Dynasties - Dec 11

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes life sucks, but right now? It is more tolerable. Let us move on?

‘The Gifted’ are on a hiatus until January 1, 2019. This is a doubtful move by the TV show in question; they tried this strategy back with their S1, and it wasn’t really successful, in regards to the numbers; right now, S2 is longer – 16 episodes vs. 13, but they already played about 55% of them, 9 out of 16, so it’s anyone’s guess as to how they will arrange the last 7. What is next?

DC’s ‘Elseworlds’ ‘Arrowverse’ special was aired this and last week, and it works. It introduced a new villain – the Monitor – and eventually Super-Girl, the Martian Manhunter, and the rest of their people will need to battle an evil Super-Man. Very exciting! However, there are plenty of people discussing this story arc, no doubt, so let us talk about something else.

…No, it is not the excitement of breeding the various breeds of goldfish, or domestic turkeys, or whatever. I am sure that it is very exciting from the inside, but again, not the topic I want to discuss now – rather, it is yet another TV show that went down lately: BBC’s ‘Dynasties’.

No, it is not a yet another GoT rip-off, well, not really. Rather, it was yet another David Attenborough’s special – a five-part series about various animals around the world.

Well, not really – the lion and the wild dog came from the African savanna, and the chimpanzee – the common chimpanzee, not the bonobo – is living right next door to them in the African jungle, so it’s not much of a stretch, (some chimpanzee populations actually venture into the savanna, but unlike the human ancestors they still give its’ predators – lions, wild dogs, leopards, hyenas, etc. – a wide berth. They have not mastered fire either, though they still have tools. Technically, that is not a big issue: humanity had mastered fire only at the Homo Erectus/Homo Ergaster level, so chimpanzees have some time yet… unless humanity drives them to extinction first.

Now, this brings us back to the ‘Dynasties’ proper – they, this TV series, was about conservation of wildlife, especially the last episode, about the Bengal tigers. …Yes, according to some data, there are only two species/subspecies of tigers – the island tiger, (the Sumatran tiger), and the mainland tiger, a single species/subspecies, from India to Siberia, but I am not so sure that that P.O.V. is correct; and I reckon that this last, tiger episode was the weakest among the entire series. That is not surprising, many of American, (Western, actually), books, TV series, etc., the conclusion is often the weakest chain in the link. However…

There are rumors that clouds are gathering over Sir David himself. If that is so, then it sucks, because Sir David had been one of the best people that had ever come from the British soil, and his TV series, specials, nature documentaries, etc., were some of the best that had ever come to TV and the Internet. However, it is always possible that times are moving on, and Sir David is being left behind. This sucks, a whole lot, but real life sucks as a rule. Period.

Back with the ‘Dynasties’ proper, one of the weaker aspects it was the composition. As it was said before, the lion and the wild dog are almost two sides of the same coin, the chimpanzee is their neighbour, (a stretch, but not so much), but then we have the tiger, and the penguin.

The emperor penguin is the odd beast out. It is an Antarctic fowl among tropical beasts, but hey – everyone loves penguins, and the ‘Dynasties’ TV crew did their best to sell those flightless birds – and they did. However, the tigers? They were the weakest, and the most intense. ‘Dynasties’ did their best at selling the tigers at their most vulnerable, that it worked…and it was too much. Somehow, if the penguin episode felt like the odd one out, then the tiger episode felt like the weakest. Sorry, but them’s the breaks.

…Yes, the public perception mattered – the tiger and the lion have two very different reputations in the eyes of the public, especially Western public. Why this is, so is a difficult question, so we will not talk about right now. Moreover, it is not the point – the point is that ‘Dynasties’ have fumbled the ball at their last tiger episode, and that’s that. The series is over, (there is no signs of a sequel), so we have to live with that, and we can. Whether Sir David, (who may have his own real life problems), can, is another story.

Speaking of the other stories, there is the remark of ‘The Lion King’ looming in the future. Influenced by the remake of the ‘Jungle Book’, TLK is coming on strong, but-

But while TJB was written by Rudyard Kipling, who didn’t care for political correctness (especially by the contemporary standards) and who tried to include some real life wildlife facts in his books, (initially, TJB was a duology), TLK was, or is, ‘Hamlet’.

No, seriously, by now it is openly admitted that TLK was a remake of ‘Hamlet’, which was never big on real life wildlife, but on many other things. If you google it, you can find plenty of essays and discussions on it, in particular whether ‘Hamlet’ was a Catholic or a Protestant play, in regards to the ghost, because Catholic and Protestant branches of Christianity have two different opinions of ghosts in relation to, well, Christianity and the Bible, and that is important, because it leads to the question as to whether or not the Ghost was a genuine ghost, or an evil spirit who sold Hamlet a load of baloney, and that leads to the question as to whether or not Hamlet was honestly righting a wrong, or just killing many people for the sake of revenge. The truth being is that regardless of the veracity of the Ghost’s info, Hamlet overreached himself; if he had killed Claudius in private, while the other man was praying (and failing) in private, then the play would’ve taken a very different turn; instead, in reality, we had Hamlet killed Claudius as he wanted to – in front of many people, with a large proportion of them also dying. Hamlet did not care about Denmark or its’ people – he just wanted revenge for his father, which, for him, was the righting of the wrong. Bully for him, really.

TLK, on the other hand, tried to be more derived, and as a result on one hand, it isn’t realistic from wildlife’s point of view – since the 1990s, plenty of wildlife scientists pointed out that real life lions and hyenas don’t behave as they do in the initial TLK movie, and on the other? There is at least one theory that equates Zazu with Polonius, the crooked counsellor from ‘Hamlet’, suggesting that he had been conspiring with Scar to get rid of Mufasa and Simba from the start. It is an interesting theory, especially since the original Polonius is not so straightforward a character himself, so it will be interesting to see as to how Disney’s remake of the TLK will come out.

Finally, in summer 2019 the second ‘Godzilla’ movie is coming out. Here, he is facing off with King Ghidorah, and as someone said, ‘what is a king against a god’? King Ghidorah is taller than Godzilla is in this incarnation, but a good amount of his size are his wings, and tails, and necks with heads – he’s tall, not big, so Godzilla has a good chance in a straightforward face-off that we were shown in this trailer.

In other news, in one of the original ‘Godzilla’ movies, the titular character teams up with Rodan and Mothra to defeat King Ghidorah, and this trailer shows precisely those other two kaiju – or titans, in this particular incarnation. Maybe they will work together in the summer 2019 movie too, we will have to see. Of course, the big question is where’s King Kong in all of this, for so far, we have seen no sign of him, but again, we will may learn more about all of this in the future.

Well, this is it for now – see you all in the future!

The Gifted: gaMe changer - Dec 4

The obligatory disclaimer: sometimes real life sucks, and sometimes it does not. Yay, really. Now onto ‘the Gifted’.

…This week’s episode was called the ‘gaMe changer’, and it certainly lived up to its’ name. The Inner Circle has destroyed the control center for the mutants’ control collars, and now many mutants are free. With the ‘regular’ society already inflamed and divided on the mutant issue, Reeva’s plan for taking over USA is beginning to take shape and it is a workable one, too. Whether she will be able to keep the United States once she captures them, is another story, and, moreover, one that we will get to see later, after the winter break, (technically speaking). For now, more new mutant characters will be appearing on the show; whether they will stay, or go, as Rebecca did, is another story.

…Rebecca got killed off in this week’s episode, incidentally. Judging by S1, no return from the dead for her; ‘the Gifted’ are not like AoS in that fashion. (With AC, there is not enough material to make a statement). This brings us to Daredevil, or rather – to ‘Daredevil’, who got cancelled at the end of last month.

Is this noteworthy? Well, yes – ‘Reverie’ might have also gotten cancelled during November 2018, (albeit in the beginning, rather than the end), but ‘Daredevil’ lasted longer – for 3 seasons rather than 1, and it was much more exciting, proportionally speaking, than ‘Reverie’ had been. ‘Reverie’ was not a bad show, but it was very heavily influenced by AoS on one hand, and kind of… not exactly insipid, but certainly lackluster on the other. ‘Reverie’ got cancelled with a whimper; the exit of ‘Daredevil’ was more noticeable.

Yes, in part this is because ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ were cancelled earlier in November 2018 too; with only JJ still up for grabs on one hand, and with ‘The Defenders’ proper being the weakest of Marvel/Netflix shows, things aren’t looking up for the Defenders team. However, that is acceptable: right now, the most popular theory is that with Disney establishing its’ own version of Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc., and as such, it is no longer too interested in cooperating with Netflix proper. (And maybe its’ counterparts as well).

Of course, until Netflix’s copyright for the Defenders’ team run out, Disney will have to tread carefully here, to prevent any conflicts back in the real world. It is already in a bad place regarding its’ other takeover, of SW, so it does not really need to add any of its’ Marvel properties into the mix. With Sony, (regarding its’ universe of Marvel characters or Earth-TRN688), making its’ boundaries clear and established, it might be Netflix’s turn next – or it and Disney might do something completely different, who knows?..

Back to ‘the Gifted’? So far, it is still going strong, with the ‘gaMe changer’ trying to go for something epic, as the Inner Circle releases captured and subdued mutants, the rest of the Strucker family destroying anti-mutant research, and John, from the Mutant Underground, getting captured by Jace and his Purifiers.

Well, technically, the Purifiers’ are not Jace’s, but are more of a free-ranging secret society, like the Freemasons or the Illuminati, but Jace is shown to be taking charge of them lately. Again, it is a question of just how big the Purifiers are, as a movement, but we’ll probably see more of them in the future episodes; right now, John got captured by probably no more than three or four of them, including Jace. Of course, John’s strategy had been to run at their jeep and hold it in place, until he got exhausted, but John has been in a bad place lately, as he and Clarice constantly fought lately, and Marcos was more of a comic relief than anything else.

Pause. This brings us to the fact that by now episodes of ‘the Gifted’ got somewhat, well, disassembled into separate plotlines; Jace capturing John at the end of ‘gaMe changer’ is really the first sign that they are coming together again, and maybe we’ll get something more along the lines of ‘the Gifted’ S1 in the next episode…

And this is it, for now. See you all soon!

The Gifted: the dreaM - Nov 27

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes, real life does not just suck, but it also hurts. Like, emotionally. Sometimes, your family members are like emotional/energy vampires, and there is nothing that you can do with them…nothing that is truly legal, anyhow. Any solution that results in a funeral with a closed casket/coffin/call it whatever you will has to be wrong than the problem, it just has to!.. And now on to our feature presentation.

‘the dreaM’ of ‘the Gifted’ shows the continuous issue of this TV series: it is conflict-driven, and primarily – it is mutants vs. Sentinel Services. Whenever Sentinel Services went out of the equation, ‘the Gifted’ suffered. In S2, Sentinel Services around in the equation at all; in this episode, Jace isn’t even in it – instead we got yet another friend of Reed Strucker’s father Otto, who’s got an entire institute, (sort of), and whose goal is to learn how to manage and probably to suppress the X-gene, which makes mutants mutants. Sorry about repetition, but we already had something similar back in S1, so now it feels as if ‘the Gifted’ are going around in circles; it didn’t help AoS, which was notorious in recycling ideas for its’ plot and scripts, and it doesn’t really help ‘the Gifted’ either.

…This is the Strucker plot line, actually – whereas the other two of this episode were Lorna. Her life story, her journey to the current point in time in the world of ‘the Gifted’, and it culminates in her giving up baby Dawn to her aunt, and making Magneto’s token (and yes, this is the first evidence of Magneto/X-Men/Xavier/Brotherhood of Evil Mutants/etc. in the show. Oh, there had been plenty of references, but the token is something different, more real and precise, and Lorna makes into her own headpiece, reminiscent of Polaris – of all of Magneto’s children, she was the one the most like him.

The problem is that this version of Lorna is nothing like the mainline Polaris; by, well, giving up Dawn and all, Lorna has given up herself – her self that had been building up from the S1 premiere until now. Is this a result of FOX and Marvel (MCU) teaming up now, I do not know; true, there are some similarities now between ‘the Gifted’ and AoS & AC, but few and safely buried, so there.

Finally, there were also Thunderbird and Blink searching for Rebecca/Twist as the latter took a runner from the Inner Circle at the beginning of ‘the dreaM’. At the end of the episode, after sharing her small information dump with the not so dynamic duo, she seems to have been either killed or captured, and while that is bad, (especially for her), why…hasn’t she left D.C. yet? She had an entire day, (though the entire chronology of ‘the dreaM’ went jumping around in a non-linear way, and the various flashbacks did not help either), I guess… script reasons?

And the same goes for the John/Clarice fight/argument/etc. It felt contrived in the previous episode, (two weeks ago), and it feels contrived now. John and Clarice, it seems, just decided to fight, and Marcos…either is fanning the flames or is staying out of it entirely. Ditto for Lauren Strucker, even though at the S2 premiere she was shown to be an integral part of the Mutants Underground team. Now, though, the Strucker family has gone down one path and the Mutants’ Underground people – Marcos, Clarice, John – another. A plot device or a plot hole? Who knows, we can only wait and see…

…Well, this is it for now. ‘the dreaM’ had been a lackluster episode; or rather – an unbalanced one. Most of its’ focus, overwhelmingly so, had been on Lorna/Polaris, and ‘the Gifted’, in the past, didn’t do such character-heavy episodes. AoS, on the other hand, did, especially in its’ first seasons, with various effects, but that did not help it either; the S6 finale found AoS at a low point…but that is another story.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

The Gifted: no Mercy - Nov 13

Tonight, we are back. Real life still sucks – and that even without taking into account that Mr. Stan Lee is gone: I was never his biggest fan, but regardless, his death is being felt already; what is coming out of it is another story; onto ‘the Gifted’?

Well, let us try. This week’s episode - ‘no Mercy’ – was something else; in S2, ‘the Gifted’ are having issues into combining all of their narratives into one, and it shows.

What has happened in ‘no Mercy’? The Inner Circle robbed a bank. Jace met some sort of an evil politician/TV show host/someone-someone, and is going to star on his show. And the Mutant Underground are dealing with the fact that Reed’s problems are getting worse, and that they suck, at the same time. Let us elaborate?

‘no Mercy’ felt like three or four separate stories with little connecting them, period. The bank story line with the Inner Circle feels completely detached from the Mutant Underground story line, period. At least with Jace, the show’s scriptwriters put in effort to connect his TV appearance with the Inner Circle’s bank attack, and showed his inner struggle. (Hey, it sells the numbers, ratings and otherwise, so there!) The Mutant Underground, on the other hand? We had the Struckers doing their family issues thing, while on the other hand, we had Marcos all but stirring up trouble between John and Clarice regarding the Morlocks. Sorry, I still enjoy ‘the Gifted’, but John and Clarice’s conflict feels especially contrived – it really does. As we have seen in the past, the Mutant Underground, (i.e. Marcos) was aware of the Morlocks before S2, (technically speaking), so what is their problem with Morlocks? This conflict just holds no water, even by AoS’ standards, and that is just sad, because in S1 ‘the Gifted’ were more like AC, than AoS…

Anything else? Rebecca has a bigger chip on her shoulder than the rest of the Inner Circle do, now many people are dead, and Reeva’s true test as a leader has come: how will she handle Rebecca and her disobedience? She did have a plan, she gave Rebecca an order, and it did not work. Reeva will need to bring Rebecca to heel eventually, because if she does not, Rebecca might turn on her, and Reeva’s entire master plan will derail completely.

Here is a fact: as far as leadership goes, Reeva pictures herself more like Dumbledore than Riddle. She is willing to sacrifice anyone for the greater good, (whatever she perceives it to be), but good is the key word here. Rebecca is more like a Death Eater instead – she does not care about who gets in her way, as long as she succeeds. Andy Strucker is currently riding the metaphorical tiger, and it is an open question if he will succeed. (The fact that Rebecca’s character was upgraded is put aside – real life matters, even on a TV show, you know?) What next?

Well, on one hand, ‘the Gifted’ were showing Rebecca to be bad news since she appeared; the question is, is she irredeemably bad? (And what about Andy? Where does he fall here, again?) AoS tried its’ hand with redemption, (especially in S2), and made a hash of it; AC tried something similar…also in S2…but got cancelled after the second season, so that was the end of it; the greater MCU is just meh on it…so it’s anyone’s guess as how this will turn out. The same goes for Jace, though with him it’s more of an open question will he become just a narrative engine to expose the social ills of the world of ‘the Gifted’, or will he come into open interactions with the Mutant Underground (or any other mutant characters on the show) instead.

Anything else? S2 of ‘Runaways’ is coming on December 2018; S2 of ‘C&D’ – in spring 2019, and detective Mayhem will play a proportionate role to Ty and Dy, who are the titular characters after all. Real life does suck, but not always, it seems.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

The Gifted: afterMath - Oct 30

And we are back. More or less, certainly limping, but for now we are back. Yay!

Back on TV, ‘the Gifted’ continue to impress, as the plotlines finally get moving. In this week’s episode – ‘afterMath’ – we have Andy make a new friend, whom they have rescued in the previous episode. Her name is Rebecca, so far, she is not one of the main cast, and her powers are turning things inside out. Her approach appears to be similar to Andy and Lauren, but her attitude is quite different: Andy did hesitate in attacking Lauren and Marcos back then, but Rebecca manifests a vibe that she would not.

…Some people say that there are two approaches to everything, a good and a bad one. The two terms aren’t fully interchangeable with right and wrong, but the fact is that starting with ‘afterMath’, ‘the Gifted’ will begin to show the, well, ‘evil-ness’ of the Inner Circle, as their lofty goals hide some unsavory means of getting there. Of course, the question of whether the game is worth the candle and whether the means justify the ends, will never be answered – at least not in real life – but on TV, as ‘the Gifted’ will continue to develop, maybe we get an answer in that universe at least.

Back to ‘the Gifted’ proper? While Andy was on his date with Rebecca, and Lauren was recovering from their fight with their father, their hospital was invaded by the Purifiers and Jace. So far, Jace had done nothing openly ‘evil’, and in fact is shown to have had more mixed feelings in the past, before his daughter died, about the mutants, but that was in the past and in the present, he clearly is not a friend to the mutants at all. How more can his TV character remain somewhat ambiguous is anyone’s guess, but eventually he will have to make a choice and after the events in S1, when the Frost sisters mind-forced his partner to kill himself, the odds are not in pro-mutant favor.

Speaking of mutants, the last main plotline of ‘afterMath’ was about Clarice and Marcos taking their rescued group of mutants to the Morlocks, into the sewers. The Morlocks’ take on the human-mutant conflict is to stay out of it, by hiding in the sewers, getting by by all sorts of means, including thieving, and generally that is it. They are not fighters, they are hiders. The Inner Circle might be evil, (at least from the P.O.V. of the Mutant Underground), but at least they are proactive. The Morlocks are not evil, but they are escapists, and from the P.O.V. of the Mutant Underground, that is just as bad. The Mutant Underground are good, (well, this is their story and they’re sticking to it, at least for now, even though at least some of their allies left them hanging instead), but they are also fighters, not escapists, and so they and Morlocks are going to clash, especially since the Morlocks don’t like them very much either. They are not looking for a fight, but their leader is interested in Clarice/Blink and her mutant portal powers – and John is not going to swallow that at all, especially since he had spent this episode recovering from his own injuries and growing increasingly frustrated with everyone and everything. Given that Clarice herself is feeling short-tempered lately, this can be very bad, for the entire Mutant Underground – but we will have to wait and see as to what will happen next.

…This is it for tonight; see you all soon! (Hopefully).

Daredevil S3 - Oct 23

The changes come and changes go, in real life they suck, but you can adapt and try something new, just because you do not want to go crazy or worse. On TV, on the other hand…well, ‘Iron Fist’ was cancelled, as we knew even before ‘Daredevil’ S3 was released, and now, it seems, ‘Luke Cage’ is as well.

Still, there are some differences between ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ – while theories about the former continue to abound, (most consider the fact that it wasn’t making enough money to be the key fact here), with ‘Luke Cage’ it is more straightforward – differences between Netflix, the crew, and co. It shows too – ‘Iron Fist’ ended with some sort of a resolution, at least; ‘Luke Cage’ – in mid-swing, (so to speak), just as the Deadly Nightshade or whoever was rising to challenge Luke in her turn. Ouch. What next?

‘Daredevil’ S3 has arrived last week, we got introduced to this version of Bullseye, and it was interesting. At least at some point the team of ‘Daredevil’ made Bullseye to be the antithesis of the titular hero – guess Matt really needed it. Of course, with ‘Iron Fist’ and ‘Luke Cage’ gone, ‘the Defenders’ appear to be even less unlikely than they did after ‘Jessica Jones’ S2, where no mention of them really appeared; well, now with the cancellations, they may be the next to follow. Anything else?

‘The Gifted’ may or may not air tonight, due to the World Game (or whatever) it is called – real life sucks, see above. The Americans, of course, and especially their current president are still one-step ahead from the rest of us, in regards to ‘the migrant caravan’ or whatever. In the U.K., on the other hand, no actual evidence of Russian temperance was found, meaning yeah, that all of those cries of ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ were a fabled lie. How will the U.K. get out of this revelation? Ask the wading birds, such as the avocets, in the swamp – they will tell you how!

(Yes, I watched the ‘Miss Peregrine’ movie online. Miss Avocet was not a bad character, but the avocet is a wading bird, built almost like a mini-heron or stork. Rather than short and plump, Miss Avocet should have been tall and skinny instead, but who cares? She was just an episodic character anyhow, and regardless of her appearance? She was still neurotic).

Anything else? Frankly, no. Real life still sucks, and while you can try to manage it, sometimes you just cannot. Of course, on TV, things are not always so rosy either, as ‘Daredevil’ S3, (featuring no mention of ‘Jessica Jones’, ‘Luke Cage’, or ‘Iron Fist’) can attest. Still, let us wish Matt and co. the best of luck and move on.

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

The Gifted: outMatched - Oct 16

The adventures of the mutants continue, but first – the obligatory disclaimer. Real life sucks, change hurts, and I cannot guarantee that I will be able to review ‘The Gifted’ in the following weeks, and not just because our TV set was testy over the weekend. You’ve been worn, and now onto the main topic: in this week’s episode – ‘outMatched’ – the Mutant Underground found themselves, well, outmatched by the Inner Circle once again, while Jace has made contact with the Purifiers, at last. To elaborate?

The entire plotline of Jace in this episode was actually well done and designed. The Purifiers do not appear to be too different in their approach from the Mutant Underground, truth be told. They are not exactly supported or approved by law enforcement either – but then again, neither did the KKK in real life; there probably were supported unofficially by, and even approved by, people, even political people, but officially? They were criminals, hence the whole secrecy, hoods and robes thing.

…And now, in modern times, in real life, we got the Republicans, on one hand, who seem to embrace the alt-right groups, such as the Proud Boys, (whatever their details are), and have candidates who spew racist rhetoric, (well, at least it ain’t Nazist, but this is a small comfort at best, especially by American Integration standards), while the Democrats, on the other hand, seem to be going leftist and socialist – in response? What is next, an all-American version of Hitler vs. Stalin? American Civil War version IV? This is not what USA needs, and it needs division just as little.

Again, the problem is not Russia exactly; the problem is that USA has a very weak state and many very powerful individuals, each of whom has their own idea in which direction to take America to success…and they are all fighting about it and not getting anything done. The result is, well, chaos, and the reason why USA was not toppled yet is either because its’ opponents have its’ own problems, (like Russia), or are not willing to have America dismantled for real, (like China) – yet. In the future, this may change, especially if America itself does not change. The more its’ leadership fights, the more fighting drips down below, and the same goes for fractioning, partition, and separation. If the American society fractions far enough, it will fall apart completely, into, well, fractions. If that happens we’ll end up either with a USA that isn’t too different from the world of ‘The Gifted’, with a distinctly Nazist undertone, (especially in S1, now – not so much), or with n USA at all, but rather a semi-balkanized North American continent, with Canada in the north and Mexico in the south, and how will they fare in such a mess is another question, for another time.

Back to the show? In ‘outMatched’ there was a lot of running, a lot of action, a lot of John posturing very manly with his firefighter’s axe and a machete, (or maybe even a cutlass), but little that actually was done.

Well, no – the Inner Circle, especially Lorna and Andy, have released a crowd of mentally-disturbed mutants, and the Mutant Underground have to take care of them now, especially since the Inner Circle also forced or coerced the asylum’s staff into admitting their guilt – before presumably executing them or something along those lines. As a result, the Struckers…let us recap what the Struckers did separately. We have Andy and Lauren having their first big confrontation and Lauren lost. Maybe she was pulling her punches. Maybe she underestimated just how intensely Andy was training during this hiatus. Regardless, she got knocked out cold. This brings us to the parents. We got Catelyn…sorry, Caitlin Strucker channelling her inner Cersei Lannister by drugging a junkie mutant hacker so that they could help their team and rescue, cough, Andy, and maybe Lorna. That didn’t work, and Graph – the poor sap in question – almost died as well, causing Reed to challenge his wife at last regarding just what they are doing and whom they are channelling, and how they are better than the Inner Circle? And then his powers popped-up again and he got forced to pick-up his pills from the floor in the most pathetic scene of the entire episode; Jaime Lannister pats him on the back sympathetically – he knows both about tricky hands and loss of dignity that is related to them – and suggests that maybe Mr. Strucker should talk to Ser Luke Skywalker regarding prosthetic limbs. Luke is ready and willing to advice, especially since he got killed in the canon. Reed hates them both.

That is the Struckers, really. They are going for some character-driven plot-development here, as do everyone else – Jace and the rest of the Mutant Underground. Jace has finally decided to talk to the Purifiers at last – well, what else can he do? He is on the outs with his wife for real and he just cannot be a civilian and he needs to do something than just stay in some motel and watch TV, not forever, while the rest of the Mutant Underground… Their confrontation with Lorna was more lackluster than Lauren’s with Andy – at least the Strucker siblings talked to each other, while Lorna just stared at John and Clarice and released the patients. That is it. Marcos/Eclipse provided some support to Lauren but got taken out by Andy as well. Not very impressive either. And now the Inner Circle got their new mystery mutant member/weapon and who knows what they will do next? We will just have to wait and see it next week – hopefully. If real life permits.

This is it for now, though – see you all soon!