Betrayal
We begin the 3-part season finale with... aroma vision. Wonderful. Logan sees that 5 quintuplet women wearing robes entered the room with Jean's unconscious body. Cut to Scott frantically calling for Jean. Cut to padding shots of X-Men looking for Jean. Beast says that their surveillance equipment was taken out, so it looks like an abduction. Logan's aroma vision shows him that Jean was taken outside by the quintuplets into a helicopter. Then he turns around and "sees" Emma. Who he should have "seen" much, much earlier.
Cue the title sequence.
Cut to Logan walking in on Scott and Emma in Cerebro. She stuck around after kidnapping Jean? Did she think that nobody was going to find out? Why not pretend she had been abducted along with Jean? Anyway, Logan throws her in their prison... which as far as I can tell isn't thought-proof (otherwise Emma's attempt to read Rogue could never have been successful). When he accuses her of taking Jean, Emma says that she was the first to wake up. Logan decides to go see Charles; he'll deal with Emma when he gets back. Which leaves Emma and Scott alone, so that she can appeal to his aching need to find Jean again.
Cut to Logan and Xavier in the corridor of time. Logan explains everything that happened. Charles says the usual stuff: find out what happened and track down Jean. Then the corridor shakes and Charles disconnects.
In the future, more betrayal is happening: the Sentinels have found their hideout. As the future X-Men are being taken out by gigantic Sentinels, Marrow has the temerity to say, "this isn't right!" Yes, your betrayal was a stupid idea. Oh, you mean the fact that you were backstabbed by a being who has no reason to keep a deal with you once you've fulfilled your side of the bargain. So yeah: stupid idea. Oh, and let's not forget that you just gave Master Mold a way to find all mutants. Because that was something you brought up with Charles when you first met him.
Marrow is almost killed by falling debris, but Vanisher saves her. She then confesses to leading the Sentinels here. Vanisher is now well within his rights to teleport her a thousand feet into the air and drop her. Vanisher declares that it's too late to help the others, so he disappears with her. Cut to Xavier being captured, but only after a Sentinel steps on his Cerebro helmet. Well, there goes future knowledge.
Cut to Genosha for a bit more padding. Quicksilver screws around with Wanda for a bit before she knocks him on his ass and asks what he's doing there against Magneto's orders. He says that he's invited back, after delivering something for Magneto. We get a bit more padding as he takes her to the cells to show what he delivered. Senator Kelly. Naturally, Kelly's pissed, since he kinda declared peace on mutants and all that to prevent the war. But he's been kidnapped not so that he can start the war, but so that Mystique can in his place.
So Mystique calls Trask to tell him to get back to work, because they're launching an attack on Genosha that night.
Wanda confronts Magneto about this. You know, what with starting a war that Charles proved would end the Earth and all that. Eric decided that, rather than abandon his plans like Kelly, he simply changed them. Rather than subtly playing Kelly like a guitar, he's going to control both sides directly. By controlling the human response, he can ensure that things work out exactly as he wants them to. Wanda looks unsure about this, but says nothing.
Cut to Trask programming some Sentinels when "Kelly" drops in. He's upset about having only 15 ready to go, but Trask reminds him that he stopped production. Trask says it'll take several hours to program them all without Master Mold, but Kelly only gives him one hour. Because of, you know, cliché villainy and all that. Trask starts pointing out the holes in "Kelly's" plan, saying that they need as many Sentinels as possible to overwhelm Magneto's powers. Really Trask? That was your plan when sending robots after the Master of Magnetism? Send so many that he can't kill them fast enough? Of course, "Kelly" doesn't care that the plan obviously will fail.
Cut to the mansion. Wanda sent Kurt (and only Kurt, mind you) a message about Magneto's plan, detailing that Kelly's been replaced and the Sentinels are going to attack. Meanwhile, Logan's beating the hell out of Scott for letting Emma out. Scott says he believes in her, but Logan points out that she took off. Um, Logan, it's entirely possible that Emma simply dominated Scott's mind and made him release her. She can do that, you know. It's not like this prison of yours has safeguards against that.
Back to the future. We get some padding that actually serves to amp up the tension: shots of the future X-Men in shackles, while Xavier is being taken somewhere. Cut to Xavier strapped to a platform. Master Mold starts addressing him, for some reason. Xavier points out that one of her Sentinels destroyed Cerebro, so she can't use his telepathy to find mutants. Of course, Master Mold sampled the technology for long enough to duplicate and miniaturize it. So she tells him to find the mutants. Everywhere.
Cut to a silent scene of Emma driver to a different mansion and going down a secret passage. There, she encounters the quintuplets surrounding a stone slab. Again, the padding serves a purpose: to draw out the scene and increase tension. We eventually see that Jean is on the slab, now dressed in red. For some reason.
After the commercial, Emma dismisses the quintuplets and wakes Jean up, undoing her amnesia. Jean wakes up suddenly, frightened, but Emma's there to calm her down. She carefully explains that the other X-Men are fine, but there is a danger that they need Jean to help deal with. After a moment, Jean decides to go with her and hear her out. When she gets off the stone, we see that the symbol of the Phoenix is carved into it. The scene is drawn out, in part because of Jean's fear, but also in part to create anticipation.
And now we finally learn what's going on. Or at least, this continuity's version (which obviously takes inspiration from the Ultimate version). Emma explains that the Phoenix Force has been growing inside her since birth. That it has been a part of many telepaths since the emergence of mutants, which now appears to be a rather long time ago. Emma shows Jean a collection of art from various places, depicting crude representations of Phoenixes. Among that collection is a 3,000 year old Egyptian tablet, showing the Phoenix's life-cycle. It's born into someone, grows, and then eventually takes them over, causing cataclysms in its wake.
Jean realizes that this is happening to her now. Emma says that the only way to stop it is for them to release it into the atmosphere before it matures. And by them, we mean the Inner Circle, who then introduce themselves dramatically. Their purpose, throughout the ages, was to find the Phoenix-bearing telepath.
The War
Well, enough exposition: cut to the Blackbird, where Logan lays out the mission particulars. And if this had been the culmination of a grand character arc where he learned leadership skills, then this would have been awesome. Instead, it's just Logan saying what they're going to do. Of course, since we're hearing it, that won't be happening. Mainly, this scene exists so that he can remind them (Scott) that without being able to find Jean, this is the most important thing they have to do.
Cut to inside the facility. Trask has sensors that can detect their super-stealthy jet. Sure why not. Kelly demands that they launch now, before the X-Men arrive. Trask actually grows a pair and says no, since it would get them all killed by collapsing the roof. So Mystique just kick him and tells the rest of the workers to launch the Sentinels and run for it.
Just as the X-Men arrive, the Sentinels depart. Indeed, they fly through the pack of Sentinels, damaging their plan and forcing a crash. Logan is conscious just long enough to watch them fly away.
The next episode begins with showing the Sentinels on approach to Genosha. Then we cut to the X-Men in the ruins of the Blackbird, still unconscious as presumably MRD helicopters approach.
Well, enough of impending apocalypse. We have to get back to Jean and Emma for... the impending apocalypse. Jean says that she wants to talk to Xavier, but Emma reminds her that he's in a coma. Jean doesn't care; she'll just break into his mind if she has to. Emma tries to reason with her, but that's not happening, so she and the quintuplets shut off Jean's brain. Now they have to do things the hard way.
The barriers Charles put in place prevent the Phoenix from emerging. So, in order to scatter the Phoenix into the air, they have to remove them. And since those are Charles's barriers, only Jean can do it. So they have to trick her into do it herself. This process is apparently as easy as creating a phantasmal image of Charles that tells her to open the doors. So she opens the first door.
In Jean's mind, the door leads to Jean's home neighborhood. But she starts hearing Scott's voice, as projected from his mind miles away. Jean goes searching for it, so Emma has one of the quintuplets transform herself into Scott to answer. That... wasn't smart, as the quintuplet isn't able to maintain the illusion and Jean goes nuclear on all of them.
Emma realizes that Jean's connection to Scott would make it difficult to proceed. Or is it that Emma heard Scott's plea for aid and couldn't focus enough to keep Jean under control? Well, either way, she decides to go save Scott, thus solving the problem with their connection. That's an excuse so transparent even the Inner Circle can see why she's really doing it. Eventually they relent, saying that the "Cucoos" (yes, the quintuplets are named after the Zelda chickens...) can finish coercing Jean to open the gates. Emma reacts with scorn, saying that they need her there to deal with Phoenix.
That's when Shaw decides to reveal that their plans have changed. They want to contain the Phoenix within the Cucoos, so that they'll have mastery over its powers. Um... you didn't really think this plan through, did you? Emma agrees, saying that the Phoenix cannot be controlled. Shaw disagrees, saying that the Phoenix wants to be controlled, that it's been searching for someone powerful enough to control it. Yeah, sure. The other members all agree. So Emma gets them to promise not to do anything until she returns. Then she leaves.
Surprise, surprise, Shaw had his fingers crossed the whole time. Where was her casual telepathy then?
Well, enough of the impending apocalypse. We have to go to the future for... the impending apocalypse. Well, the show does have a running theme. Master Mold's planet scan is finished, so she knows where all the mutants are. So she tells her Col. Moss bot to kill Xavier. Of course that's not going to happen in a kid's show, so here comes Logan. And he brought four X-23's with him; so there are five of him now. Wonderful.
They make short work of the Sentinels. Yes, where a team of mutants with diverse powers couldn't win, just send in five Logans. The actual Logan tells the X-23's to free the other mutants, who were being kept alive... so that they could be freed and join the final battle. Logan frees Charles and they talk for a bit. Charles asks about what happened after he got cut off. Logan says that he himself is the problem.
Wow, so Logan actually is the death of the X-Men. I always thought he would be, but never quite so literally...
Well, we can't see the end of that conversation, so we cut to the past X-Men being pulled out of the Blackbird by the MRD. Of course, it's Logan who wakes up first and uses his mutant super-strength to throw 6 of them off of him (he does have super-strength, right? What do you mean he doesn't? You mean the writers just pulled that out of their asses?). However, they've developed some new anti-Logan guns that knock him on his ass.
Then they get mind-bombed by Emma, who immediately goes to Scott. She says that she found Jean, which is technically true. So she puts him in her car, and they're on their way. Meanwhile, Logan frees Hank and tells him to find a way to recall the Sentinels. A reasonable plan. So cut to Mystique destroying the computer.
Cut to Genosha, where Magneto is watching the misty shore from his palace. He sees Lorna in the gardens and tells her to go to her room and stay there. She asks why, and he gives her the cryptic response that Genosha will be expanding and soon mutants will be free.
Then the Sentinels come. We pointlessly cut to Hank explaining that the Sentinel facility was destroyed, even though we just saw that. Logan continues his quest. Now, back to the Genosian Holocaust: we even get a shot of Squidboy and his mother apparently being killed. Magneto allows the Sentinels to run rampant through Genosha.
Trust
Yes, allows. We cut to Magneto watching the carnage when Wanda asks why the hell isn't he out there doing something. He simply says that the attack will give them unity, the will to attack the humans head-on. Wanda realizes that Genosha has always been nothing more than a target for human aggression, to be used to galvanize mutant will against the humans. Magneto says that he's willing to sacrifice a few mutants to save all of them. So Wanda leaves him.
Cut to the future. Vanisher shows up to tell us that Marrow betrayed them and "disappeared." If this were a good show, that'd be a way of telling the audience that she was Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves. Charles says that they have to focus on the present now. The only way to stop the Sentinels is to take out Master Mold. Logan knows where she is now; how dramatically convenient.
Well, enough of that; back to Scott and Emma, driving up to the other mansion. Emma goes diamond form, so that she can survive whatever they hit her with. Theoretically, because she gets shot in the back and apparently injured. While invulnerable. Scott gets some payback, but then shoots Shaw. That never works; that's anti-working. After taking a candelabra to the chest, Scott tries to crawl to Jean, but Leland whips out some gravity manipulation to slow him down.
Emma mind-bombs him, but when she tries to do the same to Shaw, the Cucoos shield him. He demands that she go back to diamond form, where she can't use her telepathy, or they'll kill Scott. Since it's a choice between letting Scott die and the end of all things, she relents.
Back to Magneto. He's finally tired of killing his own supporters, so he lifts the Sentinels and reprograms them. Sure why not. He lands and tells Wanda to ready the armies, but she walks off, telling him to have Quicksilver do it. Magneto ignores him even though he's standing there practically begging for it. His only instruction to his son is to convince Wanda to obey him. And off he goes with his Sentinel army.
Shadows of Sentinels loom ominously over the city as Magneto drops in. And the attack begins. In the next episode, Logan keeps going after Emma, while sending the X-Men to deal with the Sentinels and Magneto. Um... what? So you're going after the people that kidnapped Jean alone, even though that's the thing that's going to cause the apocalypse? Well, it wouldn't be Wolverine and the X-Men if it didn't make the X-Men guest stars...
Speaking of guest staring, we get shots of several X-Men doing their thing. Storm one-shots three Sentinels. Nightcrawler manages to teleport the head of a Sentinel away. And so forth.
Cut back to Emma. She continues to implore them not to go on with their plan. When Scott tries to help her, Selene decides to tell him all about Emma Frost, for the sole purpose of hurting them both. Apparently, Emma and the Cucoos were the prime instigators of the explosion at the mansion. They attacked Charles's mind and tried to yank the Phoenix out of Jean, but the Phoenix did not appreciate that. Thus, boom. Wait. Beast was very clear on something: the explosion was centered on Charles's position, not Jean. So... what happened? What caused the big crater centered on Charles?
Anyway, in the chaotic aftermath, Emma took Charles so that she could "discover" him later and buy a seat on the team. Scott naturally isn't too happy about this, but Emma tries to explain that not everything was a lie. Selene scoffs at this, saying that Emma can't be trusted.
Meanwhile, back in Jean's mind, the Cucoos have de-aged Jean. They manage to get her to open the second door by impersonating her father. But that's not enough to get her to open the third; Jean says that she needs Charles. So naturally, they manufacture him. And Jean goes to a covered birdcage and pulls the cover off. Charles and her father ask her to open the cage door, then Magneto, Quicksilver and Wanda burst through to provide additional impulsion. So Jean takes the bird out of the cage.
And the Cucoos catch on fire.
Logan drives to the other mansion, but suddenly an apparition of Charles appears before him. It tells Logan that he must trust someone, but is cut off before saying who. Naturally, the mystery of this is ruined when we instantly cut to future Charles trying to communicate that he must trust Emma.
Well, enough of changing the past. They're just behind a hill near Master Mold's place. Obviously, she built her new body near a hill that would provide perfect cover for a strike team to recon from. Given the number of Sentinels, Charles realizes that they're not going to survive this one. Logan gets a look on his face that says, "I might."
The attack begins, and the future X-Men seem to be doing well. Domino makes the initial charge, using her luck powers to take a couple out from long range. Bishop jumps in to absorb fire and send it back. And so forth.
Meanwhile, the past X-Men take out another couple of Sentinels in more padding scenes. Kitty actually gets to do something as she takes out a Sentinel and calmly walks away from the ruin. Where was that back in Backlash? Beast sees Magneto on a Sentinel and thinks that his best course of action is to fire missiles at him. Yeah, that doesn't work. For his stupidity, Magneto crushes his helicopter.
Logan, after the longest two-hundred foot drive ever, finally makes it to the other mansion. There, he's immediately stopped by Leland and Pierce. Meanwhile, the Cucoos are getting a taste of Power Incarnate. Emma says that the Phoenix is trying to return to Jean, but Shaw doesn't care. He tells them to take out the Sentinels, X-Men, and Genosha. Um... why the X-Men? Or Genosha for that matter?
The mansion explodes in a wave of the Phoenix Force as the five Cucoos go off to do their work.
Now that the Cucoo's aren't around to stop her, Emma mind-bombs the rest of the Inner Circle and goes to dig Scott out of the rubble. She kisses the unconscious Scott, asking him not to leave her. How touching.
Sorry Emma; the girlfriend's back and there's gonna be trouble. Jean, after having been mind-bombed and mind-raped to the point where she lost a part of her soul, is upset. Scott has to hold her back from snuffing Emma right here. Not out of any genuine affection, but because they need to deal with Phoenix. Emma tells them that if they go after Phoenix, it'll just return to Jean. Which will stop it until it eventually re-emerges and cause cataclysms and such. Jean's fine with that, but Scott isn't, not wanting her to take the chance. But she eventually convinces him. Emma says that they'll need her help to corral Phoenix, but they're not going to do that for obvious reasons.
Cut to the Sentinels being wiped out by the Cucoo-controlled Phoenix. They're even wearing versions of Jean's Phoenix outfit. Magneto sees the Phoenix coming after the Sentinel he's riding and freaks out. But to no avail; it's destroyed and he's falling. Of course, he can fly, but he doesn't need to; Quicksilver saves him. Magneto tells him to return him to Genosha, that it's over. For everyone.
Well, at least Eric can recognize the end of all things.
It's important to recognize that, up until this moment, the future proceeds directly from the past. Nothing has really been changed in any meaningful way. What we're seeing is exactly what happened in the past that future Logan is from. So Eric is here, seeing the doom coming, wants to go back to the ruin of his home, a ruin he caused, to live out his final hours among the ashes of his failure. We now understand how Eric came to the state of mind that he was in during the Lorna scene.
Meanwhile, back in the future, the future X-Men appear to have won. All the Sentinels are down, and with no casualties. Vanisher teleports Logan on top of Master Mold's head, but a forcefield blocks him. Then several dozen Sentinels and Loginels emerge from underground. It's a trap!
Then Marrow shows up. With... Lorna at her side. Again, twenty years after Sentinels were turned against humans by Magneto, Master Mold still hasn't found a way to make them resistant to Maggie and Lorna's powers. She can make Loginels with regenerative abilities and telekinetic Sentinels, but she couldn't make them out of anything but metal.
That being said, at least Master Mold could protect itself from Lorna's powers. Why she couldn't equip her Sentinels with it is not explained. Thus, Master Mold decides to engage them directly. Its body emerges from the ground... and it has robot breasts. No, I'm not kidding. Lorna tries throwing things, but that doesn't help. Then Master Mold uses some kind of disintegration field or something that attracts things to try to kill them.
Well, enough of watching Logan fall into his doom. Enough for the show anyway; I can keep watching it all day. Cut back to the past. Logan finds Emma bound to a wall thanks to Jean. She asks him to cut her free, but he threatens her instead, pointing out that she betrayed them. She agrees that she did, but as Logan walks away, she says that he has to trust her now. Logan stops walking away.
Cut to Phoenix prowling the bodies of the X-Men, who didn't get the dignity of an on-screen battle with it. Not that it would have lasted long. Jean appears, flying, calling the Phoenix back to her. The Cucoos can't stop it... but Scott can, firing a beam that blows Jean into the ground. Scott apparently couldn't accept losing her again. Even though we already established that she'd be fine, at least for a while. Phoenix is pissed and comes after Scott. Jean is too weakened from the fall to do anything as Scott is about to be consumed-
Until Emma gets in the way. She absorbs the Phoenix and goes diamond form to lock it in. She tells Scott to take Jean away (likely so that Phoenix can't re-enter her), that she'll release Phoenix into the atmosphere like in the original plan. Then Emma's body starts to crack. She asks them to forgive her, then she explodes, releasing the Phoenix, which disintegrates. Shards of Emma rain down on Scott, Jean, and Logan.
Cut to Genosha, or rather the ruins thereof. Magneto admits to his mistakes, but tries to cover them up by saying that the had good intentions. Wanda simply tells him to go to hell; he's no longer welcome on Genosha. Even Lorna turns on him, though Quicksilver stands with him. So Wanda has Blink teleport the two of them... elsewhere.
Cut to the mansion. Xavier's Mansion. There, we see everyone but Logan gathered around Charles's body. He's not there so that he can make a grand, dramatic entrance. Rogue stops him to apologize for thinking that he would abandon the team. Oh please; that plot died long ago. Rogue only got something like a single line in this entire three-parter. Stop trying to pretend there was a character arc here. Logan apologises for the behavior that inspired her doubts. Which would signal the start of a character arc, not the end of one. So again, who do you think you're fooling here?
Anyway, everyone's gathered so that Charles can inform them of what happened in the future. The death of Logan to Master Mold? Sadly, this did not occur. Yes, the future apocalypse was stopped... so that the future Apocalypse could start.
Man, they do love that theme, don't they?
Remarks
So. This episode has lots of padding. Numerous characters are dropped on us with no real introduction (primarily the Inner Circle). The plot is radically antithetical from what the show has been about up until now. It's supposed to be about mutants vs. humans, yet that's all a side plot to the Inner Circle's bid for power through Phoenix. Most of the X-Men are little more than cameos. The future X-Men plot ends ultimately in failure, with their apparent death at Master Mold's hands. Only a San Dimas Time-based message into the past could save them.
And yet... it works. It really works. Why?
There are several reasons. It's got some decent action to it, of course. There's the obvious tension of the plots all coming to a head. You've got strong moments like coming to grips with the scope of Magneto's plan, watching him do nothing while Genosha burns. Seeing what Emma was up to was obviously strong. If you're a fan of other X-Men continuities, then you expect the Inner Circle to be evil, but to have Emma explain it as them saving the world was unexpected. And then they turn on her, she tries to stop them, a circle of betrayals culminating in Emma's sacrifice.
You can see that this episode was well-crafted. I mentioned the padding, but I also mentioned how it was actually used to create tension. There was actual pacing to the episode. So many episodes in this show will have padding at inappropriate moments, but then rush through moments that could have been used to build tension. Here, there was still some unnecessary padding, but frequently scenes were extended for an actual narrative purpose, to draw out the tension or to create anticipation in the audience.
For me? I would say that this is the only episode that really has through thematic development. As I've said before, narrative is a non-linear combination of three elements: character, plot, and theme. This episode is one of the few that really works thematically.
It's all about trust. It starts off with betrayals. Emma. Scott (to a degree, in freeing Emma). Marrow. The Inner Circle themselves. Magneto, in so many ways. Magneto betrayed his people when he left them to the Sentinels. He betrayed his flesh when he ignored and dismissed Quicksilver. All of these people were trusted. And all of them turned on those who trusted them.
But in the end, what is it that saves the world? Trust. The first time, Logan damned the world by not trusting Emma. He left her there, and in so doing left no one to stop Phoenix. And when the Cucoos lost control of it, it burned the world. This time, he had a message fragment. He had to trust someone, but who? The woman chained to the wall? The woman who betrayed them and kidnapped Jean? Surely Charles must have meant someone else. He had to make a decision, and he chose to trust her, not knowing what she would do.
Even Marrow gained a measure of redemption, going to find the only person left in the world powerful enough to take on Master Mold: Lorna. It would have been nice to see what was said to her to make her come, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that she made a choice to show that the trust that was given to her was not entirely misplaced.
The theme of this episode is trust without guarantees. Some of those that betray are able to be trusted again. Others, like Magneto, are not. There is no guarantee that trusting someone with good intentions will be rewarded. Nor is there a guarantee that a betrayal with good intention will be rewarded with trust later.
Also, I have to say, I liked Selene. The other Inner Circle members were just blank slates. But she seemed to really enjoy telling Scott exactly how much Emma had betrayed them, and that she was the cause of the explosion. She had a bit of actual personality in her evil, enjoying the... simple pleasures of breaking the hearts of others.
