After coming off of a somewhat disappointing episode last week, The Gifted bounced back and packed a punch with this week’s episode, “eXit strategy.”
We kicked things into high gear with some nice twists and turns – in fact, we had a nice heist theme to the episode, as the team of mutants had to break Reed and Polaris out of their imprisonment. While it did start off slow, this episode really kept up a nice pace and included a steady stream of action through and through. Polaris’s escape was a nice throwback to the movie X-Men 2. The introduction of a mutant who can repress powers was a nice little turn of events as well, and although I wish we explored more of his backstory, I think (hope) that his life and his tattoo will be a subplot for the upcoming episodes.
We got to see the results of Blink receiving flash memories, which were something I was seriously worried they would skim over. I hope they keep this angle up and force Blink to reconsider being part of this team. While the flashback at the start of the episode wasn’t as good as the rest, it was needed and necessary to give us a backstory on the new mutant character. I did think the whole subplot of Marcos and his former lover could have been done a lot more quickly, although it’s immensely interesting to find out someone like himself was part of a seedy underground cartel family.
Honestly, I didn’t think this escape was gonna be successful – the fact that it was kept things flowing, and allowed fans to see that things can be a bit unpredictable. Seeing the Reed family and mutants all together was a nice ending for this episode. The action here was done very well to my surprise, especially for a t.v. show with a slightly lower budget. I thought that all the mutants were given the chance to shine and use their powers to help Reed and Polaris escape. I’m excited to see where the Reed family goes from here and, again, I seriously want to know what that tattoo meant. Personally, I think we are gonna find out that some mutants are either brainwashed or blackmailed to work strictly for the Sentinels, killing and hunting of their own kind much like what we saw in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, though most die-hard fans don’t consider that a valid part of the franchise. This would be a nice angle to see and could be connected to that Doctor we’ve been seeing. Who knows? In any case, tune in every Monday on Fox to get your answers!
