The Gifted Recap: Meh-scape Plan
I have wanted to believe in Fox’s The Gifted (and still do), but this Monday’s episode was admittedly wafer-thin, simmering to a climax that kinda has me questioning the stakes moving forward.
In fact, one could almost boil the episode down to three scenes: plan formulation; Marcos procures intel; and execution.
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Knowing that Reed and Lorna Polaris are about to be transferred to a supermax facility, Caitlin (who thankfully posseses the power of Having Seen the Occasional TV Procedural) gets the innovative idea to not try to break the duo out of their next heavily-guarded home, but grab them during the vehicular transport. That presents just two problems: knowing when/where the convoy is traveling, and finding a way to stop it without too much suspicion (lest a gunfight break out).
To solve the first problem, Marcos “knows a guy” — who is now a girl, Carmen, as in the cartel boss’ daughter. Whom Marcos used to bed. Until he threw her over for Lorna. So… they have issues. And this Carmen wants more than some tepid flirtation from an ex in trade for Sentinel Services intel. She wants Marcos to use his talented hands to torture information out of a tied-up goon. Marcos begrudgingly complies, but luckily only has to threaten the guy with blindness to make him sing.
As for stopping the convoy, Lauren gets the idea to combine her and Andy’s powers, so that her brother can better focus his destructive ability to blow up the prison bus’ front axle. But come game time and just when they do that, Agent Turner smells mutie intervention and orders a “lock down.” As soon as he does that, Clarice goes to pop open a portal but can’t. The invisible dude (Shatter?) reappears in front of the agents, and is promptly shot. Nor can anyone else use their powers. John comes to realize that it’s because Sentinel Services has trotted out Pulse, a mutant with the ability to “disrupt” things — powers included. (Pulse used to run with John back in the day, until he got shot and captured during a breakout.)
John finds and KOs Pulse, freeing up everyone’s powers. Inside the prison bus, Polaris (at Reed’s suggestion) rips out the metal pins in his leg to use as lock picks, weapons against the guard and such. Once outside, Polaris returns a hail of bullets to their senders before yanking everyone’s guns out of their hands. Eclipse meanwhile uses his rays to blow up a squad car/create a distraction, before reuniting with his baby mama, while Caitlin embraces Reed upon arriving with the getaway car.
But with Polaris and Reed now freed, what will the weekly drama look like? I never expected the two to be in custody the entire series (or even season), but I thought that we’d have an instance or two of, “Reed is free… but now they grabbed Caitlin!” Will it stem from the strange marking John spotted on Pulse’s wrist? Plus whatever Agent Turner barked about clamping down on any sympathizers? Or did Lauren and Andy get nabbed during their flight back to HQ?
What did you think of Episode 4, “eXit Strategy”?
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