The Gifted, Season 2, Episode 8: the dreaM
Still trying to continue on with The Gifted, and this episode is... it's a bit better, I guess, even if it does come off similar to a not-so-good episode of Arrow due to the whole flashback thing and a whole lot of angst. Polaris ends up becoming the huge focus of the episode, and while the flashback-within-a-flashback bit wasn't appreciated, I genuinely think the writing for Lorna is well-done in this episode, and far, far more engaging than anything that the show has going on with its other characters.We get flashbacks showing that she has abandonment issues, lashing out against her aunt and having a lot of acceptance issues due to her thinking that her father abandoned and/or didn't want her -- something that's proven to be at least partly true when we learn that Magneto (who the show doesn't name at all, which is just DUMB since they aren't even suffering from the same embargo that the DC shows have for Batman) is at least aware enough of her to send her gifts of a small metal disc.
And as Lorna herself finds that she's in a place where her cause has devolved into a pretty scary warzone where it is decidedly not ideal to raise a kid, she finally understands what old Magneto was on about, and that Magneto didn't abandon her so much as he was forced to do so for her safety. The goodbye scene with Marcus, and Lorna finding her aunt and all that stuff -- they were pretty emotional, I have to admit. Lorna gets the brunt of the characterization, but Esme as the 'cool aunt' of sorts and Marcus in his brief scene both get pretty great scenes.
Meanwhile, the B-plots... they don't suck, at least? The Struckers find themselves with dr. Madeline Garber, who gives us a lot of exposition and mumbo-jumbo about Reed's condition, while at the same time telling us that she's essentially developing "mutant insulin", something that allows mutants that genuinely can't control their powers (a great use of a montage to show off random people with particularly destructive powers), and I do love how they don't just make Reed out into a dirty self-hating racist for not wanting to accept his powers. Of course, though, turns out that the organization dr. Garber is working for might be shady, because after Lauren goes through a lot of pointlessly cheery scenes, we find out that Garber is actually working on a more permanent cure... dun DUNN DUNNN! Okay, it's actually not that sinister and Garber's friendly assistant does tell Lauren that the cure's more of an option than anything, but you know that's going to get weaponized and shit.
Meanwhile, people are going around burning mutant orphanages and everything thanks to Rebecca's stupid-ass stunt, and Rebecca herself is basically driven out of the Inner Circle by Polaris. Shit's going down, and while Polaris has basically re-affirmed her desire to fight for the mutants (I think) and the Struckers have basically stumbled on a mutant-healing facility, the Mutant Underground remains consistently the least interesting bunch of characters in the show. It doesn't help that the only times I care for Marcus is when he's angsting over his daughter, Thunderbird's a blank slate and I'm honestly not sure why Blink hasn't thrown in her lot with the Morlocks yet. I genuinely don't care about what they're doing, and they're just repeating what they say in the previous episode.
Anyway, the episode ends in yet another music-backed montage of scenes. Lauren discovering that a permanent cure is being produced; Rebecca is attacked by some random bearded mutant man; the revelation that Garber is the sister of the Purifiers' leader; and Polaris bending Magneto's random metal disc into her comic-book headdress. Overall the pacing is still pretty damn off and the show still has a fixation on focusing on some of the least-interesting characters, but this episode's close focus on Lorna definitely goes a long way in making it a lot more interesting than some of the others.
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