'The Gifted' Season 1, Episode 2 'rX' Recap: Portal Mishaps and Mutant Healthcare [SPOILERS]

The stakes are higher in the second episode of “The Gifted,” we last left our Mutant renegades escaping from The Sentinel Services. “The Gifted” Season 1 episode two is titled “rX” focuses on solving the fallout created by the comatose Blink/Clarice Fong (Jamie Chung). After exerting her powers beyond their limits, she is in a state of shock. Caitlin Strucker (Amy Acker) and Eclipse/Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale) needs to find a special serum that will help her recover. Meanwhile, Reed is captured by the Sentinel Services and Polaris/Lorna (Emma Dumont) tries to survive jail.

‘The Gifted’ Season 1, Episode 2: Catching Up With The Struckers

The episode opens with a flashback of the Strucker family three years ago. Everything was like a family-friendly sitcom. The Struckers happily bowling with their playful competitive banter. But this flashback is more than a happy memory. After using her powers to achieve a strike, Lauren  (Natalie Alyn Lind) noticed a father bowling with his mutant daughter. This hits a chord for her when she sees people mocking the girl for being a mutant. Her mother tells her to let it be and ignore the situation.

The mutant girl’s father defends his daughter telling the others to back off. But when they refused to stop taunting his daughter, the mutant girl loses control. The Strucker family watches in shock. Reed decides to step in, not to protect the mutant girl but to tell them to walk away.  Lauren judges her father for the further discrimination of Mutant kind.
The next scene picks up right where we left the Strucker family hiding with the Mutant Underground. It looks as if they are safe for now. While Reed is taken into questioning by a Sentinal agent named Jace Turner (Coby Bell). Turner asks for the whereabouts of Reed’s family but he refuses to give in for the safety of his family. The questioning quickly escalates when Turner reveals they dragged Reed’s mother into questioning. Leaving Reed with a very complicated decision for his family’s safety.

A Very Serious Portal Problem

To save the Struckers and Eclipse from the Sentinal Services, Blink created a portal to the Mutant Underground Headquarters. Because of exceeding the limits of her abilities she damaged her powers. This causes her to lose control of her powers and sporadically creates a portal. Caitlin, being a nurse, says Blink might die without any medical attention. So she and Eclipse decide to go to a nearby hospital to steal medicine that would help stabilize Blink’s powers.
While they are out to get what they need to help Blink, the others are left to witness the damage. Blink created a portal that caused a car accident on an unknown road. Lauren uses her powers to close them but the longer Blink goes untreated the worse her powers becomes. Each time, the portal she creates opens to the same the road. And each time it opens they see a swarm of cops ready to shoot later escalating to a SWAT team. Thunderbird/John Proudstar (Blair Redford) decides to evacuate the Mutant Headquarters when the portals multiplied and become uncontrollable.

Caitlin and Marcos get into some trouble as well in their quest to save Clarice. She asks Marcos to show his bullet wound to a doctor so she would have access to their medical supply. But the discrimination against humans causes the doctor to question Caitlin’s relationship with Marcos as “domestic abuse.” Luckily, Caitlin was able to raid the medical supply room as soon as the doctor called the cops. She and Eclipse returned to the headquarters to find the situation getting worse. Mutants evacuating as an injured Blink creates multiple portals that might cause harm to the others. But Caitlin was able to save Clarice with the stolen medicine to stabilize her powers.

Polaris Gets Into More Trouble

In the opening scene of the first episode of “The Gifted,” we meet the core group of the Mutant Underground, John, Marcos and Lorna. Attempting to save Blink from the cops, Lorna was arrested. She is now in Lakewood County Jail where she is forced to wear a shock collar to numb her powers.It’s enough mutant kind is stripped of their civil rights.
The moment she walks into jail she becomes a sideshow attraction to the other inmates because she is a mutant. Even in jail they are still discriminated and targeted for being who she is. Polaris tries her best to ignore the leering and judgment from the others. She tries to find an ally with another mutant but was rejected. Things start to get worse for Polaris when an inmate tried to pick a fight with the powerful mutant.
She used her powers as self-defense against the others who were already beating her to a pulp. Despite the pain shooting up from the collar. Because of using her powers on another inmate, Polaris was sent into solitary confinement.

Mutant Attack In San Janeiro Connection

Reed tries to make a deal with Turner that he is willing to give himself up for the safety of his family by asking for a lawyer. However, Turner would only budge if Reed was willing to sell out the Mutant Underground. Reed thought he found a way to help his family but it looks like his lack of answer meant he will not betray those who were willing to help him. In the first episode, Reed makes a deal with Marcos if he helps him bring his family beyond the border Reed will help bring Lorna back. So betraying Marcos trust for his family’s safety complicates his situation even further.
The episode ends with a pair of doctors researching about mutant siblings. This leads them to find an article about a Mutant terror attack in San Janeiro. They see the connection between the mutant attack in San Janiero to the Strucker mutant children.Whatever the connection may be will hopefully be revealed in the third episode of “The Gifted.”
Whatever the connection may be will hopefully be revealed in “eXposed,” the third episode of “The Gifted,” Mondays at 9/8c on FOX.