REVIEW -- The Gifted (Season One - Episodes 1-13)

The Gifted is an American television series created for Fox by Matt Nix, based on Marvel Comics' X-Men properties. It is connected to the X-Men film series, set in an alternate timeline where the X-Men have disappeared. The show is produced by 20th Century Fox Television in association with Marvel Television, with Nix serving as showrunner.

The series stars Stephen Moyer and Amy Acker as ordinary parents who take their family on the run after they discover their children's mutant abilities. Sean Teale, Natalie Alyn Lind, Percy Hynes White, Coby Bell, Jamie Chung, Blair Redford, and Emma Dumont also star in the show. The series received a put pilot commitment at Fox after a previous attempted X-Men television series did not move forward at the network in 2016; The Gifted was ordered to series in May 2017.

The Gifted's first season aired from October 2, 2017, to January 15, 2018, over 13 episodes. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and "solid" viewership. In January 2018, the series was renewed for a second season.

Cast and Characters

Main

Stephen Moyer as Reed Strucker
Amy Acker as Caitlin Strucker
Sean Teale as Marcos Diaz / Eclipse
Natalie Alyn Lind as Lauren Strucker
Percy Hynes White as Andy Strucker
Coby Bell as Jace Turner
Jamie Chung as Clarice Fong / Blink
Blair Redford as John Proudstar / Thunderbird
Emma Dumont as Lorna Dane / Polaris

Recurring

Hayley Lovitt as Sage
Joe Nemmers as Ed Weeks
Jeff Daniel Phillips as Fade
Jermaine Rivers as Shatter
Garret Dillahunt as Roderick Campbell
Elena Satine as Sonya Simonson / Dreamer
Skyler Samuels as the Stepford Cuckoos

Guest

Pedro (portrayed by Dinarte de Freitas): A light-blue, leonine mutant who can "project fear".
Ellen Strucker (portrayed by Sharon Gless): Reed's mother.
Daniel (portrayed by Jeffrey Nordling): Caitlin's brother.
Carmen Guerra (portrayed by Michelle Veintimilla): Diaz's ex-girlfriend and the leader of a cartel.
Gus / Pulse (portrayed by Zach Roerig): A mutant who can disable electrical systems and other mutants' abilities. He is loyal to Sentinel Services under the Hound Program.
Trader (portrayed by D James Jones): A mutant who can cloud other's vision to hide.
Paula Turner (portrayed by Frances Turner): Jace Turner's wife.
Grace Turner (portrayed by Jaxon Rose Moore): Jace Turner's deceased daughter.
Wes (portrayed by Danny Ramirez): A mutant who can create illusions, whom Lauren grows close to.
Andrew Benator portrays Campbell's aide, a Hound.
Naya (portrayed by Jessi Goei): A young mutant living with the underground that can control water.
Skyler (portrayed by Charlie Nix): A young mutant living with the underground who can repel objects.
Otto Strucker (portrayed by Raymond J. Barry): Reed's estranged father.
Andreas and Andrea von Strucker / Fenris (portrayed by Paul Cooper and Caitlin Mehner, respectively): Ancestors of Lauren and Andy with the same mutant abilities. Nix stated that giving the series' main characters the surname "Strucker", a name given to notable characters from the comics, was an intentional decision, leading to speculation that Lauren and Andy were an adaptation of the Strucker twins. After the series included an Easter egg referring to characters that matched the comics description of the twins, Lind indicated that those characters could appear themselves. In November 2017, the characters were officially confirmed to be appearing in the show, with Cooper and Mehner cast as Andreas and Andrea, respectively.
Montez (portrayed by David Noroña): An anti-mutant senator.
Wolcott (portrayed by Elliot Grey): The Director of Sentinel Services.
Jack Campbell (portrayed by Alex Collins): Roderick Campbell's brother, who died from cystic fibrosis.
Evangeline (portrayed by Erinn Ruth): An attorney who recruited Polaris for the underground on behalf of the X-Men.

Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance in the pilot.

Episodes:

1 "eXposed"

In Atlanta, Georgia, the mutant Clarice Fong escapes from prison with her teleporting abilities, and is rescued from police by members of a mutant underground that aims to protect persecuted mutants from the government. During this, Lorna Dane / Polaris is captured by the police, and is later asked by district attorney Reed Strucker to cooperate with him in exchange for a reduced sentence. Reed's children, Lauren and Andy, go to their school dance that night, where Andy is attacked by bullies. The stress causes Andy's mutant abilities to manifest, and he telekinetically causes major damage to the school. Lauren helps him escape, revealing that she is also a mutant. The pair and their parents are forced to go into hiding immediately by the arrival of the anti-mutant Sentinel Services agency. Reed convinces a member of the underground, Marcos Diaz / Eclipse, to help them in exchange for information on Polaris, but Turner and SS also arrive at their meeting. Clarice is able to teleport everyone to safety, except for Reed, who is captured.

2 "rX"

Clarice falls unconscious from the effort of teleporting the group back to the underground's hideout, losing control of her abilities. Portals begin to open to an unknown road, causing an accident that is brought to the attention of police. Caitlin, a nurse, offers to look for medication that may help Clarice, and races to a nearby hospital that still treats mutants with Eclipse, where they use an old injury to gain access to the medication. In prison, Polaris has a collar placed on her that gives her a shock whenever she tries to use her abilities. She faces discrimination and attacks from the other prisoners, and when she pushes through the pain of her collar to fight back, she is put in solitary confinement. Reed is interrogated by Turner, who tries various techniques to get Reed's cooperation, including interrogating Reed's mother Ellen. Caitlin and Eclipse return in time to help Clarice before her portals cause major damage and force the underground to evacuate. Reed agrees to give Turner the location of the underground in exchange for the freedom of his family.

3 "exodus"

Reed, being tracked by Turner, meets up with a mutant that he knows is working with Eclipse, and he agrees to smuggle Reed to the underground, but Reed decides to not put the mutants in harm and returns to Turner. Clarice begins working with John Proudstar / Thunderbird to control her abilities, but does not have someone that she truly cares about that she can focus her emotions on. Trying to help the underground, Caitlin secretly leaves and finds her brother Daniel, who she says has "connections", and is accompanied by her children. Daniel is unwilling to help, and when news gets out that they are there the Struckers are confronted by locals who want to keep their neighborhood safe. They escape the house with the help of Eclipse and Thunderbird. Clarice creates a portal for the group to return to the underground, but can only do this with strong feelings for Thunderbird, implanted by the mutant Sonya Simonson / Dreamer. Turner turns down an offer for help from scientist Roderick Campbell, who is interested in the Strucker children.

4 "eXit strategy"

Two years ago, the underground helped several mutants escape from an SS "Relocation Center", but Thunderbird's best friend Gus / Pulse—who can short out electrical circuits and other mutants' abilities—was believed to have been killed. Now, the underground plans to rescue Reed and Polaris from SS before they are delivered to a similar center, one that inmates do not return from. Eclipse gets information on the route they will be taken from the cartel he used to work for, now run by his former girlfriend Carmen Guerra. She forces him to use his abilities to torture someone for her in exchange for the information. The underground attacks the convoy transporting Reed and Polaris, with Andy and Lauren combining their abilities to stop the vehicles. They all lose their abilities when Pulse appears, alive and working for SS. Thunderbird knocks Pulse unconscious, Polaris breaks herself and Reed out, and they all escape. Meanwhile, Clarice continues to remember her feelings for Thunderbird, but he tells her that they have never been together.

5 "boXed in"

Thunderbird takes the Struckers back to the underground, where a mutant named Fade recognizes Reed as having been working with Turner; many of the underground's members are uncomfortable with Reed joining them. In order to prove his loyalty, Reed suggests using himself as bait to lure away the SS agents. Thunderbird tasks Fade with helping Reed, and they are successful. Meanwhile, Caitlin, Lauren, and Andy are able to save the life of an injured mutant, Trader. Having earned the underground's trust, the Struckers decide to stay and fight with them. Eclipse and Polaris attack an SS blockade and capture Turner. Dreamer and Clarice join them, as they are surrounded by SS. Dreamer begins searching Turner's memories for information, learning of the program that converted Pulse to an SS agent. She is unable to finish before they have to flee, leaving Turner believing that his daughter Grace is still alive despite her death during a mutant protest four years earlier. Clarice later confronts Dreamer about altering her memories.

6 "got your siX"

Clarice confronts Thunderbird about him not telling her what Dreamer did to her memories, and decides to leave the underground. The group plans to attack a Federal facility where Pulse was taken without Clarice's help; Reed, Eclipse, and Andy go to break in and steal information on the mutants who are now working for SS. Thunderbird worries that these mutants could be the deciding factor in a war that the X-Men believed was coming (they put Thunderbird in charge of the underground before they disappeared). Reed becomes concerned with Andy's abilities and how he enjoys using them to destroy things, and attempts to gain Andy's trust as his father again. After stealing the information, the trio are followed by police into an SS ambush. Polaris takes Lauren and another young mutant, visual illusionist Wes, to help them. Meanwhile, Turner is given a mandatory leave for his reborn grief, but ignores this and instead begins a new partnership with Campbell, giving him the information about Andy and Lauren in exchange for his help.

7 "eXtreme measures"

Guerra forces Eclipse to help her on another job, this time destroying a rival's shipment of drugs; Polaris and Dreamer follow Eclipse after the former discovered he was lying about his whereabouts, and see him work with Guerra. Thunderbird tracks down Clarice, and offers to help her find the road that her portals were opening to when she was sick. They realize that the road leads to the home for mutants that she lived in as a child, but it is now derelict after SS agents stormed the building and killed its inhabitants. She agrees to rejoin the fight. From the stolen information, the underground learns that Wes has a criminal background, leading to him leaving for another underground group, and that Reed's father may have been involved with Campbell's program to turn mutants when he worked for Trask Industries. Now, Campbell and Turner prepare to send these mutants, called Hounds, undercover within the underground. When a DOJ official attempts to stop the pair from using their illegal actions, one of the Hounds makes her have a stroke.

8 "threat of eXtinction"

The underground rescue a group of refugees, but a telepath among them, Esme, reveals that another of the mutants to be a Hound. The latter is taken hostage, and Esme is able to help read her mind; they learn that she was taken hostage by Trask Industries, and their work on her included addicting her to the drug Kick. Reed and Thunderbird visit Reed's estranged father Otto, who used to work for Trask. Otto reveals that his father and aunt, Andreas and Andrea von Strucker, were the mutant terrorists Fenris. They had extremely powerful abilities, which they passed on to Otto; his work at Trask focused on suppressing the mutant X-gene, and he prevented Reed from developing these abilities. Lauren and Andy now have the same abilities as the von Struckers, and can become as powerful as them if their powers are combined. Campbell and SS agents arrive to interrogate Otto, and he attacks them with his abilities to protect Reed and Thunderbird. Otto is able to overcome Pulse's mutant suppressing, releasing a blast that injures Campbell and kills Pulse.

9 "outfoX"

Reed tells his family about his history as a mutant, and about the von Struckers and their terrorist activities. He and Caitlin test Andy and Lauren to see if they could become as powerful as the twins; holding hands, the pair feel the power to destroy the entire building, and are only stopped by Reed separating them. Desperate to rescue her family from Trask, Esme uses her abilities to manipulate the others into agreeing with a plan of attack: Clarice, Dreamer, and the Struckers will take out a power plant supporting the Trask facility, which can then be attacked by her, Polaris, Eclipse, and Thunderbird. Turner predicts this, and organizes an unofficial SS task force to storm the power plant before it can be disabled. Clarice and Dreamer are captured trying to allow Andy and Lauren to escape, as Reed and Caitlin watch in horror from a van outside. Trapped in the basement, Andy and Lauren join hands, but Andy stops them from using their combined abilities before they kill all the building's inhabitants. They surrender themselves to Turner.

10 "eXploited"

Polaris wants to immediately attack Sentinel Services, but Reed and Caitlin argue for a diplomatic solution that will not endanger their children, potentially reaching out to some of Reed's old contacts about Trask and the Hound program. Esme talks to Reed and Caitlin in secret, and suggests that they go to Turner and hope that his better nature prevails. When Esme tells the other mutants what the couple intend to do, they prepare to attack. At Trask Industries, a heavily scarred Campbell forces Andy and Lauren to demonstrate their combined powers by killing Dreamer, and they are able to dent an apparently "indestructible" adamantium wall. After he is confronted by the Struckers, Turner plans to arrest them, but is convinced by his wife to do the right thing. Turner goes to Trask to transfer the mutants back to Sentinel Services. The mutants use this opportunity to attack, but they are betrayed by Esme. She makes the guards kill each other and themselves, and releases her identical sisters, Phoebe and Sophie Frost, who have the same abilities as her.

11 "3 X 1"

The Frost sisters approach the underground for help in stopping the Hound program, though they are doing so to support their own agenda of rebuilding the Hellfire Club. The underground members refuse, while Reed and Caitlin decide to take their family to Mexico. They stop at another refugee base on the way, where they reunite with Wes. One of the sisters visits Andy, asking him to reconsider leaving. Another visits Polaris, and uses knowledge of her mysterious birth father—who once led the Hellfire Club—and her unborn baby to try manipulate her into assisting them. Turner and Campbell launch an attack on the Struckers' location, using Hounds who can combine their abilities with technology developed from Lauren and Andy to start destroying the building and arrest mutants. Polaris, Clarice, Eclipse, and Thunderbird arrive to rescue them, but only the intervention of the sisters allows them to successfully escape. The underground formally partners with the Hellfire Club, unaware that the sisters had given SS the location of the base.

12 "eXtraction"

Polaris, Eclipse, Thunderbird, and Clarice join the Frost sisters at a safe house where Esme explains that when the X-Men established the underground before their disappearance, their rival group the Brotherhood established the new Hellfire Club before their own disappearance. Campbell meets with the anti-mutant Senator Montez at the Humanity Today conference, where he talks about his advancements in the fight to eradicate the X-gene; Montez agrees to give political support to expanding the Hound program for use across the country. Meanwhile, SS agents search for more information on Otto's research. Learning that they are going after Ellen, the Struckers go to her office and persuade her to go into hiding. Andy and Lauren disagree on how much force to use when holding off arriving SS agents. Ellen gives them the name of Otto's research partner, Madeline Risman, before departing. The underground mutants infiltrate the conference with the Frost sisters to abduct Campbell, but flee when he uses children as human shields and SS forces arrive.

13 "X-roads"

Four years earlier, Polaris had been approached at a mental hospital by an attorney named Evangeline, who recruited her for the underground on the behalf of the X-Men. Now, Campbell and Montez set to fly to Washington. The Frost sisters convince Polaris to embrace her heritage and stop them. Turner tracks the Struckers with a new pair of Hounds to the underground's headquarters, and lays siege to it. Reed leads a defense of the building with the few remaining fighters, while Caitlin oversees and evacuation through an escape tunnel. When the Hounds break into the building, Andy and Lauren remain behind to let the last of the underground escape. They combine their abilities, disintegrating the entire building and the Hounds inside it. Polaris destroys the plane that Campbell and Montez are in. Turner quits when his superiors attempt to set him up as a scapegoat. The underground regroups in Nashville, Tennessee, where Polaris and the Frosts arrive seeking recruits for the Hellfire Club. Several choose to join them, including Andy.

The Verdict: 

Casting

A great cast from top to bottom. I honestly don't have any gripes or complaints about the casting in this show in the least. I always loved Amy Acker from her appearances in Angel and one-time appearance in Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, but seeing her take on the role of the mother of the Strucker children was a sight to behold. Good Lord, that girl who plays Lauren Strucker is hot. Between Natalie Alyn Lind and Amy Acker, they would have had me watching this regardless. I had to look up if she 18 or not before I started oogling her. If she's not done growing up yet, then she's going quite the bombshell by the time she hits her 30s. Jesus...

The Mutant Underground took a while for me to warm up to but I liked all of their actors too. I initially rolled my eyes when I saw the casting news for Jamie Chung as Blink, but she won me over as the series rolled on. Emma Dumont was new to me as I never seen her work prior to this show but her look and performance as Polaris from the first episode to the season one finale made me a fan for sure. Blair Redford (Thunderbird) and Sean Teale (Eclipse) were unknowns to me prior to this but they were fine with what they were given here. I could buy into Thunderbird being trusted by the X-Men to hold down the fort in their absence while Eclipse is a believable rebel with a cause that I can buy into. The minor mutants and recurring ones, such as Hayley Lovitt (Sage), Elena Satine (Dreamer), and Skyler Samuels (the Stepford Cuckoos) I felt the same about. They gave you enough to make you want to see more from them as the show went on. Samuels definitely delivered in her performance as the Stepford Cuckoos, by far my favorite trio of mutants by the end of this season.

Narrative

I think it's best I split my review on this show into sections in terms of the narrative. I don't want to come off as scatter brained like I felt while writing my review on the Runaways. Let's start off by admitting that this is best X-Men story within their live-action continuity even though this series is allegedly understood as alternate reality opposed to the one from the live-action films, despite some similar points in the narrative. That being said, this show understands the X-Men better than those films, and I'm surprised that Bryan Singer was attached to the pilot. I would axe him in a heart beat and give the writers for this show a raise and the reigns to take control of the direction for writing how the X-Men will be handled in their upcoming introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The first half of the season I want to refer to as the "self-discovery phase" (episodes 1-7) and the latter half (episodes 8-13) as the "war for survival phase".

The self-discovery phase introduces the Strucker family, namely their two mutant children - Andy and Lauren, who become targeted by Sentinel Services after Andy's powers first manifest at a school dance. Lauren's powers had already manifested in the past but she has been hiding them up to this point. The Strucker family then finds themselves thrown head first into the world of being a mutant on the run as their human parents merely want to protect their children, which finds them seeking out help from the Mutant Underground.

The Mutant Underground has their own share of problems when the season starts as well, with Polaris getting arrested during one of their missions and their newcomer Blink struggling to get a sense of control with her powers.

This half of the season is great as it plays off both viewpoints of how society treats and sees mutantkind. The Strucker family are treated firsthand on how their entire world is turned upside down the moment that their children are exposed to be mutants and how their former friends, family members, and colleagues are quick to turn them in to Sentinel Services. At same time, the Mutant Underground faces the growing pains of how not to be like how society and Sentinel Services and expects them to be (despite the ongoing temptations to cave to those methods) and to be more like the X-Men - mutants that fight for equality within the human race (Xavier's principles) while at the same time not resorting to the methods that those who hate and fear them use against them. For example, think of how many times it would have be so easy for the Strucker children to combine their powers and just slaughter everyone but resorted to the means of caring about human lives instead? Instead, this first half of the season hammers the idea home that even though that you have great power, there is always a better way to use it - even though there will be times that you feel completely powerless as a result.

This fact is highlighted by the revelation that the Strucker children are descendants of the mutant twins Fenrir, who used their powers for their own self-gain and destructive tendencies. Andy wants to use this power to lay waste to threats brought to them by Sentinel Services, but Lauren fears the harm that they could do to innocent human and mutant lives, often acting as the voice of reason on how they should use their powers. Andy is impatient and so mentally unstable at times I question how long that his family can compel him to do good before he goes off the deep end.

The second half of the season introduces Esme as one of the new refugees picked up by the Mutant Underground, only to betray the group to reunite with her identical sisters to reveal themselves as the Stepford Cuckoos. Esme manipulated everyone she came across in the Mutant Underground to help her accomplish her end goal of getting her sisters back while simultaneously forcing Sentinel Services to bring out the bigger guns to put out the fire of mutant-kind for good. In this case, SS forms an uneasy alliance with Trask Industries, who want to study the Strucker children to advance their own research. Trask Industries convince the Strucker children to show off the full extent of their powers after killing Dreamer right in front of them. I honestly never heard of Dreamer before this show (TBH I stopped reading X-Men comics hardcore in the early 2000s so that's probably why I didn't get the memo about her) and felt that she was a lame fill-in for Jean Grey, who wasn't a telepath but the next best thing that they could settle for. On one hand, I felt sorry for Dreamer but at the same time, I didn't. She manipulated Blink and Jace Turner's memories with her powers and it was about time that she faced the gravity of those actions. Her shocking demise was a bit much, but hey, it was the shocker that this half of the series needed at the time to drive the Strucker children to use their powers. As powerful as the Strucker children were, Trask Industries still proved to have a few tricks up their sleeves in terms of dealing with them and the rest of the Mutant Underground. Their research on the Strucker's powers proved to be fruitful as they developed similar means of "combining" powers with other compatible mutants that they had under their control. The latter half of this season forced the Mutant Underground to start fighting their own kind (human-controlled mutant weapons) in this battle for survival.

This in turn brings up the question brought up by the Stepford Cuckoos, do the mutants of the Mutant Underground continue to barely survive with their hit and run tactics or do they actually fight back and use their powers - by any means necessary, becoming the lethal weapons of mass-destruction that normal humans fear them of potentially being? Polaris found herself at this crossroads more than anyone else as the Cuckoos remind her of her ties to the leader of the Brotherhood and former member of the Hellfire Club (that the Cuckoos currently work for), Magneto. I thought her dilemma was handled in a hit or miss manner. While I thought it was cool that her powers were becoming stronger due to her pregnancy (something that I remembered that the Witchblade anime did similar now that I'm thinking about it...), but sudden revelation about her having psychological issues prior to joining the Mutant Underground seemed pretty lame after not getting any mention of this beforehand over the course of the entire season up to this point. I suppose that it opens the door to more character development for her in the next season, so I can't complain too much in that aspect as it seems her, Andy Strucker, and Sage are going to be exploring more extreme means of survival as part of the Hellfire Club since they joined with the Stepford Cuckoos at the end of the season one finale.

Closing Thoughts

What I'm wondering on what are they going do for the next season? Jace Turner quit Sentinel Services as he wasn't going to be their fall guy after shit hit the fan with Campbell and Trask Industries. The Mutant Underground's headquarters is completely destroyed and they have to start from scratch after most of their members have joined with Andy Strucker, Sage, and Polaris in the Hellfire Club with the Stepford Cuckoos. We know that Andy and Lauren's powers are nowhere as effective individually as they are together, so what's the point of splitting them up? Is Andy going to come to his senses and come back to the family or will something happen to Lauren to make her join the "dark side" as well? Either way, we have an interesting dynamic going forward as the Mutant Underground isn't so "united" as they were originally and we have two different factions of mutants going forward while Jace Turner is possibly going to resort to even more radical, extreme measures in his quest against mutantkind, along with the United States government after the deaths of Campbell (who I'm guessing is going to come back as a cyborg looking more like his Ahab comic book counterpart...) and the Senator Montez - thanks to the actions of Polaris.

One gripe that this show has going against it is the lack of X-Men "core" characters, but I like to counter that argument by pointing out that their legacy and themes are still present. Xavier's teachings are alive and well, along with the impact of what the actions of the X-Men as well as Magneto & his the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants have been impacted this continuity in some fashion. It's not as jarring as Supergirl where they reference Superman time and time again, but rarely show him until that second season. The difference here is that Superman was essential to that character's origin story when here it's not. You can do X-Men stories and not show the core X-Men characters at all as a lot of the themes and conflicts are the same with almost any mutant. Hell, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD replicated that same conflict for the Inhumans in their series when the X-Men and mutants as a whole were off-limits.

From start to finish, I think the main thing I adored about this season was the significance and importance of protecting one's family wasn't lost from the first episode. It's there between the Strucker family, among Thunderbird and most of the Mutant Underground, definitely abundant between the Stepford Cuckoos, and we definitely can't forget about Jace Turner. His sole character motivation is protecting other families from going through what his own family did when he lost his daughter during an incident involving mutants.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

If you haven't been following the X-Men live action films, but are curious about the X-Men universe as a whole, this is a GREAT starting point/gateway for newcomers and those who are looking for Fox to do more with the X-Men license. They had success with the eight episode mini-series based on Legion (I personally didn't care for it... I checked out after the second episode, but I've been told that it gets better by the end so whatever, I'll give that another shot down the road...) that justified enough of demand for a second season, but that never was truly a full-blown X-Men story. Legion is set in the same universe but more psychological thriller and mind fuck than anything else. What you get here is the trials and tribulations that the X-Men comic books have been telling for decades - their ongoing struggle against discrimination and racial indifferences, along with the ordeals what bonds them all as a family. We also get the added layer of these characters struggling to decide whether or not to use their powers for good like the X-Men or for evil like Magneto and the Brotherhood.

I'll say this much about this show. I had more fun watching and enjoying this than I have ever had watching any of the CW's DC Comics-based narratives drag on and on for week to week. Can someone give Matt Nix a shot at handling the writing for the live-action X-Men films? The guy actually understands this universe much better than Bryan Singer ever has over the last decade and a half. That's for damn sure...