Marvel/Fox's X-Men: The Gifted

Thankfully, unlike other shows, this one still airs next week.

I thought the reason they mentioned the Hellfire Club is as an Easter Egg. The Gifted when it was first announced was a period piece based on the Hellfire Club. That got scrapped in favor of the Gifted.

Sure the Hellfire Club is a staple in X-Men.

Plus they used the Hellfire Club for what is chronologically the first X-Men movie in the new continuity. Even if it's an alternate universe, picking it again here would feel weird. It's not like there is a lack of evil organizations to pick from.

Plus, if they have to use an evil mutant organization, the Club isn't really the one suited to the current chaotic situation. The Brotherhood would be far more interesting, since the setting is pretty much exactly what Magneto wanted to avoid.

This episode was probably the darkest yet.

Both Esme and Caitlin broke my heart :(

I like how they at least have a verbal handwave to Campbell's recovery.

And I'm still unsure of how to feel about Esme. I like her performance if nothing else.

EDIT Ok I know how to feel about Esme now. She's awesome, but not like in a 'good' way.

edited 11th Dec '17 7:00:22 PM by ArthurEld

Wow. That, um, wow.

Like, they'd shown Esme mustache twirling for a couple episodes, but then to see just how far that would go...

But yeah, this had one hell of an ending and the episode itself was solid. There was a lot of good character work. The Strucker meeting was probably the weakest part of the episode. I think the conversation was relevant and necessary, but could have been executed a bit better.

And as for the character death, well I guess that is one of the advantages to having such a large cast.

I'm sure someone was very pleased with themselves (rightfully so) for writing that 'the enemy is not in this room' line.

I wonder how they did the scene at the end, if they had stand-ins like on shows like Liv & Maddie and Orphan Black, or if it was more of a photo manip, digital kind of thing.

So are we thinking the Cuckoos are part of some Brotherhood-type organization?

I think it might just be them at this point.

They mention needing help from the Underground in the promo for episode 11. And with their only being 3 episodes left, I doubt they'll introduce a whole new group of characters just yet.

Woah. Fuck Esme. I think I might grow to hate her (and her sisters) just as much as Sentinel Services & co if this keeps on.

I really hope this show gets renewed.

And when it comes to the three in one, I looked it up and it seems they do a mix of digital and practical stuff. Sort of how they did it on Orphan Black, though not quite so extreme.

Honestly, that reveal definitely propelled that episode to be my favorite of the season, so far.

Esme seems to be a story of radicalization - the flashback to the capture of her sisters has her infiltrating an anti-mutant campaign, presumably to either work him over or just dig up dirt to bury his career - either way, they did not resist capture with lethal force then. However long two-thirds of them spent in that facility, they got a whole lot more ruthless as a result. - I mean, they could have been less lethal about that escape, but nope, "Everybody dies now".

Does kind of raise the question, what the heck now? I mean, the railroad functioned in large part because it was not super-violent, that got them allies for smuggling people out. At this point, pretty much have to up stakes and leave the country, right?

The railroad had been getting closer to more extreme measures all season. Esme just came in and sort of pushed things.

As opposed to the others, she had her mind made up and her plan in place as soon as she teamed up with the Underground.

Polaris will probably be the one to most consider working with them in the future.

The thing that made the ending so effective is just how much we've seen the Underground restrain themselves. Sure, Lorna has gotten pretty close. It wouldn't take much to push her in that direction. But when you truly stop caring, stop trying to avoid bloodshed, and give in to that temptation, it's so easy to massacre their enemies. It's terrifying and really puts you in the minds of the non-mutants in the world, that think all mutants do what Esme did.

And yeah, please let there be a second season. Despite its faults, it's a quality show with a ton of story potential.

Wow. I think I have three new favourite characters.

The people Sentinel Services are working with are actively planning genocide. It's far, far past time mutants began to take a more active role in defending themselves.

No cause for anyone here to hate the the telepaths for that. They're killing the enemy. That's what happens in war - the audience is okay with it when the protagonists do it on any other show. Heck, SS have done far worse than plenty of the Punisher's victims. The only reason to it's treated as antagonistic here is because the general public accept the assumption that it's all right for the state (or anti-crime vigilantes) to use lethal force to defend itself, but not all right for oppressed groups to do the same.

And they rescued a large group of mutants from permanent imprisonment. Hard to argue with that. Should have had the sense to take out Jace before leaving, though.

edited 13th Dec '17 4:58:32 PM by Galadriel

That's just rule of drama, I figure. Jace's story isn't done yet, so out of all the other guys getting shot and killed, he just gets shot.

Unlike the only other named SS guy who dies for Jake's pathos.

He probably has the same medical plan as 'i just got blown up but a little while later I am back to work with scary scars' Campbell. Although that was at least stated to be a mutant.

I really hope they don’t “both sides” this thing with Esme and the Cuckoos. As radical as she is, she was pushed to this point by the attempted genocide of Sentinel Services and her family being kidnapped and possibly tortured.

No, sorry, she was not 'pushed' to this, she could have just as easily only paralyzed those agents and retrieved the mutants. Nobody 'made' her slaughter them, she chose to.

They were enemy soldiers, part of a genocidal organization. She killed them using the skills she had available. If she had not done so, they would have remained a threat.

Nobody "made" SS persecute and oppress and torture and brainwash mutants; the chose to. Now they're learning what happens when you push an oppressed people too far.

I expect the show will paint them as villains, but it shouldn't. They've done nothing wrong, and have succeeded in the largest rescue of mutants that we've seen in the show thus far. I'd love to see Polaris get along with them - the powers of Magneto and the powers of Xavier on the same side....just think of the potential.

edited 16th Dec '17 7:22:25 AM by Galadriel

It's the third time already the show flat out gives mutant characters with powerful abilities they are willing to use to hurt people. It's the second time they do so voluntarily. And in one case (the Fenris twins) they did so without being prompted by racism - they were tracked because they were terrorists, not because they were mutants.

So while the show is right to point out that turning fascist is wrong, saying that every average joe in police forces who enforces the current law deserves to die. That's about as extreme as what Sentinel Services do.

Yup. You can't fight hate with more hate.

That is also why in the comics Magneto (no matter how awesome he is) will never achieve any peace for his race, only continue the cycle of violence.

edited 16th Dec '17 8:47:45 AM by Forenperser

I thought Magneto can't because psychic bacteria makes humans hate mutants?

edited 16th Dec '17 8:53:36 AM by doineedaname

Sentinel Services aren't average joes. They're an organization specifically designed to hunt, capture, and at time kill mutants, and they've recently been delivering mutants to be experimented upon and brainwashed.

So yes, mutants killing them is an acceptable act of self-defense.

There's no point in blaming Magneto for mutants and humans not being at peace, because mutants self-evidently can't be at peace with humans when the humans are seeking to exterminate them. And this episode was absolutely and unequivocally clear that that is what a branch of the US government is seeking to do. It doesn't get much more blantant we "we have a final solution to the mutant problem". The key difference between Magneto and the X-Men isn't what he's willing to do; it's that he acknowledges the reality of the situation for what it is.

Jews didn't have the option of "being at peace" with Nazi Germany. Black people didn't have the option of "being at peace" with the Confederacy. And mutants don't have the option of "being at peace" with a human government whose objectives are enslaving and killing them.

edited 16th Dec '17 12:34:53 PM by Galadriel

Correct me if I'm wrong, but only in the minds of the worst supremacists or conspiracy theorists did the Jewish or Black people ever have the ability to slaughter people by the thousands without breaking a sweat. Because that's very much what some mutants are doing, sometimes without being prompted.

The show is great, while remaining sympathetic to the mutant cause, to remind us that there are very normal reasons for people to fear them and try to protect themselves. Like Andy almost destroying a school while discovering his powers, or Marcos being a former cartel enforcer using his abilities to torture people.

Yes, mutants are a metaphor, but there is a limit for the comparison with oppressed minorities - in that real-world oppressed minorities can't cause mass destruction just because they can/want to.

Even if you mention real-world terrorism as an equivalent to mutant destruction, there is a major difference, in that real-world terrorists - like the Paris attacks one - took months, or years, of brainwashing, training and planing to commit their atrocities, while any mutant with the right abilities can be one bad day away from a massacre. With imagination, almost any mutant can be one bad day away from a massacre.

edited 16th Dec '17 3:46:47 PM by Julep

To add onto that, wasn't there a time in the comics where a kid woke up one day and only after killing dozens or hundreds of people realized he was a mutant who was disintegrating everyone around him without any intent to or control over it, and the X-men had him killed by Wolverine because they believed if anyone learned the truth behind the incident killing all mutants would become seen as a matter of necessary self-defense?

edited 16th Dec '17 4:01:46 PM by doineedaname