THE GIFTED “eXodus” Review

THE GIFTED: L-R: Jamie Chung and Blair Redford. Co. Cr: Eliza Morse/FOX

The Gifted Episode 3 “eXodus”

 By Emma Crow

This episode of The Gifted is titled eXodus and I’m not sure why. Nobody went anywhere. But that’s okay, because this episode is all about the love and I enjoyed the heck out of it.

The romance begins right off the bat with a super cheesy flashback to Lorna and Eclipse’s first kiss. He was super bummed about being a mutant, but Lorna taught him to be proud of his X gene. Then they kiss while creating love light with their powers; I kid you not. It was a little much, but still better than the Strucker family.

Oh, the Struckers. The kids did nothing of note. Remember last week I complained about the younger Strucker doing nothing? Well, he still did nothing, and yet he managed to be annoying. Caitlin, who was such a badass last episode, backslides on her journey to mutant enlightenment. Caitlin still thinks that there are people from her old life who will help her. John and Eclipse try to tell her that she is being naive, but she won’t listen. She and the kids sneak away in the night to see her brother Danny who has connections in Congress.

Meanwhile, the portal-creating Clarice (aka Blink), is feeling better since we last saw her, but she is having trouble creating her portals. Her ability has been based in fear, but she needs to find something more positive and stable to base her power in. Queue training scene with John! This is what The X-Men is all about! It’s about inexperienced mutants training together and becoming a family!

This was my favorite scene of the whole episode. John talks to her about focusing on something she cares deeply about in order to make her portal, and she makes some progress. Remember last week I said there might be romantic vibes here? I totally felt more romantic vibes in this scene and I am very into it. Unfortunately, the romance is cut short because John uses his powers to sense that Caitlin and kids have run off, so now he and Eclipse have to go rescue them, again.

Before the beautiful training scene occurred, another mutant, Dreamer, approaches John. She suggests they could speed along Clarice’s recovery by using her gift. Her gift allows her to implant memories and feelings into other people. She could implant a memory of Clarice being best friends with Lorna and thus she would have a strong feeling to center her power on to create a portal and free Lorna from prison. John however is very not into it. Apparently her gift has had some bad side effects in the past (and John wants to protect his girl!!).

Now that John and Eclipse are gone, Dreamer chats up Clarice and it becomes very clear that Dreamer is into John. Apparently, they used to be a thing, but he decided that if they were going to be leaders of the Mutant Underground, they couldn’t have any romantic entanglements. Ouch. 

Meanwhile, Caitlin and kids end up at her brother’s place. He is not thrilled to see them, obviously. Caitlin’s brother also has a son who is dumb as a bag of rocks and lets slip that his fugitive cousins and aunt are at his house, which brings the neighborhood cavalry to their door. Luckily, John and Eclipse also arrive to help them escape in their truck, but the neighborhood goons are right on their tail. John calls Dreamer for help. She grabs Clarice and decides to use her powers on her. She inserts a fake memory of Clarice and John passionately making out into Clarice’s mind, thus creating romantic feelings that Clarice can use to create a portal to save John and squad from the crazy neighborhood people.

But wait! As she is creating the portal, the memory that comes to Clarice’s mind is not the fake memory, but a real memory of John talking with her from earlier in the episode! So, there are definitely real feelings mixed in with the fake feelings! It’s so very complicated and I love it.

The drama just gets juicier. So, the portal works and the whole squad is saved. John gets out of the car and is passionately embraced by Clarice. John is understandably confused. He speaks with Dreamer alone and she confesses that she implanted a memory of hers from when she was with John into Clarice’s head!! Awkward! This is gearing up to be a juicy love triangle and it is totally working for me.

Oh yeah, in the midst of all the romance, I forgot about our bland patriarch, Mr. Strucker. (I could not care less if he lives or dies, honestly.) He agrees to go undercover to help expose the Mutant Underground in exchange for his family’s freedom, but is ultimately unable to go through with it because of his pity for a mutant mother and her child. Officer Turner continues to be a jerk, so nothing new there.

The random doctor from the end of last week’s episode turns up again and wants to be besties with Officer Tucker in order to get to the Strucker siblings, but Officer Tucker does not want to share.

Uncle Danny returns to apologize to his sister Caitlin and to tell her that her husband is being sent to a super secret mutant prison with Lorna (finally we might see them team up and I will actually give a damn about Papa Strucker?). Caitlin is determined to go save her man; badass Caitlin is back!

The promo showed the squad attempting to rescue Lorna and Mr. Strucker during the prison transfer, but all will not go well, obviously. Finally we will see Lorna and Mr. Strucker forced to form a truce and hopefully more of the love triangle! I can’t wait for next week!