In the latest episode of Marvel’s new TV show The Gifted, a sequence of events leads a mutant and a non-mutant to a local hospital to pilfer some prescription medicines in a life-or-death situation. This is a world in which it is known that mutants live among humans. They decide to distract the hospital staff while the human (who’s a nurse) sneaks into the medical storage room to get the medicines. They pretend to be a couple and use the guy’s bullet wound as a ruse to enter the hospital’s treatment area. He’s a mutant, so even though the doctor politely stitches him up, he immediately calls the police on the couple. As the duo makes a run, they ponder briefly about the state of healthcare for mutants in the US. “I didn’t know things were so bad for mutants,” says the woman, who’s new to interacting with them. The man retorts: “This wasn’t even the worst experience I’ve had — at least the doctor treated me before calling the police.”
In the superhero world on television, that’s saturated with spandex-wearing do-gooders or tortured heroes fighting larger-than-life adversaries, The Gifted (so far at least, and it’s only been a couple of episodes) seems to be a very different and interesting take on Marvel’s world of mutants posed with present-day problems. I wasn’t expecting to like The Gifted quite as much as I am, and for those of you who’re interested in this deeper look at mutants who’ve had bit roles in X-Men comics, here’s a quick lowdown:
To call The Gifted an X-Men show without the X-Men, is doing it injustice. The show takes place in an alternate reality in which the X-Men did exist, but they’re not around any more. They’re mentioned a few times, but don’t expect them to turn up anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter. A cataclysmic event (the Westchester incident?) has chased away the X-Men, the same one that was referred to in Logan. Left to fend for themselves, the mutants operate as a collective underground, providing safe haven (i.e. passage to Mexico) to those who seek shelter from the US government that’s trying to systematically weed them out.
Mutant Underground is led by Thunderbird/John Proudstar (portrayed by Blair Redford), a mutant of the Apache tribe who has super strength, and more importantly, the ability to track people. In the comics, Thunderbird is killed off a little while after his introduction, but that’s unlikely to happen to the Thunderbird of the show. With him are Eclipse/Marcos Diaz (portrayed by Sean Teale), a character that was created specifically for the TV show, and can “absorb and manipulate photons.” He has some kind of light emitting power (which felt a little bit like “Lumos” from Harry Potter) which also doubles as a wicked weapon. Then there’s Polaris/Lorna Dane (played by Emma Dumont) — it’s already been established online that she’s supposed to be Magneto’s biological daughter (not that I’m expecting either Sir Ian Mckellen or Michael Fassbender to make an appearance on the show anytime!), and so she can obviously control magnetism.
The Polaris from the comics is often referred to as the “mistress of magnetism”, but the TV version is even better fleshed out — she suffers from bipolar disorder, and thankfully, The Gifted already has, and is going to continue to tackle it sensitively.
The premiere opened with these three rescuing a runaway mutant called Blink/Clarice Fong (Jamie Chung), who’s escaping the human prison stronghold where she was arrested for her teleportation powers. Blink, just like in the comics and in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past (where she was portrayed by Fan Bingbing) can open up portals and teleport herself, other people and things, between them. While they manage to rescue Blink, the authorities (who by the way, are secret service-like men focussed on capturing mutants and are called the Sentinel Services; in the comics, the Sentinels are giant mutant-hunting robots, and for good or bad, they’re done away with on the show) end up capturing Polaris and imprisoning her. Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re a mutant in this universe — if you’re thought to be “a threat”, you’re arrested and imprisoned!
Prosecuting these mutants is Reed Strucker (True Blood’s Stephen Moyer), a married father of two, who uses his “I’m trying to help you” spiel on all of them, including Polaris. Doesn’t quite work on her though; Polaris (even with her hands tied) manages to hurt Reed as he’s practising his prosecutor’s act on her. This is when Reed informs her that they’ve found out she’s pregnant, so there’s more at play here than just her imprisonment.
Reed’s life seems pretty sorted, until it’s shattered when he receives a call from his wife telling him that an incident in their children’s high school (which resulted in a fair bit of property damage, but no major physical injuries, and which the Sentinel Services are investigating) wasn’t an accident, but a direct result of their son Andy, who’s being bullied at school, unleashing his (until then unknown, unutilised, and unexplored) mutant telekinetic powers in a sort of Carrie-esque manner at a high school dance.
His older sister Lauren uses her powers to rescue him and bring him back home with her. Lauren’s powers are kind of unspecific, but she’s able to release a bubble-wrap like substance that forms a protective shield from whatever’s causing harm (FYI, in the second episode, Lauren also uses her powers to close up the portals that Blink is unconsciously opening when her teleportation powers malfunction after overuse).
Once Andy’s outburst outs him and Lauren as mutants, Sentinel Services take no time in tracking them to the Struckers’ home. Mama Strucker Caitlin (the human nurse that I mentioned in the beginning of this article) refuses to let her kids be taken, and Reed realises he can’t put his kids through the same torture that he himself has been responsible for with other mutants. Instead, what we have is a family on the run!
There are some rather heartwarming scenes between the Strucker kids, while the family is hiding from the authorities. They’re both only teenagers, and while Lauren had managed to keep her powers a secret until then, Andy is just coming to terms with what he is. Lauren kind of takes her younger brother under her wing, in the process also having some kid fun at the vending machine in the motel in which they’re staying put.
Towards the end of the first episode, Reed had contacted the mutant underground; he promises Eclipse information on the pregnant Polaris, in exchange for his family moving safely to Mexico. The Sentinel Services, led by a Jace Turner, catch up with them; Blink opens a portal to teleport them all to the mutant headquarters as Eclipse, Lauren, and even Andy fight off an army of spindly robot-weapons that the Sentinel Services unleashes on our friendly mutants and the Strucker parents. In the process, everyone but Reed makes it to mutant HQ safely (more or less). Reed is captured by Sentinel Services while Blink suffers severely after exerting her powers for so long.
This is where episode 2 begins, with Eclipse and Caitlin Strucker the nurse trying to find the medicines for Blink, since she can’t be taken to a hospital because that’ll only get her arrested again. Her malfunctioning power means that portals keep tearing open left, right, center, and above — some are safe-ish, with gawky men looking on in wonderment, others have SWAT teams waiting to pounce on the mutants the minute they can cross through an out-of-control portal. This is when Lauren uses her bubble-wrap powers to seal the portals, but things quickly go out of control, until Eclipse and Caitlin are back with the medicines. Meanwhile in prison, Polaris has been fitted with a dog collar around her neck, which prevents her from using her mutant abilities to cause any real damage. Reed, captured by Sentinel Services and being interrogated by Jace Turner, makes a deal with them — let his family (including his mother, who’s been picked up for questioning) go free, and in return, he’ll hand over the mutant underground to the authorities. There’s something about Reed, I don’t know — maybe it’s just me being used to seeing Moyer as a centuries-old vampire in True Blood, I’m constantly waiting for him to utter “Sookie” when he opens his mouth to speak! — but I don’t trust him. It actually might be an interesting story arc if the Strucker family isn’t all in line with one another — a little bit of a family dynamic might be more interesting than a straight up “family caught in the crossfire” storyline.
That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of interesting dynamics on the show already. More importantly, The Gifted seems keen on exploring the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and especially the X-Men multiverse in a slightly less colourful and spandex-y manner than most other TV shows. The sh*ttiness of being a mutant, as well as the very-much-in-place legal framework that’s present in the show’s universe — these are both conveyed better on The Gifted than any other movie or TV show about mutants, that I’ve ever seen. The Gifted may not have the star power of X-Men, and the mutant HQ on the show may not be the mansion that Professor X built as a school for young mutant kids, but the show has more to it than the glitz — it takes a much more realistic look at the world in 2017, addressing issues like healthcare (especially for minorities), mental health, and just the notion of being an “outsider” or “the other.”
In 2017, more than ever before, these are important issues, and a Marvel property on a network channel addressing these issues, is pretty darn cool. Also very cool are the special effects and action sequences — but then again, Bryan Singer (who directed four of the five X-Men movies) and Len Wiseman (the Underworld series) directed the first two episodes, so that’s not much of a surprise. Stan Lee made his famous cameo in the first episode itself, so there’s that stamp of approval for The Gifted. Think it has mine too!
Published Date: Oct 14, 2017 01:06 pm | Updated Date: Oct 14, 2017 01:06 pm
