The Gifted season 1, episode 2 – rX
What did The Gifted throw at the Mutant Underground after last week’s explosive premiere? Here’s what happened in The Gifted season 1, episode 2.
The Gifted arrived on FOX last week with a lot of power, both literally and figuratively, so what would the series do for its second act this Monday? rX picked up where eXposed left off and continued to establish that this is the new series to watch.
rX started with a flashback to happier times a year earlier, with the Strucker family going out for a bowling night that went sideways when another young woman started getting bullied and turned on her mutant power to stop it. Reed (Stephen Moyer) told the girl and her father to leave, much to the annoyance of daughter Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind), whom he couldn’t possibly guess then was a mutant herself.
In the present time, Lauren and the rest of the Struckers were panicking about having to leave Reed behind, while everyone else’s concern was Blink (Jamie Chung), who had overexerted her power to save them from the Sentinel Services. As Services agent Jace Turner (Coby Bell) called in reinforcements, he also took Reed into custody for further interrogation.
And as for Polaris (Emma Dumont)? The Gifted caught us up by showing her as a new resident of the Lakewood County Jail, which was as grim and unwelcoming as every other jail you’ve seen on TV. She learned the hard way about the government’s inhibitor collars that shut off her powers, as her boyfriend Eclipse (Sean Teale) got grief for trying to help her by rescuing the Struckers.
At least Caitlin Strucker (Amy Acker) was a nurse, so she was able to provide a tiny amount of help before Blink involuntarily opened another portal that sent half of a truck flying through the room.
Obviously this couldn’t keep happening, so The Gifted had to get Blink serious medical help but not get her to a hospital. Is there a solution? Enter Lauren one more time, as she reached beyond her own limits to close Blink’s portal while Caitlin and Eclipse joined forces to search for the drug they needed to keep any more from opening.
On the other side, Jace began to interrogate — ummm, “interview” Reed by leaning on the man’s love for his family. When Reed started to break out his prosecutor-speak on him, Jace decided to formally charge him for his role in last week’s altercation. So rX gave us a window to see how much Reed, and Caitlin for that matter, would really change their attitude toward mutants in the face of these new high stakes.
Eclipse: If it wasn’t your kids in that gym, would you be standing up for them? Would your husband?
Eventually arriving at South Street Hospital, Eclipse and Caitlin found themselves facing a packed waiting room (as he called it, “the ultimate pre-existing condition”). She came up with the idea of using his gunshot wound from the first episode to get them through the ER crowd in a hurry.
It worked, but of course there was a catch, as the ER doctor thought that Eclipse was abusing Caitlin since she showed up with her own injuries. Caitlin thought she had managed to dissuade him, but just as she stole the medication Blink needed, she saw him speaking to the police. And, the chase was on.
With Caitlin gone, Lauren and her brother Andy (Percy Hynes White) were left with Thunderbird (Blair Redford) and the rest of his group, and stuck continuing to deal with more random portals and whatever happened to be on the other side — such as a bunch of cops, who didn’t react well to seeing a bunch of mutants.
Jace kept putting pressure on Reed, including letting him know that his ex-partner had rolled on him.
He talked about losing his own seven-year-old daughter, Grace, as collateral damage in another mutant altercation — but just when The Gifted fans might have started to think he wasn’t a total jerk, Jace said this:
Jace: I’m never going to know if the blast of energy that killed my kid came from a good mutant or a bad mutant. And guess what? I don’t care.
Polaris found herself being roughed up in the prison yard by the woman who declared herself to be in charge (there’s one in every jail, am I right?), and that started a whole beating that led to our heroine being thrown in solitary confinement. Because of course, in the world of The Gifted, it was all her fault.
Likewise, Jace was willing to manipulate Reed’s mother Ellen (Sharon Gless) as a “potential co-conspirator.” But The Gifted showed us where Reed might’ve gotten his strength of conviction as Ellen talked about her own history of activism while her son looked on, agonized at the idea of risking what could be the safety of his wife and children to protect his mother.
But he had no idea how tough things had gotten on the other side. When Eclipse and Caitlin made it back to the Mutant Underground’s base, they found it being torn apart by Blink’s portals and the whole group having to evacuate. Caitlin braved the collapse to administer the drug to Blink, as she was the only one who’d know the correct dosage.
Faced with something she never could have imagined, Caitlin worked with Thunderbird to get Blink back to herself, which also kept the rest of the building from dropping on all their heads. The crisis was narrowly averted, but before fans could get too comfortable, The Gifted dropped another one onto our proverbial doorstep. More than one, actually.
Thunderbird asked Blink why all of her portals kept opening onto the same road, hinting at maybe something that will reveal itself during the rest of the season. While Caitlin assured her kids that they would find their father (and that it was their turn “to fight to bring everyone home”), we closed “eXposed” with Reed telling Jace that he would cooperate in the Sentinel Services’ hunt for the Mutant Underground, but only in exchange for his family’s freedom.
And because it wouldn’t be a mutant show without a creepy doctor, Jace was about to get a phone call rfrom a guy named Dr. Roderick Campbell, who had his own ideas about mutants—and he had zeroed in on the Strucker children.
rX was a strong follow-up to eXposed as it fleshed out the world of The Gifted season 1 in all the ways that mattered and a few that viewers probably didn’t even think about. Did we really stop to consider how mutants would be treated in the health care system? Or how much every single thing related to a mutant could be taken the wrong way?
We don’t know why that doctor was talking to the cops, but what rX teaches us is that it doesn’t matter; he becomes a threat, whether it’s because he misinterpreted a situation or not. And you could even argue that he was well within his rights to ask; if you throw out the mutant part, and just saw a woman bringing in her injured boyfriend with injuries of her own, would you be worried that you were looking at domestic violence?
But these are the situations that mutants have to deal with every day as far as The Gifted season 1 goes. And eXposed did a great job of opening both Caitlin’s and Reed’s eyes to those realities, so that we see them transition to the side of the mutants and that it means more to them than just being in it for their kids.
Not that their family doesn’t matter, but for their fight to be the kind of thing that could last seasons (hopefully it will), it can’t just be for themselves. That’s a very short-sighted motivation. They have to believe in the cause, and what we’re seeing is them getting reasons to believe.
Plus, if you’re a Matt Nix fan, did you catch the appearances of two more Burn Notice alums, in Sharon Gless (Ellen Strucker) and Garret Dillahunt (Dr. Campbell)? It’s great to see Nix going back to that talent pool for his next project.
This is ultimately a show about human nature and how far people will go, and even if you don’t know a thing about mutants or Marvel, it’s a story that you can appreciate.
What did you #FANdemaniacs think of
