The Gifted: S1 finale - Jan 16

‘Gifted’ S1 finale came through last night. And?

And it works. As it was discussed earlier, (several times), ‘Gifted’ is a simple, straightforward, conflict-driven show. The complexity comes from the fact that there are at least three main plotlines in the show: the Strucker family (who are going for the Organa-Solo meltdown), the four main MU leaders – LCJM – having to deal with the Frost siblings and the Brotherhood/Hellfire Club fusion, (centered on Lorna because obvious reasons), and finally the former agent Jace Turner, who has quit Sentinel Services before they could fire him, and will be now waging his own war against the mutants, most likely.

…Speaking of fire, Campbell has apparently died in the plane crash, but given how shifty his character was revealed to be in this very first season of ‘Gifted’, there is always a possibility that he has made it alive, and will now be revealed a mutant himself. Or an alien, (think Hive from AoS’ S3), or a cyborg/robot/something similar, (aside from mutants themselves, there are plenty of other entities in the X-Men corner of Marvel universe, you know?).

Back to the main characters, (so far Campbell was more of a guest star instead)? The final confrontations both in the Strucker family and between the LCJM quartet was highly reminiscent of the conflict that Star Wars: Sequel Trilogy is doing now, light vs. dark, or in case of SW, Jedi vs. Sith. Yay?

Well, on one hand, this is nothing more than what ‘Gifted’ has done throughout its S1 – used a conflict to drive itself forwards. For most of the time in S1 it were mutants vs. Sentinels and co., but there were some others, most noticeable – Marcos’ ex, Carmen the crime boss, but now it seems that it is going to be good vs. evil mutants as well.

Again, this is nothing breakthrough-worthy, (that is more of a ‘Runaways’ thing), but it does put yet another level of conflict into ‘Gifted’ black-and-white world. No, seriously, there’s almost always some sort of a black-and-white image in ‘Gifted’ episodes, especially the last ones, which brings us back to SW universe, and its’ dichotomy, which is also fairly straightforward: there are Jedi, who are good, and Sith, who are bad. The two groups struggle throughout the ages, with neither side ever achieving a perfect victory. (This is why Rey and team Resistance are going to win in the next SW movie, yeah). The two sides are balanced, yin and yang, period. This makes Andrew Strucker’s decision to leave his family back in ‘Gifted’… actually less dramatic, because you know that he’s going to come back, even if he is currently trying to be MCU’s new Kylo Ren (just before puberty). One of the Frost siblings, (are they all-natural or are they all clones?), may be trying to appeal to Andrew’s…manliness, but while he might be going all-Ben Solo now doesn’t mean that he’s going to kill his father in S2 either, so there’s that.

Fathers bring us to Lorna, who, as Polaris, is daughter of Magneto, usually also known as Eric Lensherr. You can say many things about Magneto, but he has never been a member of Hellfire Club – usually he and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants did their own, separate thing. Frosts and their handler might have gotten Lorna to strike out on her own away from the mutant underground, but the question is for how long they will be able to hold onto her? And how high the body count will go when they fail? (Magneto was never the one for subtlety, whatever he would pretend).

Back to the white and black? It’s easy to see now as to how and why the Hellfire Club was chosen to be a part of this universe – even in the initial comics most of its mutant members, (though some were cyborg instead), were named after chess pieces, black and white. In chess, there supposed to be only one winner out of two…but real life being what it is, you can get a tie in there instead, and will have to rematch – whenever. It will be interesting to see the surviving MU members dealing with this GM mentality of HC…and of course, the ex-agent Jace – the most competent enemy of the mutants on ‘Gifted’ – never got this memo, so he will be doing his own thing, and probably shaking things up for everybody, because he has cut his strings…

No, seriously, this is how things are lying at the S1 ‘Gifted’ finale: the Strucker family lost Andy. The LCJM quartet has lost Lorna the L ‘Polaris’. And Jace is now on his own, he has no one. In the right hands, done correctly, this can be an explosive combination – and the cast of ‘Gifted’ are clearly ‘the right hands’, here. Will be exciting to see what ‘Gifted’ will bring forth in the future S2, when it comes.

…This is it for now, see you all later.

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Together' - Jan 13

Now then: the latest AoS episode – ‘Together…’ was aired. And it worked.

Kasius and Sinera were given their time in the spotlight, and they are still not redeemable, but are proper, scheming villains. In ‘Together or not at all’, the audience has learned more about their back history than in the first six episodes combined. Yay! And Kasius killed his brother with an AKM bayonet! …Wait, what?

…This incident has reminded me of the last time I saw anyone killed like that – it was on DW, in an episode titled ‘IRA vs. Taliban’. (It was not aired in UK, BTW). Basically, in that S1 episode, the DW hosts and guest experts put the bayonet – of an AKM-47 gun - against a slingshot. The bayonet won. The Taliban, ultimately, lost, but that episode also established to the DW hosts that the AKM was one of the best guns there was, you should’ve seen them struggle to give the Armalite-17 of IRA the edge, and it didn’t really work – but we digress.

The other time that DW has shown a bayonet in action was later, in S2, in ‘Ming Warrior vs. French Musketeer’ episode. In this case, the bayonet was not a part of any weapon list at all, it was just depicted as part of the French musketeers’ proverbial musket; (it got the advantage over the Ming warriors’ nest of bees). In both cases, the bayonet was shown as a perhaps outdated, but all the same lethal, weapon; seeing it back in action in this week’s AoS episode was cool…

…DW flashbacks aside, anything else? Just as back in a previous S5 episode, ‘Together’ introduced – or rather, re-introduced – the framework, so has ‘Together…’ re-introduced the gravitonium from way back in S1. Hopefully, both of them will play a greater role than just an Easter egg for the fans. We will just have to wait and see.

In other news, Tess is dead. It seems that the Kree did kill her last episode; pity, but it seems that the new characters introduced this season are coming and going hither and yon, and none of the fans have picked up on them; not on the Kree, not even on Deke. How did he get out of the chamber that S.H.I.E.L.D. stuck him into? Maybe it is just a plot hole that got barely smoothed over, but we can still hope…

…In an unrelated mention, ‘Blindspot’ continues to thumb AoS – in their episode of the week, not only Weller jumped out of a plane in a very Grant-Ward-like style, he also killed a Russian terrorist, who was very similar to Bobbi Morse, (as played by Adrienne Palicki). Clearly, the relationship between the two shows is something else.

…Back to AoS, it seems that Robin the seeress has returned to the show, this time as an old lady who might actually have the key to getting the agents back to the past…or to have them free Earth’s last humanity from the Kree instead. ‘Course, now that Kasius and Sinera are planning to blow this joint and go and confront Kasius’ father and kill him in a GoT sort of way, as they have with Kasius’ brother, the local Kree might be leaving by their own will, leaving the humans – and the InHumans – over to the xenomorphs.

Yes, they aren’t really xenomorphs, but they look like them…and the aliens they are loosely based on in the comics are actually sentient, though kind of nasty…but still sentient. What gives? It is just like ‘Runaways’ – a new, original interpretation of the source material…

Back to Hunter and Morse? Back in ‘Rewind’, Hunter promised that he and Bobbi would look over Robin while Fitz and Enoch travel into the future to rescue the rest of Fitz’s team. Maybe next time we learn as what has happened to him and Bobbi in the meanwhile? …Considering that Blood’s (aka Hunter’s) interview with Marvel™ regarding his return to AoS was abrupt and perfunctory, there are doubts…

Therefore, there we have it – ‘Together’, yet another episode where the viewers are beginning to respect AoS S5, as it should be. See you all next time!

Runaways: Doomsday - Jan 11

…And ‘Runaways’ penultimate S1 episode was aired on TV this week. (We will skip the season’s finale from Hulu – also this week – because of next week’s TV spoilers). Was it good?

Well, the titular heroes are together as a team at last, it seems. They look good, though Tico seems to be going for DC’s Zatanna Zarana look in this episode, complete with fishnet stockings, while Molly…what is her theme? Is she supposed to be more like the comics’ Patsy Walker/Hellcat here? And as for Old Lace…

Old Lace clearly has a problem with ‘Runaways’ – being more CGI than animatronics, this heir of BBC’s ‘Walking with Dinosaur’ series doesn’t appear to be fitting into ‘Runaways’ budget, whatever it is – and it should be noted that as a whole ‘Runaways’ S1 was low on special effects; the staff of one has plenty of oomph in it, and Molly’s amazing feats of strength are also CGI’d, at least in part, but as a whole, there wasn’t much CGI in ‘Runaways’ S1, period. Ergo, budget issues?

It certainly is possible; aside from ‘Cloak & Dagger’, which is coming to Hulu later in 2018, ‘Runaways’ were their first dip into the Marvel pool, and unlike ‘InHumans’, which appeared in the second half of 2017, it has worked. ‘Runaways’, that is.

…In fact that is because unlike ‘InHumans’, ‘Runaways’ were more on periphery than on the main stage, and didn’t get into contact (of whatever sort) with AoS. In the years past, when AoS was airing its seasons 2 through 4, it has borrowed a lot of materials from the failed versions of Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ and ‘Most Wanted’ series, (the latter never got aired at all), and as a result, ‘InHumans’ had to backpedal a lot and rewrite themselves – and their characters – a lot, and the result was insipid; plus there was the IMAX disaster, and at the moment, the fate of ‘InHumans’ hasn’t been discussed about, much.

AoS is doing well, so far the numbers for ‘Fun and Games’ – last week’s episode – have gone up, and are now in S4’s higher end. Good for them. Here is to hoping that their winning streak can continue, though is it the right choice in making Kasius and Synera more sympathetic now? Well, this was already discussed, we will have to wait and see for this week’s episode to learn how this decision will work out.

(Of course, the fight between Daisy and Synera was good, the reunion of the FitzSimmons – ditto, and of course the acting itself in S5 has been great from the start. The fact that AoS has finally managed to get itself out of the mess that were seasons 2 through 4 helps as well).

‘Runaways’, meanwhile, managed to avoid this entire issue by going original and by not invoking any specific Marvel™ material at all, other than the basic one, the ‘Runaways’ comic series, of course. Throughout the series ‘Runaways’ have adopted the original material in whatever ways that wanted, and they have achieved what they wanted as well: this particular Hulu/TV series was very enjoyable to see. It isn’t always true to the source material – in fact, it is almost never true to its’ source material – but the acting of the actors, as well as the script of the show in question, has more than adequate compensated for this decision. Good luck to them!

…This is it for now; see you all soon!

S.H.I.E.L.D. 'Fun' - Jan 6

AoS has returned from its’ brief hiatus. And?

And we’re right back at where we have started the S5 – it is a good, solid season; the interactions between Fitz and Simmons are wonderful…albeit nothing like what should’ve happened between them after the first four seasons, but perhaps now things will start to get back to normal.

Kasius’ brother has appeared on the scene: he is a bigger douche than Kasius himself, and… Kasius has father issues on top of everything… Wait. Didn’t we go through this before?

Yes. Aside from the entire Grant Ward & John Garret situation back in S1, there was the entire issue between Leo Fitz and the virtual copy of his father in the framework of S4. Now, perhaps, Leo will use his newfound knowledge to get the better of Kasius, who might not be so bad… Wait. Didn't we go through this before?

Oh yes we did – with Grant Ward and agent 33/Kara Palamas in S1 and S2. The result backfired on AoS very badly, the S4’s framework solution was imperfect because it wasn’t real even by the show’s standards, (the titular heroes ended up fighting a VR Hydra in a VR world…I mean, Hydra the agency, not the mythical monster), so there’s that. Now Hydra is gone again…only not so much; ‘Rewind’ might’ve shown it coming back; something is rotten in the U.S. military…and it could’ve been a much better plot, properly fleshed out, than what we got with the Kree – something akin to the Roman Empire depicted in ‘Gladiator’ the movie. Remember? “Are you not entertained?” Yes. That Rome.

…True, MCU has already done something like that with ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie: while Thor’s home world, Asgard, is that of the Norse, when Thor (& Loki) meet the Hulk (& Valkyrie) on Sakaar, we get a more Roman Empire sort of world, we get a more austere North meeting a more decadent South. Lovely. George Martin is so impressed – where did we get this sort of thing before?

Now, 74 years into the future the Asgardians apparently are not around, and the Kree have enslaved the remainder of Earth’s people; (as GotG movies show, there are humans living on other planets as well, so what gives? Does no one care about Earth anymore? Is that the Republicans’ fault? Do tell!), and the audiences aren’t too impressed: somehow, after the first 4 seasons, AoS just isn’t the same anymore; there are too many ups and downs…and mostly downs, and now we’re going for sympathetic villains again. The Kree have been such good villains so far precisely because they are not sympathetic; but now we got Kasius, Synera – his girl Friday, and…Enoch.

The truth isn’t out there anymore; (X-Files S11 is back, and it is worth taking a look or two); Enoch himself is a Kree – or is he? How exactly did he manage to come to AoS’ present, (74 years before the current time frame); and what is his endgame? As we have seen, he does not care about other Kree either, though that might really be a Kree thing: none of the Kree appear to care about each other, and the higher-ranking ones (mainly Kasius and his family, but still), also appear to look more emo than the vampires of the Twilight™ franchise, and that is just sad.

In other news, while we are talking about villains, Gryll is dead. We got a new character, Flint, who is a young InHuman, and is just the right age and looks to pass as Mack and Yo-Yo’s teenage son. Wait. Didn’t Mack was shown in S3 to have a younger brother who could fill this sort of a role in the show? Yes, but apparently that was a one-episode role, so he is gone, and we got Flint. Maybe he will stick around, now that Gryll is dead, and so’s the helpful telepath that we met in the previous episodes. Flint himself is an InHuman, just a telekinetic, not a telepathic one. Yay.

…And yes, this is a problem that AoS seems to be suffering in S5: none of the new characters are very memorable, or perhaps after the massive kill-offs of characters from S2 onwards the fans just do not want to invest in them, and so interest in AoS lags. Oh well, not all of the decisions can be winners, though ‘Rewind’ did bring the public’s interest back up, apparently. Guess we will have to wait and see where ‘Fun’ will take us from there.

That is it for now, see you all soon!

Christ Packham's T-Rex Christmas Special - Jan 5

Let us talk about the T-Rex Christmas special with Chris Packham. What can be said about it?

…No offence to Mr. Packham, but his special did not invent the bicycle or the wheel – at least two thirds of it, (maybe more), is a rehash of earlier dinosaur specials. The bite power of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, its’ speed, strength, sight and other senses were discussed back in 2005 on ‘The Truth about Killer Dinosaurs (2005) with Bill Oddie; (for an all-American dinosaur Tyrannosaurus is certainly popular across the pond); and the feathers, coloration and growth patterns were discussed on ‘Dinosaurs Decoded’ (2009) with Jack Horner. In other words, the image of Tyrannosaurus Rex has been ‘updated’ from its’ first-half-of-the-20^th-century depiction for years by now, and did this Christmas special -2017-2018 – give it anything new?

The most obvious are the vocalizations: apparently, T-Rex did not roar, but rather bellowed, as the modern Eurasian bittern does. The latter, if people don’t know, is a relative of herons and egrets, but while herons tend to be big and noticeable, (especially in flight), and egrets are often colorful, the bittern is small, short-legged even, and is covered in cryptic-colored plumage, one that blends the bittern with its surroundings: small ponds and lakes overgrown with rushes, cattails, other similar plants. When it stands still and stretches itself upwards, (there are photos of this sort of thing), bitterns are often very hard to spot, period.

However, they are also loud; the aforementioned Eurasian bittern can bellow as loudly as a bull, which is why in parts of east Europe and European Russia it is called ‘the water bull’. Thus, is Tyrannosaurus Rex had behaved as the modern bittern does – a shy, retiring, nocturnal creature with deadly hunting skills, (though more like a tiger than a lion), and a very loud voice. That would be cool, (and hey, Michael Crichton had written in Jurassic Park the novel that ‘Rexy has sensitive skin and sunburns easily’, so there!), but it probably would not be true. Or would it?

The last part was the social life of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Again, it was discussed on television, for example in the 3^rd episode of ‘Planet Dinosaur’ (2011), when daspletosaurs, cousins of tyrannosaurs, (and contemporaries of albertosaurs mentioned in Packham’s special), were depicted. And also – in the 5^th episode of the 2011 series, which focused not on tyrannosaurs, but on carnosaurs, in particular Mapusaurus, which supposedly also lived in family groups. But-

But the discussions about the social lives of theropods began a while ago; for example, in ‘The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life’ (2006), a companion book to ‘Impossible Pictures’ ‘Walking with…’ series, the Giganotosaurus entry discussed the discovery of several Giganotosaurus skeletons found together, thus raising the possibility that they were a pack that hunted together…or a group of strangers that died in the same spot by an accident, (say – a flash flood).

When discussing the social lives of theropod dinosaurs, the following must be kept in mind. On one hand, these animals were like the modern crocodiles and co. – not exactly social creatures, but creatures that could gather together to feed. For example, the modern Nile crocodiles do not form social bonds as their neighbours the African lions do, but they do feed together, and tolerate one another during these times.

The same goes for the modern dinosaurs – the birds, especially birds of prey. They do not hunt in packs as mammals do (lions & spotted hyenas, grey wolves & wild dogs, killer whales, etc.). They hunt alone, regardless of whether we are talking about a goshawk, a kestrel, or a peregrine-

Pause. Memory helpfully assists: in modern times, Mother Nature has brought forth a so-called Harris’s hawk, a medium to large-sized bird of prey, which might be the only bird of prey that hunts in packs, just as the lions do. A typical Harris’s hawk family consists of a dominant female, her mate, and their young from the previous years, which help not only with hunting, (this bird feeds on smaller birds, lizards, small mammals and large insects), but with raising the next generation as well. Amphibians, reptiles and most other birds do not do that. Thus, it is quite possible that tyrannosaurs, (and carnosaurs, abelisaurs, therizinosaurs, etc.), also behaved so, as modern Harris’s hawks do. Only…

Only Harris’s hawks are exceptions to the rule, not the rule. Most other birds don’t do that, and young birds of many species (owls, diurnal birds of prey, some wading birds, etc.) actually eat each other – inner-species cannibalism, you see – so the odds that the same went for their relatives, the extinct theropod dinosaurs. The modern crocodiles, alligators and co. also have the same problem, as do some of the other modern reptiles. Odds that that most of the theropod dinosaurs behaved like that too.

…And yes, there was at least one different group – the therezinosaurs, because this group of theropods became…herbivores instead, so they probably simply could not eat meat, (aside from an occasion insect, snail or tree frog that they would swallow with foliage). More importantly, they are mentioned here because they were highly derived specialists – as were the tyrannosaurs.

To clarify, this brings us to the issue of Rexy’s metamorphosis: back in 2009, Horner explained just how much the tyrannosaurs changed as they aged. (Ditto for Triceratops’ and etc.). This brings us to ‘Jurassic Fight Club’ (2008) and the Nanotyrannus. Nanotyrannus (‘dwarf tyrant’) is a potentially dubious genus of tyrannosaurs, known only from two or three specimens, and which just may be juvenile Tyrannosaurus’. The problem is that either way the evidence is inconclusive, Nanotyrannus can be just a juvenile T-Rex, or it might be a separate genus, so this was probably why Mr. Packham did not mention it by name, just slid past it, mentioning that juvenile tyrannosaurs were different from the adults, but the front limbs of these dinosaurs remained underdeveloped – and this is worth discussing, but just like the therizinosaurs, the tyrannosaurs were derived specialists.

When compared to carnosaurs, tyrannosaurs show much smaller front legs, much bigger and stronger head and jaws, and overall a much more robust skeleton. Whereas carnosaurs remained unchanged from the Jurassic, just got somewhat bigger, tyrannosaurs got a lot bigger and proportionally stronger: they were better fighters and killers out of the two. Why? Because they evolved. Certainly, there were some differences between the Jurassic carnosaurs like Allosaurus and Sinraptor, (no relation to the ‘true’ raptors of the Cretaceous, BTW), and their Cretaceous descendants, (Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Mapusaurus, etc.), but the differences between the last of the tyrannosaurs, (including T-Rex itself and its Asian counterpart Tarbosaurus), and the first ones, like the Dilong, are much bigger.

Dilong is the oldest tyrannosaur currently known to science. It was a fairly small dinosaur, about 1.5 m in length, generic looking, complete with long forelimbs, armed with three fingers. Eotyrannus was bigger – about 4.5 m long – but it also had typical three-fingered forearms of theropods. Sometime during the Cretaceous tyrannosaurs began to specialize into killing machines, and unlike the four-legged mammals that evolved jaws and/or claws, they simply went for the jaws.

Ditto for abelisaurs, distant descendants of the Jurassic Ceratosaurus. They were not very close relatives of the tyrannosaurs, but if you would put an abelisaur, (say, a Majungasaurus), next to a tyrannosaur, (for example, a Daspletosaurus), the similarities created by parallel evolution would be obvious: sturdy hind legs, tiny front limbs, long tail, powerful jaws, head, and neck muscles. A carnosaur, like Carcharodonotosaurus, acted like a shark, inflicting many small wounds, trying to bleed its prey to death, or choosing something that is initially smaller than it was, like a juvenile sauropod. An abelisaur, like Rugops, would wrestle its prey to death, even it is the same juvenile sauropod, because it could not be a ‘land shark’, the carnosaurs already took over the niche.

Among mammals, not all carnivores are specialists; some of them, including most of the bears, are omnivores instead. But none of the carnivorous reptiles can eat plants, and neither can most of carnivorous birds. They are derived specialists, and Tyrannosaurus Rex was their king.

Anything else is left? Not really. BBC’s T-Rex special for Christmas of 2017-18 was…okay. It was not good, it was not bad, it was safe, and when Tyrannosaurus got compared to a Eurasian bittern, it was actually hilarious.

…See you all next time, then!

Runaways: Tsunami - Jan 4

‘Tsunami’… The eighth episode of ‘Runaways’ S1… What can be said about it?

Old Lace finally got her place in the spotlight, so yay. She is just as amazing as any of the dinosaurs from the JP franchise. The official/canon relationships of the teen characters of the show got established, so yay, although considering how loose does ‘Runaways’ play with the comic canon, let’s not put too much stock into this – who likes whom; the fans will pair whom they want with whom they want all the same.

The main conflict of this episode is the fact that Victor Stein got shot (by his wife Janet) and is dying. Since the Pride, (the grown-ups), are almost at their end game, they do not want to involve the authorities – neither the cops nor the doctors, so they have to try to save Victor themselves. They are among the most incompetent and chaotic villains ever – they barely get along, (though they love each other, many of them love different people than their legal spouses/partners), they barely can agree on anything, they all want to go in different directions, (and maybe they do), and basically, as far as villains go, not only are they more of a dark grey, (though yes, this still can change). Jonah sometimes seems to be herding cats – and he sort of is: as you name a boat, so it will float; ‘pride’ isn’t just a deadly sin, but is also the name of the lions’ social unit – look it up on the Internet; and while lions are formidable, they are still ‘just’ cats, albeit perhaps the biggest cats of the modern times. Jonah is herding cats here, and as Mythbusters™ have showed, this is impossible. Anything else?

…No, not really. Just as the ‘Gifted’, ‘Runaways’ are a conflict-driven show. Unlike the ‘Gifted’ though, the conflict in ‘Runaways’ is that of parents and children, (maybe literally in case of Victor and Chase), rather than of ‘us vs. them’ of ‘Gifted’. The cast of ‘Runaways’ are also doing a very good job of depicting this generational issue…in combination with Marvel’s™ type of super-hijinks, yeah, (but people already know that). The result is a success, as we can all see, (and not just in case of Old Lace either). And thus, as ‘Runaways’ are rolling into their penultimate and ultimate S1 episodes, all we can do is wish them good luck, really.

That’s it for this week’s episode; see you soon!

The Gifted: 3 X 1 - Jan 2

It is 2018, and I, as an aside, will begin by saying that real life sucks. For non-disclosure reasons, but it still sucks. Sometimes I really hate it – like, say, now. More on that later, probably much later, but there you have it, out in the open. And as for the ‘Gifted’?

Their lives are not doing much better: the Hellfire Club and the Frost triplets have manipulated the Mutant Underground, (currently the good guys of the show) as well as Trask’s and Sentinels into a confrontation, and so far, the mutants are losing – badly. They are divided in which direction they want to go… no. All of them generally want to fight Trask’s and allies, it’s just that some of them – like Eclipse – want to take a higher road than the one offered by the Frost triplets.

Yes, the triplets are Frosts, as in Emma Frost; in the comics, there was more of them, but it doesn’t matter – they are still wonderfully depicted in the show, so there’s that breakthrough, alongside their mentor in the Hellfire Club, (whoever that was), and the direct mention of the X-Men by Eclipse, whose blood apparently, also glows with light, whenever he gets hurt. (What is with that, anyhow)? That part with the blood ranks right there among the weird with Clarice’s/Blink’s new outfits – they just don’t quite fit with the feel of the show.

The feels should bring us over to Wes, who is back, and is about to restart his relationship with Lauren Strucker, and Andy Strucker, who is being tempted into evil by one of the Frost triplets – or rather, it is already there, if his drawing of the Fenris-wolf is any indication.

Here it might be a right place to discuss the Aryan imagery that has appeared in ‘3 X 1’ (this episode), but you might just as well discuss the SW imagery that has appeared here instead – and yes, we’re talking Rey X Kylo Ren here, light vs. dark. It is unknown just how much revision went into the SW 8 movie, but for all of its’ better qualities, it is more similar to the SW 7 movie than it is good for it.

One of the characters that gone off for the worse here is poor Finn, who flips back and forth from a nearly spineless and naïve a-la early Sansa Stark character, to a rebel and a Jedi in training. Last movie he got spent being kicked around by everyone, from his former cohorts in the First Order down to Kylo Ren himself, and this time he got dominated by Rose Tico…in their relationship. One of Rose’s final lines in the movie, (hopefully, she didn’t die), is that the Resistance will defeat the First Order with love, not hate – and it resonates, sort of, with one of the lines in the ‘Gifted’ about how fear leads to hate, in relation to the Frost triplets. Darth Maul nudges Kylo Ren and points out, that just because one of the triplets tries to play up to Andrew Strucker in a feminine way, does not mean that there are two more left.

Yes, as far as SW villains go, Ren is more like Darth Maul than anyone else, especially the Maul version in the cartoon series: an anarchist that would destroy everyone and everything – Jedi, Sith, everything else, just to ease his pain. (Then again, after Obi-Wan had sliced him in two in ‘The Phantom Menace’, Darth Maul had lost his genitals so it is not surprising to see where he is coming from either). That is what Ren wants as well, in ‘The Last Jedi’ – to finish everyone and everything, starting with the Resistance, of course. …Mind you, Rey could have pointed out that if Kylo wants to end everything, then how about working with the Resistance instead, starting to end the First Order, well, first? But no – instead, they have their second big showdown; the first took place in SW 7 – and there you are. Another relationship sunk. Probably.

Yes, fans of AoS, especially of the first two seasons, will be reminded of the Grant’s relationship with Skye/Daisy there; only because real life is what it is, that plotline kind of got removed, the roles of the AoS characters got reassigned, so whatever closure Grant and Daisy did was in S4, with Grant being the framework copy there…supposedly. Who knows what AoS will do next, when it returns later this week. In addition, as for SW,…it is still anyone’s game if Kylo and Rey get together; people are beginning to figure out that the current SW trilogy is a fans’ service as much as anything, so we will have to wait and see as to what the SW 9 movie will have. Period.

Back to the ‘Gifted’? Not much left to discuss. The mutants of the Mutant Underground are ready to fight Trask’s and allies and vice versa, while Hellfire Club is ready to cash in, and Trask’s is about to unveil their new master plan. What will happen next? The conclusion of the S1 will reveal!

…That’s it for this time. See you all soon!