The Gifted Season 2 Episode 12 Review: hoMe

This The Gifted review contains spoilers.

The Gifted Season 2 Episode 12

I’m old. Not an ancient, wizened, hobbling crusty old hermit (even though I do live far from civilization and occasionally step gingerly after I run or sit for a long time). But I’m old enough where I’ve run out of patience for plot contrivance, shows that have sudden character swerves to put people in a spot where the show can advance their overarching story. So a good chunk of tonight’s episode of The Gifted had me very frustrated, because I know that they can do better. And I know from the other half of tonight’s episode.

Another development that comes with my old age, and this is just me and not “being old,” is that I really just want to watch characters communicate effectively and be well adjusted. Blink, to me, is the perfect X-Man on the show: she’s smart, wry, and competent. She’s generally well-adjusted, with a realistic view of the world around her. We get a deeper dive into her character this week, and it just reinforces how great she is for the show.

In the cold open and a few times again through the episode, we get flashbacks to her childhood, hanging out with her foster sister talking about how hot the sparkly Twilight vampires are until their drunk stereotype of a foster dad comes home. Blink and her sister escape the house using one of her newly developed portals, but we find out later (as a means for Clarice to break up with John) that her sister went back in to try and defend some of the kids they left behind. Her sister was killed by her abuser when she went back, and Clarice tells John as their relationship is crumbling that “Running into a battle you’re gonna lose isn’t brave, it’s selfish.” And then she skips out to join the Morlocks, leaving John and the dog crying on the floor of their hovel.

Clarice has her act together. She smelled BS about the plan to railroad all the Underground leaders into something by Evangeline Whedon, and she was comfortable saying so to the people she cared about. Nobody was really in a position to do anything about it – the meeting was coming up too fast to change it, and she was apparently whipping off-screen attendees whether John and Marcos were onboard or not, but it was nice to have someone on the show express at least some of the same reservations that I felt at home. This meeting was clearly BS from the start.

Meanwhile, The Gifted continues to resemble an X-Men comic in the way it juggles the 9,426 plots this season still has unresolved: by bouncing back and forth between character groupings. Lauren popped Andy in the mouth in a shared dream, so the Inner Circle has decided they want to try and bring her in. Andy knows they’re going to do it by having the Cuckoos rewire her brain, so he fights it a little, but only for the chance to convince her to join of her own free will. Kate decides to go visit her brother and see if he can use his Lexis account to find out more on Reva and the Purifiers, and Lauren decides to go with her to get away from the creepy music box that’s making her want to hold hands with her brother.

Also, I think Kate might be on cocaine? She’s doing some kind of hobo crossfit in the Underground’s secret dillapidated apartment base and she talks really fast to Reed when she is trying to convince him to let her go visit her brother. Reed is also listening to the music box, and it’s making his powers flare up. And Lorna is trying to spy on the Inner Circle and figure out what Reva’s new terrorist squad is going to target – she catches them on their way to blow up the Underground, but she hasn’t figured out their big plan yet. There was legitimately a ton going on this episode.

The thing is, everything’s coming together for what I assume to be the season’s endgame. Kate’s brother got tagged by Sentinel Services almost the second he started sniffing around on Reva, and we saw her and Shane Hannity working together last week. She infiltrated the Purifiers, and she infiltrated the Government, so who’s to say she hasn’t also infiltrated the Underground? Or the Morlocks?

Blink is underground with the Morlocks now, and while everybody at the Underground bought it, we never saw a clear body, and this writer’s room is versed enough in the comics to know that means that these characters are all at worst in Schrodinger’s Holster (it’s where you keep Chekhov’s Gun), alive or dead, waiting for the most opportune time to be publicly mourned/pop out of a closet and shout “BETRAYED”? All I’m saying is don’t be surprised if a dragon is flying around Inner Circle HQ in the climax of the last episode. I certainly hope Blink’s there, too.

LOOSE GENETIC MATERIAL

-Thunderbird is covered in open wounds and half dead, but he’s still answering emails. Hard same, friend.

-I can’t believe I only just made this connection, but Dallas, where the infamous “7/15” happened, was in the comics the site of the X-Men’s story in Fall of the Mutants, a quasi-thematic crossover in 1988. In Uncanny X-Men (which was, along with New Mutantsand X-Factor the main book of the crossover), the X-Men fight the Adversary at Forge’s loft in Dallas, and then appear to die as they head off to Australia to adventure for a bit.

-What’s the deal with the music box? Speculate in the comments.

-Just a stray observation, but Kaitlin just left her brother out to dry with Sentinel Services. He was just standing there while new, hyper-violent Lauren chopped up a couple of APCs, threw up a shield and then drove off with her mom in their new super-effective getaway car, a *checks notes* 2005 Subaru Outback.

-Next week: Sibling hunt! The Cuckoos are ready to brainwash her, but Andy wants to bring her over to their side. Guess who’s going to win…