The Gifted episode 9 - gaMe changer (Spoilers)

[jmc247]

Changing time come January to 9PM puts them out of kiddy hour FCC rules and should help certain things. One has to love the get up Lorna is wearing when she goes about the break in and the music was well matched to the scene.

[U.N. Owen]

The handling of the mutant cure was dumb. There's a more nuanced way of looking at it. The slippery slope fallacy was abused so much with the cure sub-plot that it's insane.

[Heroine Addict]

Strong finish to the first half of the season!...

Loved the ending with Polaris and Andy stopping those collars, and Lauren and Noah taking out the doctor's lab.

Thunderbird sacrificing himself kinda reminded me of when he jumped on that plane in the comics. They're doing a wonderful job with him this season.

Also, so much Sage! Happy to see more of her.

I do think its odd that they're changing times though. I don't think the Flash will be on till spring of next year?

Polaris looked positively ferocious, when they arrived at the collar control center. That scene was so sharp, and the music was on point.

Yes, John's journey & development, have been a highlight of this season. He's become much more fleshed out & well rounded, with some interesting foibles.

And Tessa DID seem the most Sagey yet, with her matter of fact, rapid-fire assessment articulations.

What, it's moving to 9? I didn't catch that. Crap, then it'll be on against that damn This Is Us, or whatever it's called.

[Grey]

Disappointed with this season so far overall. This episode in particular.

This season has high points for sure and I still enjoy the show.

My issues:
1.) preview for second half shows Lauren becoming jean 2.0 “her powers are growing. She’s becoming more violent.”

2.) thunderbird went to super irrational way too fast.

3.) inner circle breaking all the mutant collars is a good idea, no doubt. But surely they realize that there are some legitimate criminals who they just freed.

4.) vfx seem to be getting worse and worse imo- wasn’t the budget bigger this season?

Basically the inner circle and the mu characters are mostly all making decisions that seem
Short-sighted. If they had just tweaked their plans a little they both could have been considered “good guys” this episode.

Blink was the only one who sounded like a true “x-man” this episode, and it’s shame because most of this season she’s come
Off as needlessly naggy.

The one good thing I see out of all this is the IC and MU, by nature of al that happened in this episode, will likely be allied in the second half of the season. We’ll seee I guess.

[AbnormallyNormal]

"That preview tho"

I can't help but be obsessed with the preview showing spoilers:

Lauren essentially embracing her von Strucker / Fenris side and turning closer into Andrea. That has me extremely hyped that they're potentially setting up a Fenris 2.0 situation where Lauren loses her moral bearings due to the overwhelming power of going Fenris , and her and Andy become "big mutant bads" for a season 3, if there is a season 3.

end of spoilers

For the episode itself I loved it !!!

That flashback truly did paint Twist as a normal girl and a raw victim of parental cruelty/apathy, like talk about your "helicopter parents" or whatever. They perceived their mutant daughter to be an inconvenience to THEM so hey. Let's let her get sent to a damn torture facility for the rest of her life. Why not? I'm not condoning her later actions but... well... yeah. I kinda am.

Really sweet how Andy risked everything to save Twist, and then Twist goes HAMF against all of the IC at once. Andy tragically kills her. Sad stuff, oh well. Twist really was way too powerful and chaotic to keep alive I guess.

Not the biggest fan of them again starting to make Reeva seem insidious about everything... episode 2 vibes there... bleh. I want to be able to like Reeva show! Let. Me. Like. Reeva!!!

I missed Jace Turner/Purifiers last episode actually, since to me they are the true antagonists so we need them for tension and sense of threat/conflict.

Absolutely nuts the Purifiers captured Thunderbird. just... I don't even. What??? How???

Lorna floating to attack the main collar server was very dramatic and great

Same with Andy helping to attack the place

Do wish there was more of a battle to get inside but I guess the episode was running out of time to fit in all these different storylines together

The stuff with Lauren was good, nice that Noah had a change of heart and Madeline really showed her true side about how she views mutants as a "disease" altogether

Good episode I graded it an A but a B would also be appropriate

Criticisms: I do think the scene with Noah destroying the lab, himself, and Madeline could have used a bit better VFX. But I was still able to get immersed

Also I really hate Marcos and his hypocrisy and being SO anti Inner Circle. THEY. DON'T. ATTACK. YOU? What the hell is wrong with Marcos

[anyajenkins]

I got more Strucker incest vibes from this episode, lol. I know a if I tech doesn’t work like real world stuff, but all collars controlled from one place? And they conveniently turn off when the machine is destroyed? *le sigh* kinda surprised they killed twist already but that at least had more logic...

[Master of Sound]

Did Sage habe anything meaningful to do/ say? Or is she again just a background filler?

[Killerbee911]

My thoughts

The Bad

Forced and Rushed That was the common theme through the episode for me,Given the snail pace the action had in some of earlier episodes,I kind wish they used more of stuff in this episode in the early ones. The standout forced attitude was Thunderbird who is so over the top in his singular focus he seem out of character. And when you get Blink also equally forced opposition to what was going on.You get super cringe dialogue and scenes. If at any point Thunderbird stop and said to Blink " Okay woman you don't like my plan,You give us a plan". Which lead to Blink going " Uhmm I don't know".

Andy and Twist still on the forced/rush theme. Girl casual murders 37 people and you are cool with it? Even overlooking the love make you do stupid thing the sequence that followed after him break her out was stupid. She said that she was going to kill them why was Andy shocked when she got off the elevator and tried to kill the inner circle. That said Twist is a great addition to the X-men franchise. I like the idea of Joker like X-man villain who just care about making chaos for the X-men. I hope she shows up in the comics

The mutant cure stuff I mean it was telegraph that doctor would be full evil,It was probably only to justify destroying the lab. But the rush nature of tonight show made the doctor have no nuance just look like a racist prick and the lab assistant have out nowhere change of heart. This should been focus of a whole episode but it was compacted into a bigger episodes so while everyone reasoning made sense,how fast they came about didn't. Lauren forgetting how her powers work made almost slap my head but eventually I mean conveniently she remember so she could take out guards who see could have taken out in the first place.

Thunderbird capture Everybody forgetting how their powers work conveniently. I mean Eclipse shooting beams of light to blind the purifiers would have been certainly helpful. I am almost certain Thunderbird has shown he can lift a truck as well.

The Good

Reeva had a good plan I mean unexplainably all the mutant collars are on big collar server with no smaller back up collar servers as redundancy but hey oh well. You have take off a little bit of points because she has no way to control them or least we have seen it yet.

The action was on point in the show.If they lean more on the action than the themes the Gifted will be okay.

Random musings

- The future of the show is exciting.With all those mutants running around who will probably be against the underground and the government having justify reason to be afraid mutants. I think this is the set up for the X-men at its best.

-Given the amount of prison/detention center for mutants the underground trying to living in peace with humans route looks really stupid. Now way they should have been so passive, They should have being doing guerrilla mission on facilities trying to get their numbers up and fighting back against government who is clearly illegal holding mutants.

- Given the amount of mutant detectors at bank and at facility that had control collars how in the world do mutants hide? Doesn't police and government have those things?

- The last couple of episodes I have been so good I haven't wish death on any of Struckers good job show in making them less annoying. Nope wait I lied Andy can still die

- I can't say the preview with Lauren being more powerful excites me that much with the Stuckers being the weakest part of the show but give how underpowered the underground is on the show it makes sense for them to get a real big gun.

-Speaking of underpowered can the underground find a old X-men base somewhere so they can be a little more " Xmenish" dress up leather suits and flying a blackbird to missions

- The inner circle has gotten the memo in dressing for success in the X-men. Polaris punk rocker like get up works. I wish that rubs off on the comic character that would be at least a new angle. I also like that character who controls metal was wearing something that could be possible made of metal. Shouldn't Magneto and Polaris keep some metal on them for emergencies?