…Continuing, or perhaps – developing, the plot of ‘The
Gifted’, we saw ‘eXodus’ the episode last night. Despite its’ name, there was
nothing Biblical about it; rather, it had Mrs. Strucker contacting her brother,
but failing to secure much help from him because reasons, while her husband
tried to make a deal with the Sentinel Services but reneged on them because it
was the right thing to do, (at least from his P.O.V.), while Blink ended up
saving everyone from the local version of KKK when Dreamer messed with her head
– but we got carried away… maybe.
Let us start anew. ‘The Gifted’ continues to impress us with
the actors and their acting; the plot is still miles better than that of ‘InHumans’
for comparison, but it has flaws of its own: for one thing, there is much less
humor in it than even in ‘InHumans’. ‘InHumans’ own gags are largely visual;
for example, in last week’s episode, ‘Medusa’, the titular character and her
new friend Louise escape from the police by wearing a couple of crazy-ass
bonnets (or hats). It looked ridiculous, and it worked – or could have worked,
if ‘InHumans’ script was not getting a rush job because S1 of ‘InHumans’ is
just 8 episodes long… S1 of ‘The Gifted’ has only 10 episodes, true, but it still
takes more time for the characters to develop than ‘InHumans’ do, and does do
better drama, (or tries to be a sci-fi version of GoT – apparently Maximus, the
main villain of ‘InHumans’, was also Ramsay Bolton of GoT’s Westeros. Hah.) It
is more subdued than ‘InHumans’ are, with fewer brighter colors, and a distinct
taste of the noir genre around it. What next?
Well, there is also the romantic angle – between Lorna/Polaris
and Eclipse, the would-be love triangle between Blink and Johnny/Thunderbird
and Dreamer. I confess that I’m not overwhelmed by either of them; ‘The Gifted’
could just as well focus on the relationship between the Strucker parents, (who
also love each other) and the changes in the plot would be…not exactly minimal,
but not that substantial either. The love triangle especially feels forced, as
if it is there only to provide the drama between Blink and Thunderbird in their
upcoming relationship with each other – but again, it still feels more real
than most of relationships on ‘InHumans’, especially that of Crystal and her
new not-Lockjaw friend…
One point of interest in ‘The Gifted’ (so far) is the
possibility that the Strucker children might be MCU’s new incarnation of the
Fenris twins of the comics. When I came across them, in a ‘Black Panther’ story
arc, they were villains, working for a super-villain who planned to take over
Wakanda... yes, it sounds familiar, because the ‘Black Panther’ 2018 movie is
also about a villain – Killmonger – who plans to take over Wakanda, though in
the comics Killmonger was already vanquished and gone and his protégés were
trying to take over Wakanda instead… I admit that I quit some time after the
Fenris twins appeared in the comics, but got defeated, when Black Panther got
his friends to fight them, including Luke Cage, (from ‘The Defenders’) and Ororo/Storm
from X-Men proper. In the comics she and Black Panther were married, then got
divorced, Black Panther married someone else… the comics sometimes go directly
into soap opera territory… anyhow, I quit when I heard that prince Namor
destroyed Wakanda instead – again.
Namor is the prince, or the king of Atlantis in MCU, and
usually associated with the X-Men rather than the Avengers, so he is more
likely to appear in ‘The Gifted’ (or ‘Legion’ for that matter) than in any of
the Avengers’ movies, or AoS, even. For reasons that I do not know about, he does
not like Wakanda, it seems, so he destroyed it – in ‘Avengers vs. X-Men’ story
arc, where the Avengers fought the mutants over the Phoenix force, and lost
initially, after the Phoenix force got spread over several mutants, including
Namor – who used it to destroy Wakanda the first time, and the second time he
used something else, and then he regretted it and went to Dr. Doom for help and
the latter refused him… yes. That Dr.
Doom. I am not sure what he is up to these days, his last major story arc was
the Battleworld one, I think, now he is the Infamous Iron Man, or maybe not…
Did we digress?
Maybe yes – it is doubtful that ‘The Gifted’ will have
anything to do with ‘Black Panther’ and vice versa, but on the other hand? The
world, and characters, of MCU, are extremely fluid, pliable and protean, so it
is anyone’s guess how any particular characters are going to end up looking as
next, or what role they are going to play. The Stryker twins in the TV series
are already beginning to dress alike – sort of – so if they are going to end up
as some sort of Wonder-Twins, good for them!
…As for us, this is it for today – until next time,
everyone!
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