The Gifted, Season 1, Episode 2: rX
The second episode of the Gifted continue to tell an interesting X-Men story. Again, nothing in this episode is particularly ground-breaking compared to the various X-Men movies and cartoons that has cropped up over the past decade, but it's still very refreshing to watch nonetheless.
The second episode shows and develops our characters a little more, and even the bowling game that acts as the cold open, a view to the Strucker family's past life, is engaging because it shows how Reed Strucker behaves as a 'well, I won't stand up for mutant rights but at least I help them out, right?' putting Reed neatly in the gray area between the mutants' version of a social justice warrior and an asshole racist. And the episode allows Caitlin and Reed to explore this gray area very well.
On one hand, as Caitlin notes, "my children are mutants!" But as Eclipse very clearly tells her... "would you have done this if it's not your kids?" to which Caitlin has absolutely no answer. And yes, while we see Reed stand up for that vibrating mutant kid in the bowling alley, it's to the effect of 'go home before they lynch you' and not confronting the racist bastards and telling them to stop laughing at them. Lauren even calls Reed out on that. Oh, and Lauren, already a mutant at this point (we see her have a little cheating bit during the bowling alley to hammer it home) is distinctly uncomfortable at the racism being thrown around and her questions are very well-inserted, a closet mutant trying to fit in, but knowing that her family is inadvertently racist despite it all.
The rest of the episode is more of establishing plot points. Reed spends most of the episode in an interrogation room with Jace Turner, whose daughter was killed in a battle between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, and he gives another unique viewpoint. These are mutants, after all, beings that can shoot laser beams out of their eyes or kill with a single touch. He doesn't really care if it's the "good mutant or bad mutant" that killed his daughter, only that she died. Jace doesn't seem to be too evil in the way that William Stryker from the movies is, just a government dude doing his job. At the end of the day, Jace manages to cut a deal with Reed to make him sell out the Underground, which is interesting to see. It's the weakest part of the episode, I think, simply because it feels so much like stalling, but eh.
Polaris is another one whose story is mostly standalone, she spends the entire episode in prison with her powers disabled, and her attempts to gain help from this bald white-skinned mutant is rebuffed. This big scarfaced lady has basically taken over the powerless mutants in the prison, and basically wants to make Polaris her bitch. Polaris (who finally gets her natural green hair here, yay!) ends up getting roughed up by prisoners and wardens alike, and while it's not much to make her stand out as a character, she's still put in a pretty interesting position. She's broken at the end of it all, sobbing in solitary, but I'm curious if that other mutant (I have no idea who any of these characters other than Blink, Polaris and Thunderbird are, and I want to keep it that way) will end up being her BFF and she'll break out herself.
Meanwhile, Caitlin and Eclipse go off to get drugs from a hospital to help stabilize Blink, and Caitlin gets to see the sheer amount of racism that the mutants get. From needing to go to special hospitals, or having rights denied if they're 'dangerous' mutants, or Eclipse's rather anvilicious speech about how rights can be revoked so easily if any normal human demand otherwise, is a great contrast to Jace's speech about how humans are the downtrodden one. The doctor talking to Caitlin and asking if Eclipse's injury is a case of domestic injury (they were posing as a couple to sneak into the hospital ER) is a very neat little touch. It's all ham-handed, of course, but it's still told well and that's what matters.
Meanwhile, Blink spends most of the episode unconscious, and her power absolutely malfunctions, opening portals everywhere, and in particular a strip of roadway that ends up causing policemen and later a SWAT team to gather. Caitlin is forced with the reality that her kids are basically required thanks to their awesome powers, and Lauren in particular use her compressed-air-bubble thing to close Blink's portals. It's just cool powers and mostly showing Lauren and Andy to use their powers, and a chance for Lauren to look cool. Oh, and we also establish that Thunderbird is also immune to bullets and not just able to track things.
Also absolutely love how a chunk of a random car gets sheared off by Blink's portal -- Blink's powers give some of the best visual flair into the episode. Also loved all the random nameless mutants in the background of both the prison and the underground, by the way.
The episode ends with a sour note. The mutant underground base is absolutely trashed thanks to Polaris going out of control, Polaris is in prison and while no one died Reed is prepared to sell out the mutants and there is something about a brother-sister mutant pairing in the past that fucked up Rio (a reference to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, maybe?) it's interesting to see where this show goes to in the future.
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