:

def f(*args):
    for a in args:
        print(a)

Below I call on this function three ways:

Case 1: Passing in a generator expression without parenthesis:

f(l for l in range(5))
>>> <generator object <genexpr> at 0x1234>

Case 2: Passing in a generator expression with parenthesis:

f((l for l in range(5)))
>>> <generator object <genexpr> at 0x1234>

Case 3: Passing in a generator expression with parenthesis and then expanding it with * aka splat:

f(*(l for l in range(5)))
>>> 0
>>> 1
>>> 2
>>> 3
>>> 4

Here are my questions:

1. Testing for equality, f(l for l in range(5)) == f((l for l in range(5))) returns:

   <generator object <genexpr> at 0x7f8b2a5df570>
   <generator object <genexpr> at 0x7f8b2a5df570>
   True
   

   This indicates to me that the parenthesis around the generator expression don’t actually do anything. Is that correct?

2. What is happening in case 1 and 2? When called individually, the output indicates that it created a generator. Further, when tested for equality in question 2 above, while I would have expected a simple True/False output, it couldn’t help itself and showed me that it created a generator object for each of the function calls(?). That said, if I assign the output to a new variable, i.e. f2 = f(l for l in range(5)), f2 is NoneType and f2.__next__() throws an error (TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not an iterator), indicating to me that the generator I just created can’t be assigned to a variable.
3. Are the parenthesis in case 3 simply there to package up my expression so that it can be * expanded? Put another way, are the parenthesis only there because *l for l in range(5) can’t be understood by the interpreter?
4. In case 3, what is the order of operations?
5. Continuing from the previous question – in case 3, what does f() "see"?
6. What is the correct verbiage to describe case 3? "Expanding a generator and passing it into a function"? Is any of my phraseology above incorrect?

Context:

Should it help, I’m reading this Real Python tutorial on asyncio, in which they repeatedly use generator expansions(?) like:

async def main():
    res = await asyncio.gather(*(makerandom(i, 10 - i - 1) for i in range(3)))
    return res

…which I gather is equal to:

async def main():
    res = await asyncio.gather(makerandom(0, 9),makerandom(1, 8), makerandom(2, 7))
    return res

…but this is the first time in my Python career that I’ve really confronted The Generator Arts.