X-Men "Gifted" TV show discussion and speculation

[jmc247]

Sage and Dreamer can go..they didnt generate the reaction .the social media...trending like the episodes focused on Lorna's past. Anyone that looks at her Insta and Twitter knows how huge her presence carried the show. If you divert from that, it was automatically a bad sign..especially after the season finale of Season 1. Reeva is just a made up character..lol. No one knows who is compared to a member of cult status House of M Hierarchy being on TV weekly. Sage and Dreamer are in that same boat..they were fun to watch...Dreamer and Lorna had a great connection but it wasnt the life blood of the show. The progression of Lorna Dane was. Everyone went along with the ride..John, Blink, and Marcos are pretty boring in direct comparison. No one cares about Jace either. Just crazy. What the he was Matt Nix thinking?

I agree with you in part in so far as they weren’t top billing characters, but they should have limboed them if they didn’t plan on using them for the foreseeable future. Killing them off for shock value and to further other characters stories was an error. I didn’t absolutely love Dreamer like some fans, I did like her, but there was those who did absolutely love the character who outright saw her death as purely to advance other characters stories and on that point at least it was.

Her death wasn’t a deal breaker for me watching the show and even Lorna’s death for me would not have been something I would have stopped watching the show over. Not being true to their own characterizations and writing down to the audience for myself is more along the lines of what is for me was sort of a deal breaker. The writers should have taken greater care all around to not treat their characters and their characterizations like to use a Hellfire Club analogy... chess pieces.

[Theleviathan]

Reeva as a co-equal member of the Hellfire Club with Lorna and Esme for most the season who comes to find their methods weak and passive and decides on straight up anti-human terrorism so takes over the group, wins over many followers including Esme's sisters and forces Lorna and Esme to ally with the Underground. Reeva more as the Fabian Cortez of the Hellfire Club.
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Last night I was reading Michelle's post before yours and chewing on what they could have done better....then you dropped Cortez's name and that is perfect. I have made it no secret I didn't like the fraction move at the end of S1. But if you're going to do that, Lorna needs to be the Magneto of the show with the IC pulling the strings. Then later she discovers their manipulations and turns on them.

They turned Lorna into someone the show literally told us was a meaningless "name" and nothing more. They indicted themselves for their stupid decision making on her.

[jmc247]

Last night I was reading Michelle's post before yours and chewing on what they could have done better....then you dropped Cortez's name and that is perfect. I have made it no secret I didn't like the fraction move at the end of S1. But if you're going to do that, Lorna needs to be the Magneto of the show with the IC pulling the strings. Then later she discovers their manipulations and turns on them.

They turned Lorna into someone the show literally told us was a meaningless "name" and nothing more. They indicted themselves for their stupid decision making on her.

The problem was they had to radically reinvent Lorna's character to fit her into the role. They had to change her no nonsense personality, her ethics on using force, really they had to reinvent the character from what they wrote in season one to make what they decided on work. Emma even said as much that she didn't know who this character she was playing was this season spending each episode sitting around terrified or crying.

The irony is they could have had everything they wanted as in their message about identity politics and radicalism, Lorna in time turning her back on the Hellfire Club, and even Reeva leading the Hellfire Club (and likely another season with it) without totally reinventing Lorna's character just by changing up how they handled the Hellfire Club from the start.

Searching for new fans and introducing new characters is fine, but don't disrespect the fans and characters you have in search of new pastures which as was the case this year might not materialize.

[salarta]

Sage and Dreamer can go..they didnt generate the reaction .the social media...trending like the episodes focused on Lorna's past. Anyone that looks at her Insta and Twitter knows how huge her presence carried the show. If you divert from that, it was automatically a bad sign..especially after the season finale of Season 1. Reeva is just a made up character..lol. No one knows who is compared to a member of cult status House of M Hierarchy being on TV weekly. Sage and Dreamer are in that same boat..they were fun to watch...Dreamer and Lorna had a great connection but it wasnt the life blood of the show. The progression of Lorna Dane was. Everyone went along with the ride..John, Blink, and Marcos are pretty boring in direct comparison. No one cares about Jace either. Just crazy. What the he was Matt Nix thinking?

You're severely underestimating both the value of these characters and the impression left by how their deaths were handled. A character not being as popular as the most popular character on the show doesn't mean they don't heavily contribute to what makes the show and its characters interesting. Fiction is rife with characters that offer way more than they're given credit. You need variety, and character types that play well with each other and mutually expose parts of each other they'd never show alone. And, I distinctly remember just 10 years ago when I said on an imageboard that Lorna should return from space, and some other guy said she should stay out there to "keep her away from characters that matter." The same things being said about Sage and Dreamer here can be and have been said about Lorna elsewhere.

Then there's handling of character death. Even if we say killing them off was necessary (which it wasn't, but we'll go with it), the show should've handled it much better. Every other show I've seen pays tribute to the characters before offing them. Walking Dead and Once Upon a Time often had the whole episode where they die dedicated to them. Shows like Blacklist and Game of Thrones make character death into the big moment that people talk about heavily, with major consequences. People want to see that getting emotionally invested in a character was worth it. Actions that feel like getting emotionally invested is a mistake lead to people not wanting to watch anymore. Easier to handle a character's death when you've become detached enough from the show to not care what happens on it anymore.

[Theleviathan]

The problem was they had to radically reinvent Lorna's character to fit her into the role. They had to change her no nonsense personality, her ethics on using force, really they had to reinvent the character from what they wrote in season one to make what they decided on work. Emma even said as much that she didn't know who this character she was playing was this season spending each episode sitting around terrified or crying.

The irony is they could have had everything they wanted as in their message about identity politics and radicalism, Lorna in time turning her back on the Hellfire Club, and even Reeva leading the Hellfire Club (and likely another season with it) without totally reinventing Lorna's character just by changing up how they handled the Hellfire Club from the start. L

Searching for new fans and introducing new characters is fine, but don't disrespect the fans and characters you have in search of new pastures which as was the case this year might not materialize.

After what she did with the plane, did they have to reinvent her? They just had to have her explore those darker leanings for a bit. I wanted her strong, determined but being played without knowing it. Then she turns that aggression and emotion on the HFC and rejoins the MU.

Maybe it wouldn't have worked, but it surely couldn't have been worse than what they decided to do. The actress trashes it publicly and the shows writers even trash it in their own show. Stupid. She was the A-list, central character and they trashed their opportunity.

[jmc247]

After what she did with the plane, did they have to reinvent her? They just had to have her explore those darker leanings for a bit. I wanted her strong, determined but being played without knowing it. Then she turns that aggression and emotion on the HFC and rejoins the MU.

Maybe it wouldn't have worked, but it surely couldn't have been worse than what they decided to do. The actress trashes it publicly and the shows writers even trash it in their own show. Stupid. She was the A-list, central character and they trashed their opportunity.

What I mean when I said reinvent is they turned season two Lorna the first half of the season into being the Inner Circle’s season one Catalin Stucker not just with her own baby, but being rent a mom to Andy, with some brief moments that portended something better might be ahead in the middle of the season, then after the team up with Eclipse she has an emotional breakdown over Reeva hiring some merc and to tell the audience look she is good they decide to have her spend the second half the season alternating between scared face, tears, apologies, more tears, hugs, more scared face, more apologies, more hugs and tears.

[Theleviathan]

What I mean when I said reinvent is they turned season two Lorna the first half of the season into being the Inner Circle’s season one Catalin Stucker not just with her own baby, but being rent a mom to Andy, with some brief moments that portended something better might be ahead in the middle of the season, then after the team up with Eclipse she has an emotional breakdown over Reeva hiring some merc and to tell the audience look she is good they decide to have her spend the second half the season alternating between scared face, tears, apologies, more tears, hugs, more scared face, more apologies, more hugs and tears.

Gotcha. Yeah, it was character assassination.

[AbnormallyNormal]

Yes it's beyond dispute that the ending to season 1 would have led anyone normal to assume Polaris was going to inherit her dad's legacy on the show in a lot of ways

The show was going to demonstrate a relatively new angle to the character which most fans who are aware of her at all only think of in terms of "X-Factor, Havok, Kind of crazy"

And then season 2 after a very weak beginning , started actually building on that promise culminating with episodes 8 and 9 of her backstory, literally turning Magneto's medallion into her personal headband, and then destroying the anti-mutant collar servers

It's just super shocking and weird for them to nuke all of that and it's why it feels like external pressure to me. It seemingly comes out of nowhere and they absolutely not just reverse course on her entire character arc for the show but begin doing weird retcons like pretending she always was buddy-buddy with Evangeline, when season 1 flashback made her and Evangeline seem not to get along at all (symbolizing how Lorna was never a true fit for the Underground)

What about the ways of the Underground changed to allow for Lorna and Andy to 180 degree decide to rejoin? Absolutely nothing. It makes both characters come off as supremely silly and flakey. The idea that the Lorna of late season 1 would have strongly freaked out about the idea of a mutant revolution or destroying the headquarters to the Sentinel Services? Please. Insults viewer intelligence.

It's one thing to make Reeva "harder edged" and then have Polaris ultimately push her out or replace her, and she and Esme co-lead a new group etc

But just going right into the Underground... no. Absolutely wrong way to go. Turns this wonderful complex realistic provocative series into a caricature and parody , the final episode had so many absurd moments that to me HAD to be interpreted as a satire, they were SO over the top sappy cliched and hackneyed.

I was almost willing to make my peace with all of this though IF they had given us the emergence of a new Fenris at the end. If they won't give us Lightish Grey moral complexity then give us the Darker version. But nope... all the eerie ominous dreadful and exciting building tension around Andy and (especially) Lauren just got forgotten about completely? Again to me that says external pressure. Either that or new writers lol because it totally goes against everything they had been doing

[juan678]

Curiosity Anna Paquin with Gifted.......

[Styles]

'The Gifted' Canceled at FOX, No Season 3 Coming

[RachelGrey]

'The Gifted' Canceled at FOX, No Season 3 Coming

I wonder though if Disney + might still pick it up, it was actually a pretty good show even with some of the ups and downs of the writing in season 2.

[HandofPrometheus]

Well I won't be starting season 2.

[salarta]

The only thing that really surprised me was how long it took for the word to drop. Show's showrunner and writers made a lot of easily avoided mistakes, ignored multiple warnings, and existing Marvel bias against Lorna meant it would've been an uphill battle to keep the show going post-merger even if it was the best show ever made.

I can still see an outcome where the show moves to other online only streaming services like the article points out. Possibly even a much shorter limited run to wrap up the story because of season 2's cliffhanger ending.

[Theleviathan]

Well I won't be starting season 2.

Lucky you.

[Grey]

Well I won't be starting season 2.

You can still enjoy (or decide you don’t enjoy) season 2 regardless of not having more seasons.