Your regularly scheduled recapper Kayti Burt will be back next week!
Fox’sThe Giftedhas been a nice surprise this TV season. Granted, the fall crop of new shows was far from inspiring, but now that we’re a few weeks into it, the shows with a future are starting to sift themselves out. That’s tougher than it used to be for superhero shows which, just a couple of years ago, were given chance after chance to find an audience and a following. Hopefully the numbers and the fandom forThe Giftedreflect the show’s quality, ambition, and compelling story, because it’s one of the better superhero series on the air and one of the best new shows of the year.
If you haven’t been keeping up withThe Gifted(and you should be), the story centers on the Strucker family who find themselves caught between the Mutant Underground resistance fighters and the Sentinel Services tasked with hunting them down. It’s a very well-done superhero story set within the X-Men universe, and as if that wasn’t ambitious enough, it’s tackling a story on three levels: the adolescent mutant Strucker children and their fellow mutant friends, the super-powered young adults attempting to lead the resistance, and the human adults on both sides. The war is heating up, but “got your siX” used its time to deepen character development and relationships while letting the all-out conflict simmer a little longer.
And like the episode’s opening flashback led me to believe, I thought this hour was going to be all about John Proudstar. It wasn’t, not exactly, butBlair Redfordmade the most of his screen time. Whether it’s four years earlier in Phoenix where he and his fellow military veteran friend are raising funds for the victims of the 7/15 Disaster in Dallas (and defending innocent bystanders from pipebomb-throwing rednecks) or in the present day reinforcing the Mutant Underground amidst swelling refugee numbers and dwindling resources, Thunderbird best flexes his mutant muscles when it’s in service of others. He may be clutch in a fight, but “got your siX” opted to show us the psychological struggle John’s dealing with in quieter moments. That’s something you don’t find in too many modern action series.
But if there’s one theme running through this episode, it’s the father/son relationship. Marcos was apparently supposed to run the family business but his father kicked him out once he found out he was a mutant. Now that he’s an expectant father himself, he’s learning to balance his field work and responsibilities to the Underground with care for Lorna and their unborn child. Reed, meanwhile, is making up for time lost with his family due to his former job, and he’s getting the opportunity to do that with both Lauren and Andy in a very unexpected way now that they’re on the wrong side of Sentinel Services. Even John mentions his father in this episode, both in listing his family’s proud history of military service and in talking to Dreamer about living up to his father’s legacy. On the darker side of things, Turner has had his fatherhood taken away from him, and the pain of that irreversible event now serves to focus his efforts toward bringing mutants everywhere to what he rationalizes as justice.
The Mutant Underground and Sentinel Services don’t get to cross paths this week, but it comes close. On Reed’s intel, Marcos plans to lead an op into a Federal facility in Baton Rouge in order to obtain documents related to the processing of mutants. One mutant in question, Pulse, is the object of their search, especially where the guilt-ridden John is concerned. It seems that the mutant pal that John unwittingly left behind during a raid on a relocation center is not the only super-powered person working with the enemy.
The team going out on this mission might be an unexpected one, but it’s little surprise that Clarice/Blink is having none of it. She’s still understandably pissed at Dreamer for casting a glamour over her and at John for going along with the ruse … or possibly having some earnest feelings for her in the process. These complications lead to Blink quite literally walking out on the Underground in a move that only a stylish teleporter could pull off. So without Blink’s ability to covertly get a team inside the heavily guarded facility, they’ll resort to the brute force method: Andy Strucker.
While Reed and Andy go on a road trip to Baton Rouge with Marcos and a very cool-under-pressure truck driver, more and more refugees continue to pour into the Underground facility. The fact that the resistance’s Alpharetta HQ was recently hit means that they’ll be taking in even more mutants and will soon be forced to find a new place to call their home. In the meantime, Lauren cozies up to a newcomer by the name of Wes, whose illusion-conjuring abilities range from the flirtatious (like dreaming up a vista of Florence … or Rome), to the outrageous (like duping squads of the Atlanta PD into following a false trail). Wes may just be an original character, but his abilities harken back to X-Men characters like Mirage and Mastermind.
While Lauren and Wes are getting to know each other, Lorna is attempting to forge steel out of the new recruits by running them through a somewhat aggressive training routine. These are kids, remember, and just because they have powers doesn’t mean that they’re ready to have circular saw blades whipped at their heads. However, the real world is a cruel one for mutant-kind, so they’ll need to be able to harness their powers to defend themselves and each other. This philosophical debate plays out between Lorna and Kate, the latter of whom has been spending time tending to the medical needs of the many incoming refugees. It’s a conflict I expect to play out more as the season progresses, though they’re going to have to find more for Kate to do than dispense nutritional advice and round up text books for a pop-up school.
Andy’s getting a lesson that’s more in keeping with Lorna’s style of instruction. The heist of secure intel from the Federal facility was this week’s action set piece, but it was played pretty conservatively. Andy’s power came in handy when Reed and Marcos needed to bust through a rebar-reinforced concrete wall in an underground parking garage, just as Marcos' ability to absorb light hid them all from a nosy cop in a cool alternate power display. He later harnessed that energy to “pick” a lock, slice through a computer case to pull harddrives, and torch the offending office. (Reed’s ability to quickly shuffle stacks of papers also came in handy, I suppose.) There was even a cool, if fortuitous, conclusion to their flight from the cops as Lorna, Lauren, and newcomer Wes were able to combine their powers to help their teammates escape, while Andy had to learn to just settle down and trust his fellow freedom-fighters.
The best part of the road trip really was the father/son moments between Reed and Andy. They have plenty of time to catch up on the roughly eight-hour trip to Baton Rouge, and while there’s a little rough edge to their conversation it’s clear that there’s love there, too, the type of bond only a father and son can share. While on an impromptu “camping trip”, Reed asks Andy what it’s like when he uses his powers. He’s showing concern here but also trying to give his son limitations and personal responsibility when it comes to his destructive abilities. It’s basically a father/son life-lesson but heightened to a super-powered level. Marcos encourages Reed for trying to talk to Andy about his powers, and he has some own questions of his own about fatherhood since Lorna is expecting. Nice touch. Andy’s still a long ways away from mastering his powers, and there are certainly more fireworks to come, but it’s nice to see a strong male role model earnestly trying to connect with his kids while also attempting to make up for his own sins.
On the darker side of fatherhood, we have Agent Jace Turner. He’s back at work despite his mandatory leave of absence; everyone at Sentinel Services apparently knows about what happened to him with Dreamer but he just wants to get back to work. It’s almost as if the mutant’s effects further strengthened his resolve. Doubling down on that idea, Turner calls up Campbell to follow up on the doctor’s offer to work together. When Dr. Campbell arrives, having had Turner reinstated., he shows up with a companion who looks really ill and sports the Hound tattoo on his forearm. (That can’t be great.) Campbell and his pal also pop in on Turner’s debriefing after the attack on the Baton Rouge office. Campbell & Co. are creepy enough to begin with, but Turner’s really starting to fray at the edges already. Just how far will he descend and how long will it take him to go truly ballistic?
“got your siX” was more about in-depth character development and relationship exploration (and a little bit of moving the pieces around) than it was an all-out actioner or an edge-of-the-seat thrill ride.The Giftedmakes these episodes work. Perhaps it’s the shared amount of storytelling so that one character or pairing doesn’t have to shoulder the whole load; perhaps it’s the fact that there’s not a bad match-up or solo story on this show just yet, so it all works. The father/son stuff is always a nice emotional tug if done well and I’m happy to say thatThe Giftedknows just what buttons to push. The added bonus is that the “mutant” effect adds a whole new layer to a familiar story, one that makesThe Giftedevery bit as worthwhile as its source material.
Rating: ★★★ Good
Miscellanea:
John: “It’s complicated.”
There’s a beautiful moment where one mutant is manipulating water, which then turns destructive as she uses it as a weapon. It’s a great visual and dialogue-free metaphor for the conflict inherent toThe Giftedand the bestX-Menstories.
Andy: “I can get us through that wall quicker than anybody. It’s time you let me fight.”
Lauren: “Three weeks ago, our craziest family outing was Six Flags.”
Andy: ::beat boxing::
When Shatter explains why they have a bunch of textbooks and remarks that Sentinel Services waits for parents to pick their kids up at school, thus nabbing the whole family in one fell swoop, you just can’t help but feel the heartbreak in this too-close-to-home moment.
As an Atlanta resident, I did enjoy the Claremont Interstate Movers truck, and references to both Buford Highway and Alpharetta.
Dreamer: “The X-Men said a war is coming.” John: “They didn’t say we’d win.”
Reed: “If we were all supposed to turn out like our fathers, I wouldn’t be much of a father myself.”
Wes: “I think you’re making me better.”
Reed: “Your power is great, you’ve proven that … but it’s not the answer to everything.”
Even though Kate didn’t get a lot of time in this episode, the shared time with Reed is very sweet, wedding-ring drama and all.
Carmen: “I call, you come.”
