The Gifted, Season 1, Episode 3: eXodus
Another great installment in the Gifted, where the X-Men trope we're exploring this time around is human xenophobia, but in the way that involves lynch mobs. I thought that the constant repetitive lines of Caitlin going "what? But that racist dude went to high school with me!" "what? But that racist dude's son went to school with my kid!" A good chunk of the episode involves Lauren thinking that she could get her husband back the legal way, the pull-the-strings-way, and she seeks out her brother Danny, but while Danny and his son Scott are more anxious than anything else, one leaked twitter photo and the Strucker family ends up facing off against a mob ready to murder every dirty mutie, and even roughs up Danny. Danny also notes that because of his association to the Strucker family, he doesn't even have much of a voice in the community anymore.
Oh, and you can't just ask an underground guerilla resistance to lend you aid and bail out. Thankfully Eclipse and Thunderbird aren't the murdery sort, but it has to be pretty scary for Caitlin to be woken up in what she thinks is a safehouse by the two mutant powerhouses she ditched. I also liked how John and Marcos has to rein new-mutant Andy in from using his powers and basically 'show them what-for'. Two scenes in this episode involve mutants discovering their powers for the first time, with the opening scene being a flashback to Polaris and Eclipse learning about their powers in one of those magical montages as Polaris shows that her metal getup allows her to levitate herself, and in conjunction with Eclipse they can create a corny-but-sweet-as-hell aurora borealis when they kiss. Andy, meanwhile, is relatively jubilant at the sheer amount of power he has on his fingertips, and he's like "why are we pushed around? We should go and kill all of them racist bastards!" And honestly? If I actually end up in the kid's shoes, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't show as much restraint as Andy, Eclipse or Thunderbird did.
Mind you, while I did enjoy the moments that it produced, I still think Caitlin's a humongous moron for doing what she did. I do hope this is a one-time occurence.
The B-plot in the resistance base involves Thunderbird teaching Blink to focus her powers and try and basically channel it through positive emotions (of hot donuts, haha!). There's a not insignificant amount of sexual tension between the two, but neither mentions it. Not until John and the rest are actually in trouble, and John's ex Dreamer (who appeared in minor roles in the previous episode) who has been advocating a shortcut for Blink to learn ends up running to Blink and inserting fake memories of her in love with John, which allows Blink to focus on 'save my beloved' and create the portal... something that John doesn't actually approve of and would probably have huge repercussions down the line. I just hope it's not shipping related because god knows I'm sick of love triangles consuming my superhero shows.
What else? Polaris is still in prison and is abused, and has a small bit of victory as she rips off the prison door, but collapses with a nosebleed shortly afterwards. Reed's role as the government's unwilling informer causes him to have second-guesses when he tries to sell out the invisible bartender when he realizes that he's going to sell out a pair of mother-and-daughter. The daughter's not even a mutant, but Sentinel Services wants her anyway because she's a potential carrier. Reed ends up letting his conscience thankfully get the better of himself and jumps off the truck, allowing invisible bartender man to escape.
Overall, it's not as impressive as the first two episodes in the series, mostly because beyond the Caitlin and the lynch mob plotline there isn't a whole ton, but it's still pretty dang good.
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