Monday 13 November 2017

The Gifted - 'eXposed', ‘rX’ and ‘eXodus’

L to R: Eclipse (Sean Teale), Thunderbird (Blair Redford), Clarice (Jamie Chung), Polaris (Emma Dumont), Andy (Percy Hines White), Caitlin (Amy Acker), Reed (Stephen Moyer) and Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) Strucker, and Agent Turner (Coby Bell).
What’s this? Mo Marvel?

Reed Strucker(1) is a hard working DA who spends much of his time prosecuting those criminalised under the United States’ draconian Mutant laws. When his son Andy manifests extreme telekinetic abilities during a bullying incident and his daughter Lauren admits to having possessed similar abilities for some time, he and his wife Caitlin know that they have to get away before Sentinel Services(2) come for them. To this end, Reed makes contact with the Mutant Underground, a movement who have been smuggling mutants out of the country ever since the law clamped down and the X-Men disappeared.

The actors playing the less experienced mutants make a real meal of their
struggle to use their powers.
Reed offers his help in rescuing Lorna Dane, aka Polaris, a mutant who was captured, and who is pregnant, in exchange for getting his family away. Unfortunately, they are traced, and Reed is captured, although the rest of his family are rescued by laser-slinger Eclipse, walking Native American stereotype John ‘Thunderbird’ Proudstar, and new bug Clarice(3). While Reed is leaned on by Sentinel Services Agent Turner and Polaris locked up in prison with a collar which zaps her when she uses her powers(4), the Underground struggle with Clarice’s erratic and overstretched powers and Caitlin’s insistence that there is a way out of this by just being reasonable.

The Gifted is a Marvel-based TV show set in the, or perhaps an X-Men continuity; it’s not entirely clear which one. After three episodes, it’s clear that this is a slow burner, but is starting to get somewhere. Using the character Thunderbird – he’s strong, he’s fast, he has superhuman senses and tracking abilities, and he’s an Apache! – is a bold(5) choice, but beyond the obvious stereotypes he’s presented here as a practical, but caring leader. There’s also a creepy bit of business where his not-girlfriend-because-we’re-working-together uses her ability to transfer memories to make Clarice think she is in love with him, in order to give her the drive and focus to rescue him. Polaris has a disturbing physical fragility playing off against her astonishing powers, and a compelling screen presence that has so-far transcended the fact that her plot is basically ‘try to do a thing, pass out, try to do a bigger thing, pass out, rinse and repeat.’

The budget Magneto prison.
The Strucker kids are decent characters for the original newbie slots, With Lauren’s togetherness and Andy’s outsider fury complementing one another well. Blink is a bit of a cypher, but Eclipse rounds out the main cast nicely, alongside the normal humans. Speaking of rounded, we’ve got an Asian-American, a Latino and a Native American in the main cast, and that’s not nothing, Even if our viewpoint characters are as white as Camembert.

All-in-all, The Gifted is no Legion, but it’s more immediately involving than any season of Agents of SHIELD to date and it could take Inhumans to school, deliver the lessons (complete with objective, outcomes and plenary) and bring it home afterwards.

(1) No relation to the Von Struckers, I presume, although – spoilers – apparently incorrectly.
(2) The sinister government agency du jour, never actually referred to as the SS.
(3) Soon to be known as, but not yet, Blink.
(4) Her powers are magnetic, the collar is electronic, there is a solution inherent in this set up which she appears to simply be ignoring, given that we establish she can work through the pain long enough to rip a door off its hinges.

(5) I wanted to say brave, but I don’t know if that term is considered racist, and I don’t want to be racist for the sake of a pun.

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