Lorna Dane: Polaris Appreciation 2018

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Episode #7: eXtreme measures

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This is a flashback scene from when Lorna and John were the only members of the Underground (or at least by far the most prominent members) and they are meeting a potentially important new mutant recruit

Of course he is Marcos aka Eclipse. It's meant to show the bad state of mind he was in at the time, working for the Guerra Cartel, dressed in all black (typical "evil" outfit).

Lorna's hair is also dyed black so she can blend in better. I kind of like this scene for some reason, something about the maturity of the Lorna/John working relationship speaks to me.

In any case, Lorna demonstrates she is a mutant to Marcos by stirring her drink without touching it, when Marcos explains he can't just quit working for a Cartel not least of which being he's romantically involved with the boss' daughter, Lorna just abruptly says "there are other tough chicks" with a weird little smirk. Again I'm not the hugest fan of using her as a sexpot or trying to lure men in that way but it was ok for this scene and it came across as fairly authentic really for me.

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Back in present time, Marcos tells Lorna he has to leave and get "supplies" (yeah... sure, Marcos).

When he tells Lorna he doesn't want her coming with she instinctively gets suspicious but manages to mostly suppress that

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This is her working off her suspicions trying to distract herself, by returning to her newfound purpose of training the younger mutant kids

Now it's Andy, the water girl, and the other boy (sorry I dont remember the kids' names lol)

It's actually a really cool little training scene, with nice camera angles/zooming, the kids are blindfolded and standing near one another in a contained room while Lorna shouts out locations of objects (bricks, pieces of walls) that she then hurls and flings at each kid in a sequence. The kids pass her test and blast away the objects, gaining confidence, in particular Andy who we can tell is beginning to respect Lorna as a "fighter mutant" who wants to teach him how to use his considerable powers in battle.

Reed eventually interrupts and Lorna for some reason almost hurls a piece of wall at his face but at the last moment relents (I thought this was weird, is it supposed to signal like an unconscious hostility she has for him still?)

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Lorna now unable to continue the training, talks with Shatter about Marcos , finds a weird response, so decides to actually phone in to the location Marcos said he would go to

Surprise surprise... that SOB lied to her. Now she figures out what's up when seeing his little Mexican Death Charm placed upright in their shared room. It's go time.

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This is what happens when Lorna brings along Dreamer to help her "get Marcos back" from the nefarious clutches of the Cartel (or so Lorna believes....)

Basically she blocks machine gun fire from guards of the Cartel Estate, flings one away, and chokes the other to allow Dreamer to access his memories for the current location of Marcos

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When Lorna and Dreamer (coincidentally....) arrive at the scene of Marcos , they find him not captured at all but voluntarily working alongside his old fling Carmen, burning up bundles of drugs or something, exploding warehouses, and walking back to Carmen with this creepy malevolent wide grin plastered on his face (never tell me Marcos is a good guy ever again). I think he and Carmen even embrace and possibly even kiss

Lorna is beyond grossed out and disgusted at this point

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A woman scorned... am I right lads?

Lorna heads back to the Underground, and is just waiting right where she knows Marcos will walk in. Almost mentally daring him to try lying to her face about what he did today

Sure enough, there he walks in, like a total dope, carrying supplies with him, WOW

Lorna walks right up, barely containing her fury, but attempts to neutrally inquire as to how things went

He simply gives LIE after LIE after LIE

Finally she grabs his little Death Charm necklace right off him and asks "so how's Carmen doing"

Marcos knows at that point he messed up... but it's too late

Lorna tosses the charm right at his face in anger and storms off

Well overall this episode was clearly all about the Lorna-Marcos relationship

I thought it was... OK? Honestly episode 7 is the weakest episode of the entire season for me so even though Lorna had a really nice but brief training scene with those kids, and she seemed decently badass working with Dreamer vs cartel guards...

I just didn't care for the drawn-out relationship drama it felt weak, convoluted, and just gratuitous

[jmc247]

I just didn't care for the drawn-out relationship drama it felt weak, convoluted, and just gratuitous

Agreed, the show is best when the politics and characters is furthering the soap by extension and weakest when they try to force the soap.

Anyway summaries for episodes 3 and 4.





https://www.screenspy.com/articles/g...episode-guide/

I think people need to keep their expectations for Lorna in check for season 2 as right now from my vantage point pretty much everything Emma has said in the interview when she wasn't given a canned promotional line seems to be more or less the case.

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Yeah I feel a sense of dread reading those too jmc

But... I'm going to keep hoping and wait for actual episodes

I still recall seeing a leaked scene with Lorna alongside Reeva in an outdoors battle so I know she does SOME good stuff

[jmc247]

Yeah I feel a sense of dread reading those too jmc

But... I'm going to keep hoping and wait for actual episodes

I still recall seeing a leaked scene with Lorna alongside Reeva in an outdoors battle so I know she does SOME good stuff

We don’t know what she does in the scene you are talking about if anything. It’s clear she isn’t going to be back in base hysterical about her sick baby and protecting the baby 24/7 at the base, but neither was Caitlin last season and the hyper protective mom portion was the weakest part of her character.

Overdoing the baby drama is something I did fear because I know of only one genre series that only ever did a genre action mom well. That was only because they managed to balance her protecting John Connor and the world pretty well and didn’t bury her in the mom role.

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The writers would be literally committing show suicide to write Polaris into a "protective mom". She was far and away the breakout star of season 1.

It would be almost as ridiculous as Legion deciding to nuke their breakout season 1 star Aubrey Plaza as Shadow King... oh wait



But yeah, the fact she makes the headpiece is the main thing giving me hope. Also I still have to believe they can give her a more action-based role for the second half of the season.

Otherwise... I might have to just start getting used to "stanning" for Twist or Cuckoos or Reeva or Andy I guess, and just kind of accept the show is going to put Lorna into the background

[jmc247]

The writers would be literally committing show suicide to write Polaris into a "protective mom". She was far and away the breakout star of season 1.

It would be almost as ridiculous as Legion deciding to nuke their breakout season 1 star Aubrey Plaza as Shadow King... oh wait



But yeah, the fact she makes the headpiece is the main thing giving me hope. Also I still have to believe they can give her a more action-based role for the second half of the season.

I think they are setting up a crisis where she will have to realize she can’t protect the baby even being the hyper protective mom. Like I said I think the baby will be kidnapped or something along those lines.

Then comes the end of season decision on what to do with the baby and her options are poor given Eclipse unless he plans on going to hide in the rainforest of South America won’t protect the baby any better and likely would do even worse without the resources. If the show is really taking risks worse could happen to the baby, but I doubt it.

Still too much baby drama is something that can bury a fictional character entirely and it has many many times in the past as if it isn’t balanced with Lorna trying to change things she ends up like a laundry list of other fictional moms like last seasons Catlin.

The mom role tends to be the most surefire way in genre fiction of fridging a character. Last season they did great with it for Lorna because she put making a better world ahead of might she lose the baby in the process. This season it’s pretty clear with the baby out they are going for the reverse track of her being focused on the babies immediate physical needs not long term ones.

[jmc247]

Emma Dumont: I love Lorna. This is awesome. "Lorna Dane exemplifies an air of authenticity. She does not believe there is a point in one’s heroic journey where you have to establish yourself. She has lived a history where much was taken from her. Ultimately, she has endured."

https://mobile.twitter.com/EmmaDumon...41858800820224

Emma’s comments for the day.

[Soulsword323]

Sounds like the first couple of episodes will be a bit rough for Lorna, akin to what happened last season with her being in prison. I was hoping that they would bypass the recovery time like some TV shows do, but it seems like they won't be. Its unrealistic to think a woman who just gave birth to get back out there right away. Though it does sound like she will eventually. Hopefully she'll still take part in training.

[jmc247]

https://anerdwithwords.com/2018/09/1...ghteous-anger/

An interesting article I found on righteous anger. Mind you given Lorna from the words of Emma D. disagrees with Reeva 'on everything' it becomes more a question of if the show manages to be canny enough to provide that middle ground within the Inner Circle and allow there to be sides like a traditional Hellfire Club.

I wasn't against Reeva's addition as one of the queens of Hellfire as some were at the start because of the queen format of the organization allows different ideas and power bases, but in turning Hellfire into the Brotherhood in all but name it could basically create a binary choice between Xavierism and and Reeva unless things change which they might.

[Lunabelle0]

I'm rather frustrated with how Lorna is being treated in both the comics and now The Gifted. It's disappointing and honestly hard for me to want to talk my friend's ears off about The Gifted if they're going to sideline Lorna like that. But I'll still watch it and wait to see how it goes regardless. It seems so against all the promontial ads, posters, etc that they set up for Lorna only to make her play the crazy mom card. By far the over protective mother role was one of the more irritating and over done tropes in the first season.

Anyways, given that her 50th anniversary is coming up and my writing for Lorna has been posted on the previous thread. Here's the link again for anyone interested in reading my attempts at mixing different comic threads and The Gifted as best I can.

I'm working on moving Lorna into her own path. A middle ground between the X-men and The Brotherhood, but still very much a woman tied to mutant issues. It's an RP server, so I'm fairly limited in branching her out plotwise because all the other characters that interact with her are written by other people that come and go and change hands fairly frequently. If anyone has any thoughts, or suggestions or what you'd like to see, or plots that I might throw into the mix.. I'd be happy to try my hand at it.

[AbnormallyNormal]

I'm rather frustrated with how Lorna is being treated in both the comics and now The Gifted. It's disappointing and honestly hard for me to want to talk my friend's ears off about The Gifted if they're going to sideline Lorna like that. But I'll still watch it and wait to see how it goes regardless. It seems so against all the promontial ads, posters, etc that they set up for Lorna only to make her play the crazy mom card. By far the over protective mother role was one of the more irritating and over done tropes in the first season.

Anyways, given that her 50th anniversary is coming up and my writing for Lorna has been posted on the previous thread. Here's the link again for anyone interested in reading my attempts at mixing different comic threads and The Gifted as best I can.

I'm working on moving Lorna into her own path. A middle ground between the X-men and The Brotherhood, but still very much a woman tied to mutant issues. It's an RP server, so I'm fairly limited in branching her out plotwise because all the other characters that interact with her are written by other people that come and go and change hands fairly frequently. If anyone has any thoughts, or suggestions or what you'd like to see, or plots that I might throw into the mix.. I'd be happy to try my hand at it.

I've read a lot of your RP plots on there you do great

And yeah you are kind of all over the place with the character in terms of she has different affiliations and affinities it seems

But it's awesome how passionate you are

As far as the show I still think the second half she will get more active, there's just no way she won't I think. And let's just watch the episodes and find out maybe Emma Dumont is exaggerating a bit how "bad" it will be

In terms of comics... she MIGHT appear in the X-Men Black issue with Magneto... maybe?

And apparently she will be in the upcoming Uncanny X-Men but as far as how big her role is we don't know

I have to think they'll put her in some kind of book though, they've just got to

[jmc247]

I'm rather frustrated with how Lorna is being treated in both the comics and now The Gifted. It's disappointing and honestly hard for me to want to talk my friend's ears off about The Gifted if they're going to sideline Lorna like that. But I'll still watch it and wait to see how it goes regardless. It seems so against all the promontial ads, posters, etc that they set up for Lorna only to make her play the crazy mom card. By far the over protective mother role was one of the more irritating and over done tropes in the first season.

Anyways, given that her 50th anniversary is coming up and my writing for Lorna has been posted on the previous thread. Here's the link again for anyone interested in reading my attempts at mixing different comic threads and The Gifted as best I can.

I'm working on moving Lorna into her own path. A middle ground between the X-men and The Brotherhood, but still very much a woman tied to mutant issues. It's an RP server, so I'm fairly limited in branching her out plotwise because all the other characters that interact with her are written by other people that come and go and change hands fairly frequently. If anyone has any thoughts, or suggestions or what you'd like to see, or plots that I might throw into the mix.. I'd be happy to try my hand at it.

The show is a soap opera with mutants of course and this season the promo people have decided to play up the schism but the baby is going to be very central to the soap connecting everything in the season, but doing that without having Lorna obsessing on an episode to episode basis that my baby is dying, someone could kill my baby... or having baby drama and focus entirely eat up her story is key.



Lorna fighting for the child's future world not it’s immediate health and protection needs was a formula that was working last season.

At least we know vaguely to not expect Lorna out there in the field for October and November now because nothing hurts quite like having unrealistic expectations which are being set up by the promos and its better to talk about it now then November when nothing can be course corrected.

In terms of the comics Lorna's story it is a mess that is far harder though also far from impossible to course correct. Its her 50th anniversary and they broke her usable connections one by one over time so she really has only 2 or 3 left. They divorced her from mutant issues mid last decade and reattaching her is not so easy after being divorced from mutant issues since Decimation.

The comic character in my view needs a full scale rebuilding effort while The Gifted version only needs a change of focus from the child's immediate welfare to its long term welfare. In terms of the work you have done with your collaborate stories it is strong. You understand the character needs a focus on what she wants from the world and how she wants to change it not just who she cares about. Only focusing on who she cares about is the bane of the comic character's existence.

For Lorna and mutant issues I look at it this way without her tie to mutant issues she falls into a very similar hole. When she ended the 1990s she had no usable close relations with her ex gone so she spent months insane in her room taking to the shirt of her ex and then trying to find the shirt. That was the end result of her too myopically focused on relationship issues over fighting for things bigger then herself.

[salarta]

What all this recent talk is making me think of.





If you know Metroid: Other M, you know that's not a compliment.

The irony is that if you look at season 2 of Wynonna Earp, they did a damn good job. Melanie Scrofano (the actress for Wynonna) found out she was pregnant shortly after the show got renewed for season 2, Emily Andras (developed IP for TV) worked it into being a major focal point of the season, and it effectively brought out important themes and character moments about legacy, what's best for the child, etc. Wynonna continued doing all the things she always did, just with more risk and emotional weight to it because of her pregnancy.

Aside from that, earlier today my mind decided to imagine what could have been if Dreamer had been kept around like she should've been. Lorna, leading Hellfire Club or one of its queens, with a single trusted confidant she knows wouldn't stab her in the back in a moment of weakness. Able to tear things up, knowing Dreamer's ready with a backup plan to get out of there if the baby's coming. And if the Cuckoos try to use Lorna as a puppet, Dreamer could recognize it's happening and theoretically use her powers to counteract it. Then the baby comes and Lorna has someone she can safely keep the baby with while she goes out and does her thing. All while Dreamer acts as a "good angel" in balance with the darker impulses the Hellfire Club pushes Lorna toward indulging, not letting the power consume her. So, a "power behind the power" situation so to speak.

But of course, things are what they are.