The Gifted S01E11 Review: Cuckoo Clock

The Gifted, Season 1, Episode 11: 3 X 1

I completely forgot about Gifted for a while, but apparently the first season's ended, and that there's some really good stuff about it. And with only three episodes left (and two of them happening in a two-parter season finale), there's really not much left for the Gifted to do other than, y'know, to set up the finale. And that's really what "3 X 1" aims to do. The titular Three-in-One is the Frost Sisters, otherwise known as the Stepford Cuckoos in the comic books, a trio of telepathic mutants that is revealed in this episode to work for longtime X-Men antagonist, the Hellfire Club. And the Frost Sisters play the part of the tempting devil in this episode, egging the Mutant Underground to take the fight to Sentinel Services. 

The thing is... a good chunk of this episode is just stalling. We get Marcos and Polaris asking each other to trust the other. We get Blink and Thunderbird debating about trust. We got Caitlin arguing with background character Fade about the Struckers's trustworthiness. We got Reed arguing with Andy, and later on Lauren arguing with Andy, who's growing increasingly jaded with the fact that the Mutant Underground spends most of their time running away from the humans, going down the slippery slope of "well maybe they should fear us" mentality. And the fact that the Struckers decide to run away again, only to come crawling back to the Mutant Underground at the end of the episode? That's not particularly flattering, and no wonder there's implied trust issues between the Struckers and the non-main-cast members of the Underground. Reed and Catelyn has been so wiffly-waffly about sticking around with the mutants that it's genuinely insulting about their "we've given so much to be one of you!" speeches.

And that's the inherent problem with the Gifted as a show, really. When all of these conversations were fresh and the characters were relative unknowns, they were interesting. Now? Now they're just repetitive and tiresome, and this comes from someone who haven't seen an episode of the Gifted in months. And I guess that's why the Frost Sisters brighten up every scene they set foot in. I mean, besides the fact that they're quite pleasant lookers and also have great acting chops that sell the creepy-triplets deal. They're the new monkey wrench thrown into the mix, trying to recruit the Mutant Underground to join their Hellfire Club faction, while at the same time manipulating events to lead into those very same crises that the Underground finds themselves in. 

Of course, everyone is pissed off about the Frost Sisters's mass-murder of the Sentinel Services minions, which is the deal-breaker to everyone in the Underground except Andy and Polaris, both of whom get a visit from one of the Frosts. We get some neat Magneto allusions, with the Frost Sister noting that Polaris's biological father was a 'King' in the Hellfire Club. 

And this episode starts off with the dual funerals of Sonya and Ed Weeks, to remind us of the fallen ones... something that really doesn't hit as hard as it should since poor Ed Weeks is barely a character, whereas we spend so much time with Sonya. Plus, y'know, most of the members of the Sentinel Services group are assholes that beat kids and kidnap them, with the previously-ambivalent Jace Turner having turned into a "yeah kill all mutants mode", there really isn't much goodwill left towards Sentinel Services. So as a member of the audience, I honestly really see nothing wrong with the mutants taking a stand against the oppressors. Maybe not into mass-murder mode, but it's definitely going to be far more cathartic when the oppressed mutants (and Gifted really does oppression very well) stand up properly against the oppressors. Especially when the two members of Sentinel Services, Dr. Campbell and Jace Turner, are all comparing the mind-raping Hound Program into something 'innovative' like the atomic bomb. 

The final act of the episode ends up being an action scene, with the Struckers arriving and meeting Wes at some secondary Underground outpost, but the Hounds arrive, and apparently they have this brand-new "lock two hands together to increase their powers" deal with their brainwashed Hounds, causing mass destruction on the Underground. Team Blink shows up to bail out the Struckers and Wes, but everyone else gets arrested. And, y'know, again, any goodwill and any argument that the very idealistic Marcos has ends up getting really, really destroyed, because everyone else ends up deciding that working with the Frost Sisters, who are actively trying to help them multiple times, is probably a good idea.

Overall, "3X1" is a far, far superior episode compared to previous episodes of the Gifted, but it's not quite that successful in breaking from the bad habits that earlier Gifted episodes had. The Frost Sisters inject a huge amount of tension and obvious eventual side-selection in the future, but at the same time the show really gives its hand a bit too soon for the eventual Marcos/Lorna and Lauren/Andy conflicts, as well as reducing the previously somewhat-complex Jace turner to a bland mutie-hating bastard. Overall, The Gifted still has potential and more than a fair bit of entertainment value... but at the same time, when the X-Men IP transfers to Disney-Marvel, I wouldn't be surprised if the Gifted doesn't get a second season.