Our episode begins in an MRD base, where a black guy enters an elevator. The guy approaches a guard, asking to go to "Omega level." The guard reminds him that he doesn't have clearance, so the guy asks who does. The guard actually responds to this odd question, saying that Moss and some doctor are the only ones there. He smartens up just in time to realize that he shouldn't have to say that to someone before he gets taken out.
Thanks to the guard's raging stupidity, and the stupidity of guarding something important with one guy and no cameras, Mystique turns into Colonel Moss and opens the door. She takes the elevator down to the Omega level, and tells the doctor their to raise "it." As the floor opens, screens show a red beast-like figure. A chamber rises up.
Mystique asks the doctor to open the chamber, but she's hesitant so Mystique slams her head into a console. She tells Mystique that the chamber was designed to not be opened. Wow, really? So why does it have a glass window? Anyway, Mystique looks in the chamber and reveals her true self. Then she calls up Magneto, saying that they have a problem. We then are treated to a look into the chamber to reveal... a girl.
Cue the title sequence.
Cut to Quicksilver talking to Magneto, bragging about the good he's done with the Brotherhood. Eric then reminds him about that time he tried to bring a living bomb to Genosha, but Quicksilver is quick to point out that killing half the population of the island didn't actually happen. Yeah, no thanks to you. Magneto lets him know that he will tolerate no further failure from him and then disappears.
Rogue reveals that she was watching and demands to know what Quicksilver's planning. He's naturally angry, telling her not to spy on him again. So, she pulls off a glove and yanks the info from his mind. Right, because the guy with super-speed couldn't just run for it the moment she touched him. Anyway, Quicksilver passes out and she goes to leave.
And she runs into Domino on her way out. Domino sees Quicksilver's unconscious body and pieces together what's going on. What follows is an impassioned plea from Domino about this. Apparently, what Magneto wants is to take out the X-Men. Domino talks about how Magneto doesn't want to do it, but they keep getting in the way. The MRD's become unstoppable, and unless they do something soon, things will spin out of control. Then she says that they need Rogue, and that unlike the X-Men, they want Rogue. Domino even offers up her own memories to prove her sincerity.
After a moment's hesitation, Rogue apologizes and super-speeds off, leaving Domino looking dejected.
Cut to Kitty and Bobby, where Bobby's awkwardly asking Kitty out. Thankfully Rogue appears to interrupt; naturally, she asks for Logan. He offscreen-teleports into the room to tell her that she's not welcome in the mansion. You know, what with that whole "setting them up" thing she did back in episode two. She tells him about Quicksilver's plan to attack the X-Men, as well as the fact that Magneto is planning something much bigger.
Logan just throws her in a cell, saying that trusting her's something they tried already. Rogue explains her past actions by saying that, when she took memories from Toad, she learned that the Brotherhood was planning something. So she joined them to learn what it was. Logan doesn't take issue with the plausibility of the story, only that she didn't tell him about it beforehand. She points out that she had little reason to trust him, and he responds in kind: by keeping her in the cell until they finish checking her story.
Cut to Senator Kelly, meeting with Zane, that woman in white was from Thieves' Gambit. She tells him that support from the MRD is dropping, due to normal folks being pulled out of their beds and night and all. Kelly is outraged, saying that the MRD is vital to human kind's survival.
Magneto teleports in, with some female mutant on his arm, pointing out that Kelly's actions risk a war that will kill all of humanity. When Zane goes for the telephone, the female mutant with Eric throws an energy bolt into her that teleports her away. Into traffic. Back in the office, Kelly is furious that Magneto's there, since being seen with him could jeopardize everything. Ooh, the plot thickens.
Magneto says that their deal was that all the mutants the MRD captured would be given to him. Kelly says that that's what's been done, but Magneto isn't a fool. He knows that the MRD's been holding back the most powerful. Kelly reluctantly agrees, thus making him the worst politician ever.* He explains this by saying that they're just keeping powerful weapons out of Eric's hands; they aren't stupid enough to give him mutants like that.
Then he says, "Besides, what are you gonna do about it?" Really, Kelly? Even if we ignore the abject genre blindness at play here, why say this? That's basically an invitation for Magneto to murder him where he stands. If this were film-verse Magneto, Kelly would already be dead. But we're in a kid's show, and Kelly happens to be important for Magneto's plans, so he survives this bit of stupid. Though Eric commits his own stupidity by telling Kelly that he's already started to do something.
Cut to a coordinated series of attacks by various mutants on MRD facilities. This montage is ended when the Brotherhood are teleported to the mansion. Wait, what? Quicksilver decided to go along with the attack, even after it was compromised?
Cut to Rogue in her cell. Emma walks in, and Rogue asks her to read her mind. Emma... then walks out. Logan's outside and asks what she got from Rogue. In order to sideline Emma and make it an issue about trust, Rogue's mind is apparently too complex to read, due to having fragments of everyone she's ever touched. Logan decides to believe her anyway, reasoning that Rogue knew how they would react but came anyway.
Logan meets up with the other X-Men and is pissed that they're not geared up. Scott is incredulous that he buys her story, but Logan's pissed that Scott didn't do as he was told. Emma then walks in to let everyone know that the Brotherhood are there. Then Quicksilver runs in and slams her head into a pillar. Yeah, don't shut down the super-fast speedster's mind or anything Emma.
Avalanche then makes his presence known by trying to bury them in the mansion. The Brotherhood assembles and the fight begins. Blob is quickly dispatched by Bobby freezing his head. Avalanche is stuffed by Storm, who is also able to defect Domino's bullets/lasers with... wind. Sure why not. Domino luck-shots Scott's glasses off, but Toad tempts fate by taunting him, saying he can't risk hitting the wrong person. Yeah, that was regular continuity Scott. Angsty badass Scott who destroyed a city block because it was in the way just blasts him through the roof.
Kitty tries to wake Emma up, but Logan warns her to phase just as Quicksilver attacks her. This apparently works, causing him to smash into a pillar. The same pillar he would have smashed into if she hadn't phased, so I really don't know what his plan was there. Anyway, Blob butt-squashes Logan so hard they break through into Rogue's prison. Logan, barely able to speak with Blob on top of him, says that it's "possible" he owes her an apology.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
So Rogue takes Blob's powers and hurls Logan back up the shaft.
Cut to Scott firing indiscriminately, taking out Avalanche, but also nearly hitting Storm and Beast. He covers his eyes. Domino, the last of the Brotherhood, is quickly surrounded, and Logan finally lets us in on her luck-based powers by saying that nobody's lucky enough to get out of that.
Rogue tries to talk Domino down, but Domino just tells her that she choose her side. So Rogue drains her life. After Emma wakes up, Logan suggests that they dump the Brotherhood with the MRD. But Emma apparently read Quicksilver's mind, as she knows that this was a diversion. Forge appears to tell them about the news.
The MRD's been hit everywhere. Well, everywhere except their headquarters. Logan reminds us of what Emma told us; that the Brotherhood attack was a distraction. Bobby actually makes a good point, that taking out the MRD is not a bad thing. Of course Logan quickly points out that this will only lead to tighter security and increased measures from Kelly, which will lead to war. And that whole apocalypse thing that Xavier's been through. So they decide to head to the MRD HQ, to stop whatever Magneto has planned for that, but not before Logan gives Scott shit (admittedly well-deserved) for not getting ready like he was told.
Cut to some kind of vessel flying over the MRD's HQ. It drops off a red thing, which turns out to be... a human Juggernaut. This is apparently Magneto's plan for opening the chamber that isn't meant to be opened. He rips open the metal easily and tears into the chamber. He pulls out the girl and puts some kind of red thing on the back of her neck, which causes her eyes to open and glow yellow.
Cut to the Blackbird, enroute. They're almost hit by a fireball ejected from the building, so they... turn around to find out what it is. Yes, obviously that's more important than finding out what threw the fireball. Of course, if they didn't do that, we wouldn't get to see Juggernaut job out in favor of the main threat of the episode. And not having that would be terrible. Kitty foolish asks, "what could do this to him?"
OK writers, there's a difference between genre blindness and cliché dialog. This is the latter.
A giant monster made of red energy appears and starts wrecking shit. MRD helicopters attack, because conventional weapons always works on Godzilla. Logan quickly divides the team, sending Emma with Forge in the Blackbird. Rogue, Kitty, and Beast are doing crowd control, while the rest are fighting it.
Emma's attempt to read the creature's thoughts is conveniently shut down. There's even a bit of Komedy! from Forge about how Emma's been totally useless this episode because otherwise she'd have resolved the plot already.
Logan is dropped on it by Storm. He digs into it with his claws, but stops when he sees that a child is inside of it. Well, she blasts him into a wall with some red energy for his hesitation. There are various shots of Kitty and Beast saving innocent by-standards. Bobby, Scott, and Storm attack it ineffectually, until it glows red and takes them all down.
Rogue, Logan, and Kitty pow-wow for a bit, with Logan letting them know a girl's creating that thing. Emma has now upgraded to only mostly useless as she tells us that Juggernaut put a device on her that's causing her to do this. So the plan is to get the device off of her. Kitty runs off to get the device, but Logan tells her to stop. Not that she listens. Her attempt to phase into the monster fails. Well, my days of not taking Kitty seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
Logan tells Rogue to find some other X-Men as reinforcements, then he charges back into the fray. Rogue sees Juggernaut and decides to ignore Logan's rather useless advice. Instead, she grabs Kitty and Juggernaut's powers.
Cut to the other X-Men attacking it ineffectively. Again. Really, what's the point; nothing you do hurts it, so why bother. Anyway, Rogue allows it to step on her, but her Juggernaut/Pryde powers allow her to stop its foot and then phase through it. She flies up to the girl and destroys the device. Tildie, the girl, says that she can't stop it, so Rogue just drains her powers as a means to stop. That... doesn't explain why Rogue isn't creating a large red monster, but whatever, the plot's over.
Tildie wakes up in Rogue's arms and asks who they are. And Rogue replies that they're the X-Men.
Cut to Kelly at a rally for support for his new initiative, talking about how the mutant menace is worse than ever, etc. This is intercut with Magneto talking to the people of Genosha, saying that the humans are imprisoning mutants, and they must be ready to defend themselves. Kelly unveils the new humanoid Sentinel project, this time with a hologram rather than a working model. And Magneto finishes his speech, saying that the humans will strike first, and they'll be ready.
Cut to Logan and Xavier. Logan points out that Magneto got what he wanted, that the world is still headed towards war. He says that he's failed. You know, because of all that failing he did. Like a failure. Xavier props Logan's ego up by saying that he's reassembled the X-Men. Except for Nightcrawler, Angel, and Colossus, but who's counting, right? And X-Men give hope to the future. So Xavier tries to paint Logan getting Rogue back as a victory.
Remarks
This is the mid-point of the series. A lot of plot-relevant stuff is unpacked here and dumped all at once. Magneto's been colluding with Kelly to create a deportation program to Genosha. Though the writers should probably know that a Senator is not the same as President; a Senator can't just order programs and such into existence. And, not being part of the Executive Branch, they don't have direct control over such programs either. Oversight, yes. Control, no. But that aside, we learn about the collusion and about both sides eventual plans.
Kelly obviously thinks that he's getting the better of Magneto here. He's playing the short game: deal with Eric to shut him up, but keep things from getting worse. Eric's playing the long game: he knows exactly how Kelly will respond to every move, and thus he does the things that get Kelly to do exactly what he wants: move towards war. Kelly, like most Xanatos Suckers, thinks he has everything under control.
We see that Rogue was never really working for the Brotherhood, that her Face Heel Turn was just a ruse. Which means that, outside of her distaste for Logan, very little of what we've seen of her can be taken as genuine. So who is she? Her character has been a lie up to now.
This episode is more or less OK. It's got some good action in it. It has some interesting character dynamics, Rogue and Domino, Rogue and Logan, and so forth. It's got some stupid bits, like having Emma constantly sidelined because not doing so means that the plot would be over. The writing is kinda poor, the pacing is way too fast, and it dips way too often into the cliché. Overall, the episode comes out as maybe above average.
The biggest issue is that, like with everything about this show, it could have been so much more. Mainly the ending.
Remember Logan's little bitch session with Rogue when he put her in prison? When he said that she should have come to him first with her infiltration plan? That was a perfect time to remind us of two episodes ago, when Rogue did come to him first! When she came to the mansion to deliver vital information that something was going down. You know, when it could have been far enough in advance to do something about it. Hell, they could have sent Emma over to pay the Brotherhood a visit and just take it from Quicksilver's mind. But none of that happened. Why?
Because Logan was out jackassing around with his past. And yes, it says something about Rogue that she wouldn't deliver this info to Beast. But Logan could have headed all of this off if he'd have just listened to Xavier. Charles tried to tell him that he had a responsibility to the present and the future, but he only cared about his past. And because of that, he missed Rogue. And that missed discussion may well have precipitated a war between mutants and humans that ushers in the apocalypse.
Yes, this all happens. But the problem is that the show never acknowledges it. Logan here just says he failed. He didn't fail; this wasn't some generic, "we tried but didn't get the job done." They weren't thwarted by circumstance. Logan made a bad call, a decision that was il-advised, irresponsible, and may have damned the world, all because of his self-obsessed need to deal with his past.
The acknowledgement of this fact would have forced Logan into some character development. He would recognize that, as leader, he had to be there for the rest of the X-Men. That he could no longer go off on these personal missions for days at a time. That being leader means more than just telling people what to do. This could have been the start of Logan growing into becoming a real leader.
But that doesn't happen. Most of the pieces are there to make it work. But without the actual in-character acknowledgement of how his personal failings may have doomed the world, the pieces don't mean anything. Oh, he admits that he failed to stop Magneto's plans. But he doesn't admit that his failure was in his duty to the team, not in his strategy or tactics or some such. Without that admission, he continues on as he was before. He learns nothing.
Plus, the ending of the episode exists to offer Logan absolution for any of his personal wrongdoings. Charles tells him that he's done something remarkable: rebuilding the X-Men. And if Rogue or Tildie were important over the next 13 episodes, then this might actually mean something. But they're not; they become background characters. Tildie barely exists (because she'd auto-win against anything they fight) and Rogue becomes Logan's sidekick at best. The list of people who matter in the final battle will not include Rogue or Tildie. So Logan bringing them into the team may be a feat, but the idea lacks through development over the plot arc of the series.
So while this was a pivotal scene in terms of plot, the characterization remains anemic and lacking.
