The Gifted - 'eXit Strategy' and 'boXed In'

"Hey; we're the good guys here."

Slowly working through Marvel's not-quite-the-X-Men-series-that-isn't-Legion, I've got two more episodes in the bag.

In 'eXit Strategy', the Underground set out to rescue Lawyer-Face and Polaris(1), with the junior Struckers comboing their powers to create a more targeted destructive effect to stop a prisoner transport truck. Meanwhile, Marco goes to his former contacts in a Mexican gang to get info on the convoy route, only to find that the gang is now run by his ex. Soo awkward. Things then go bad, as everyone's powers stop working, thanks to Pulse, a mutant friend of Johnny's who was thought killed in a raid on a Sentinel Services base, only to turn up apparently working on them. Then Johnny knocks out Pulse and everyone gets away, after Lawyer-Face volunteers the metal pin from his leg to allow Polaris(2) to break out of their transport.

'boXed in' sees Blink coming to terms with the fact that her relationship with Johnny is a big old fake, while Lorna ropes Marco into kidnapping Sentinel Services Agent Tragic McBackstory, whose daughter was killed when a mutant rights march exploded, leading to the current state of world affairs. They rope in Roofie-Breath to mess with his mind, and after Blink extracts them from a self-inflicted Sentinel Services hairball, McBackstory is left to go home with no memory that his daughter is dead.

So... y'know. It's actually hard to call who the real villains are here.

Also, Lawyer-Face makes amends for his almost betraying the entire Underground by going out and dummying Sentinel Services away from the hideout.

The Gifted is not a terrible series, but the plot matches its washed-out colour palette. It's much, much better than, say, Inhumans, but also much less memorable. There's a lot to like, some strong characters and interesting relationships, and mostly what I remember is that I really don't like Roofie-Breath and that Lorna and Marco are working hard to justify McBackstory's hate. Honestly, if the Underground represent the good mutants, I'm starting to think that Sentinel Services may have a point. Not a good point, but a point nonetheless.

(1) I'm watching this very slowly, so regular people names are especially hard to remember. Strucker is Lawyer-Face's surname, but there are a lot of Struckers in the series.

(2) Her real name is Lorna, but she's a long-time comic character as well.