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| 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.
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| 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.’
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| 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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