THE GIFTED Season One Finale Review

THE GIFTED: L-R: Percy Hynes White and Natalie Alyn Lind in the second part of the “eXtraction/X-roads” two-hour season finale of THE GIFTED. Co. Cr: FOX

THE GIFTED SEASON ONE FINALE REVIEW

BY EMMA CROW

The Gifted’s 2 hour season finale event is finally upon us. There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump on in. The first hour is mostly setup for the action of the second hour, so we’ll go quickly over the finer points of that first hour to get to the juicy bits.

This episode attempts to garner sympathy for Dr. Campbell, or at least make him seem morally gray as opposed to completely evil, but it doesn’t really work. Yeah, having a brother die of a genetic illness is a bummer, but it doesn’t really alleviate all the murder and torture Campbell has conducted. He explains the anti-mutant point of view by talking about fighting against genetic superiority for survival, which i guess makes sense, but there’s still a very obvious good side and bad side in this fight.

Basically the first episode is about this plan to abduct Dr. Campbell while he is at this “Humanity Today” summit along with all of the leading anti-mutant politicians, business people, and other powerful people. This plan is, of course, created and funded by the Frost triplets and their people, and they continue to work their butts off to manipulate everything and everyone around them, to varying degrees of success. The Frosts are accompanied by the Core 4: Blink, Polaris, John, and Marcos.

They hijack the car of one of the Summit’s guests and the Frosts use their mind powers to force him to make a phone call, making them the guest’s new security detail for the event. (The Frosts also attempt to torture this guy because they read his mind and he totally sucks, but Blink stops them.) The squad gets all dressed up in Men in Black-esque suits for the job, but tensions are high. Polaris is very team Frost while Marcos is not. Blink tries to talk some sense into Polaris to no avail.

They arrive at the Summit and get past security. Blink, John, and Marcos portal into the Summit building while Polaris and Frosts wait by the van.

THE GIFTED: L-R: Guest star Skyler Samuels, Emma Dumont, guest star Jeff Daniel Phillips, guest star Hayley Lovitt and Percy Hynes White. Co. Cr: FOX

Meanwhile the Struckers go off to see grandma for information about the grandfather’s research and this whole storyline literally leads to nothing. The only important thing is that Andy is showing signs of insanity. He’s spouting anti-human rhetoric and pro-murder sentiments. Lauren is understandably disturbed. He attempts to seriously injure, maybe even kill, 2 Sentinel Services agents and Lauren has to use her powers against him in order to stop him.

In my little shipping corner, we got some good ThunderBlink (JohnxBlink) stuff. So first he was mad at her for keeping secrets and he said, “maybe you aren’t one of us,” and I was like, John, don’t be a judgmental jerk. But then, before they portaled into the Summit building, John apologized for being a jerk and compliments her on stopping the Frost’s torture, and then THEY KISSED. I was not expecting it honestly, and it was a bit of a weird moment, but whatever, I’m into it.

Once inside the summit, John uses his powers to locate Dr. Campbell and Blink and Marcos get ready to attack. They attack, but Campbell manages to hide behind children in order to escape. Marcos, John, and Blink are not into killing innocent children. They get pinned down by Campbell’s security and John literally shields Blink from gunfire with his body. It was glorious.

That concludes the first half of the finale event.

The second half begins with a flashback to Polaris in a mental hospital 4 years ago. A mutant lawyer shows up to recruit her. I think the lawyer’s arguments are supposed to parallel the arguments that the Frosts have been making to sway Polaris? I’m not really sure, but I thought this flashback was important to mention because Polaris’ bipolar disorder is discussed a lot in these 2 episodes and I think it’s important. This episode is largely about Polaris and her decisions and the show repeatedly makes it clear that certain decisions she makes are completely separate from her mental illness, which I really appreciated.

Back in the present, we get right back into the action. Blink portals John and Marcos out of the Summit building, but the Frosts are pissed that they didn’t get Campbell. The squad makes their escape, but morale is low, especially for Polaris. She is understandably upset and scared for the future. Marcos tells her to have faith, but Polaris is clearly not buying it.

Meanwhile, Agent Turner is back with Sentinel Services and they use a new pair of mutant experiment H.O.U.N.D.s to track the Strucker’s from Grandma Strucker’s office. They are able to follow their trail back to the Mutant Underground HQ! Turner’s dreams are finally coming true.

THE GIFTED: Emma Dumont. Co. Cr: FOX

At the Underground HQ, Andy continues to be crazy mutant extremist and he even says to Lauren that she’s the one who almost destroyed their family by trying to hide her powers and I am so confused? I don’t know what pilot episode that boy was watching, but he is the one who nearly took down the school? Lauren saved his life? Bro, what?

Turner, Sentinel Services, and mutant hounds follow the Strucker trail to a forest that apparently has toxic waste, but Turner refuses to turn back. A mutant guard attempts to use his mind powers to sway Sentinel Services, but they keep advancing, so he alerts HQ.

This is when things get really crazy. The mutants attempt to pack up and run as fast as they can. Some are able to escape, but soon Sentinel Services is upon them, so the mutants who are left simply have to fortify and find a new way to escape. The Struckers are among those who are left and the parents make themselves in charge. They figure out a way to create a new exit by breaking through the vault room. While Mama Strucker and some mutants work on breaking through the vault, Papa Strucker and the kids hold off Sentinel Services.

They beat back the first wave of S.S., but once the hounds with exploding powers arrive, its all over. The mutants are forced to fall back. They manage to break through the vault wall and everyone gets out safe. The Strucker kids volunteer to stay and use their combo powers to level the HQ building in order to hide their tracks. It was pretty cool. Glad they got to use their cool combo powers for a good reason.

All of this was good, but Mr. Strucker kept saying really, really cringe-y things like, “I am one of you now” and even “I am a Mutant”. No, Reed, no. No, no no.

Meanwhile, John, Marcos, and Blink struggle to make contact with HQ and Polaris has gone AWOL with a couple of the Frosts. They have recruited her to assassinate Dr. Campbell, by using her powers to take down the plane he is flying in with his anti-mutant politician buddy. When Marcos finds out what they are up to he is mad as hell. Even the Frost girl looked scared.

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

The Core 3 show up to try and persuade Polaris to come back towards the light, but she is way too far gone. It’s hard to blame her. She says, “I’m tired of hiding,” and I totally get that. It’s hard to watch her and Marcos so at odds though. In the end, she uses all her strength to crash the plane and kill everyone one it. It was pretty cool, but also representative of a major turning point for Polaris and her path. As soon as the plane crashes, Polaris disappears.

The Core 3 reunite with the rest of HQ and everyone is sad and disillusioned. Then Lorna and a Frost triplet show up to recruit mutants to their more extremist side. Lorna is literally wearing a back deep v-neck top and leather jacket to represent her going Full Dark and following in Magneto’s footsteps. A bunch of mutants go with them, most notably Andy Strucker.

Also Turner gets in trouble with his boss for losing the mutant assets in the Underground HQ explosion, so he finally loses all cool and quits!

And that’s all folks! The tensions between humans and mutants are more volatile than ever before and a new dark mutant force is on the horizon. Campbell is dead and Turner has gone rogue. Season 2 is certainly poised to be darker and even more morally gray than season 1, but other than that, who knows what will happen. All we know is that the journey continues. Thanks for watching and reading with us this season!