boXed in
"This is our chance to find out what happened to Pulse."
Written by Jim Campolongo
Directed by Jeremiah Chechik
Directed by Jeremiah Chechik
"These people... they need to know which side I'm on. And if this is my chance to make things right, I have to take it."
— Reed Strucker
Reed has to make up for poor past decisions while Polaris decides to get answers from Jace about Pulse.
Tropes:
- Composite Character: Jace Turner's character is shown to draw his backstory from the X-Men: Gold villain X-cutioner
, with both losing their child in essentially the exact same way; their child killed in the in the crossfire by the abilities of a mutant, with him and his wife left to mourn their child. However, the key differences are that Jace's daughter was killed by a red energy blast from a unidentified mutant, while the X-cutioner's son was impaled by an errant spike from Magneto; the former became a government agent hunting mutants for his vengeance, while the latter became a violent serial killer who killed several children at the X-Mansion. - Curb-Stomp Battle: Polaris easily beats the agents at Jace's checkpoint and captures him.
- Defiant Captive: Jace Turner is not cowed by any of Marcos' and Lorna's antics. Even when Dreamer uses her powers on him he just calmly tells her that this qualifies as assault on a federal agent.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The discussion between Turner and Marcos sounds similar to a potential discussion between a Muslim and a survivor of Jihadist terrorism.
- The Dog Bites Back: Lorna obviously takes some amount of satisfaction in turning the tables on Jace Turner.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Turner's memories not only show the logo that was tattooed on Pulse's arm the last episode, but also the word "Hound". In the comics, Hounds were mutants brainwashed by Roderick Campbell to hunt down other mutants in Days of Future Past.
- Get It Over With: Jace tells Marcos and Lorna that if they want to kill him they should just get over with it.
- Hidden Depths: Andy knows his blood type and that he is an universal donor.
- I Choose to Stay: The entire Strucker family decides to stay with Mutant Underground in the end, as they realize how needed they are.
- Internal Reveal: Blink learns Dreamer manipulated her memories.
- It's Personal: For both Lorna and Jace Turner.
- Major Injury Underreaction: At the end of the last episode Reed had the screws in his knee forcibly torn out by Polaris, and displays no effect but a limp. He doesn't even avoid standing on the leg.
- Mythology Gag: Lorna and Marcos talk about baby names. She considers "Aurora" if its a girl. Aurora is a member of the X-Men and Alpha Flight in the comics with light-based powers.
- Mind Rape: Dreamer accidentally erases memories from Turner's mind as a result of the process being interrupted by a tear gas bomb.
- The Resenter: Fade is still pissed about Reed collaborating with Sentinel Services by wearing a tracker and even gets in a physical fight with him that has to be broken up by John.
- The Reveal: This episode reveals the side-effects of Dreamer's manipulation that Thunderbird warned of. The memory she gave Blink plays in her head constantly, while Jace has parts of his memory erased when Dreamer's mind-reading is interrupted by tear gas.
- Secret Test of Character: Fade changes the rendezvous point with Reed in order to see if he goes to the police or runs from them.
- Spotting the Thread: Reed's law enforcement background allows him to decode the misleading transmissions being sent by the cops and deduce that they're running a search pattern for Marcos and Lorna.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Despite everything he did, both Marcos and Lorna feel for Jace when he reveals what happened to his daughter.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Fade is still pissed about Reed wearing a Sentinel Services tracker, so when Thunderbird forces them to work together to draw the cops off, Fade changes the rendezvous point slightly to make sure Reed is on their side.
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: After a simple blood transfusion from Andy fails, Caitlin and her kids have to perform an improvised surgery on Harry to remove the bullet in his abdomen, which almost gets him killed.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Blink lays into Dreamer for giving her a fake memory that she can't forget or ignore.
"She... she's gone."
