The Gifted: gaMe changer

December 5, 2018 4:16 AM - Season 2, Episode 9

Tensions within the Inner Circle are at an all-time high, as Andy comes to Rebecca's defense against Reeva. After making an important discovery about Dr. Risman's research, Lauren convinces Reed and Caitlin that they must take action. Tensions flare between Blink and Thunderbird as they confront their differences.

EW recap - Time to make a choice

posted by oh yeah! (3 comments total)

I was a little disappointed with Dr. Risman's "reveal" as actually a clear bad guy. I think it might've been more compelling to leave her as a naive but genuinely-trying-to-be-helpful scientist who just didn't understand/refused to accept that the "cure" she was working towards would inevitably end up being used for genocidal purposes regardless of her intentions in creating it. Felt a little bit like they squandered an opportunity to explore how well-meaning but clueless-about-their-own-privilege people can interact with minorities in ways that do more harm than good despite their best intentions.

However all that probably would've taken more time to do properly than they may have been able to afford to spend on this subplot. So if they want to move things along I'm fine with that; it would be nice to see the rest of the Strucker family (besides Andy) get re-involved in the main plot.
posted by mstokes650 at 1:43 PM on December 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yeah i was also disappointed with Dr. Risman's reveal, i liked the complexity they had. But that gave Noah a clear side to choose so narratively it was easier to handle for viewers. (Fanfare, collectively: WE'RE MORE MATURE THAN THE AVERAGE VIEWER!) I think it could still be a good sideplot, or even evolve into the main plot, granted it'd be all science and no action. I would like a spin-off mini-series aired on PBS where it's just philosophers, scientists, and politicians debate about the rights of people to possibly have the X-Gene. I think the real world parallel to genetically modified babies is there, and because it's still taboo, they decided to make Dr. Risman a villain.

So is it just me or is this basically a show about the Inner Circle? Like what are the Underground even accomplishing? At one point they had Lauren and the Struckers to counter Andy, but now it's like they're just running around trying to be relevant. I guess the Struckers are back in the main plot but I don't see how they're going to proceed unless Lauren just straight up use their psychic link to force Andy back to the "good" side.

I was surprised they killed off Rebecca aka Twist so quickly. She's definitely a viable menace to stick with. But I guess the special effects for her power was more than the budget could handle.

I had very conflicting feelings about all those mutant prisoners getting their powers back and breaking out. On one hand, GO MUTANTS! On the other, surely at least some of those are terrible people that should be in prison. And then maybe they were only terrible because they were mistreated and abused because they were mutants. Arg. The real life parallels abound.
posted by numaner at 5:37 PM on December 8, 2018 [3 favorites]

Seconding numaner about conflicting feelings.

I think they might as well have gone with the scientist wanting to eliminate the gene entirely--you'd have to be really damn naive to think it's going to be optional to get rid of the gene if mutant existence is causing THIS much trouble.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:23 PM on December 11, 2018