'The Gifted' Season Premiere Review: A Powerful and Socially-Adaptive Narrative

The X-Men is finally back on TV—and with powers blazing. FOX’s “The Gifted” offers not only an updated take on the mutant life but also brings back the exhilarating thrill of seeing mutants on the run. It’s been a while since something like this was done on TV, even with the “X-Men: The Animated Series” and “X-Men: Evolution’s” run. This might not be the best the show has to offer yet, but it’s already promising a season full of mutant action, drama and of course—the thrill of running away from captors.
In this reality, the X-Men is nowhere to be found. A small group of mutants has hidden away from the FBI and is led by Eclipse/Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale), Polaris/Lorna (Emma Dumont), and Thunderbird/John Proudstar (Blair Redford). In the beginning of the episode, we see our mutant renegades trying to track down Blink/Clarice Fong (Jamie Chung) after she escaped from prison and unsuccessfully pursued by the police. From here on, the pilot focuses on each of the antagonists trying to outrun the government.

The Strucker family, on the other hand, is your typical American family—minus the powers, of course. We’ve got mutant prosecutor Reed (Stephen Moyer) as head of the family. He’s always out looking for mutants and making sure they pay according to what the law dictates. He calls the mutants “criminals” too. But the central focus of the episode zeroes in on the Strucker’s two youngblood mutants—Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind), who has the ability to project barriers and Andy (Percy Hynes White), who possesses the power to smash everything in his way when he’s mad (nope, he’s like the Hulk, but more like a young, toned down, not-monstrous green version). It turns out that Lauren already has some sort of control over her powers, while Andy has just discovered them. It’s triggered when he’s brought into the locker room shower by a group of school bullies, causing the entire school to quake, leaving everything destroyed.

What ‘The Gifted’ has to offer as an X-Men show

In the midst of all the comic book movies and TV shows that have over-saturated modern entertainment, “The Gifted” is a superhero show that stays true to its source but considerably removes the “hero” factor in it. The series is a good deviation from the usual heroes vs. villains type of story, therefore making its own identity in the realm of live-action TV entertainment.
It’s obviously a comic book show, without the wit and color that you normally see in it. In the X-Men mythos, mutants are always seen as a threat to humanity’s existence. They are a prime example of the marginalization and racism, and “The Gifted” expands these concepts to explore how it affects the greater plot of this universe’s version of the X-Men. The Sentinel Services is shown as a different anti-mutant force who’s only out for a divine mission to wipe out the mutants entirely. They represent the larger scope of discrimination both for the show’s direction and figurative/social elements.

The pilot episode explores how Reed undergoes a drastic change of principles, and it’s clear that the show will greatly maximize this sudden change of heart in the following episodes. What makes “The Gifted” a set-apart show is its ability to make a thrilling chase sequence interesting once again. There’s the common adrenaline factor that’s evoked whenever you see our mutant heroes being pursued by the police, especially in the last few minutes of the episode. Seeing these mutants try to make sense of their powers while avoiding capture makes it a thriller never before seen in any X-Men TV show.
“The Gifted” is definitely a fresher take on the superhero TV genre, and it’s a thrill to look forward to the coming episodes—expertly backed by a powerful and socially-adaptive narrative.