The Gifted series premiere recap: 'eXposed'

I’ve always suspected that a TV show would be a better fit for the X-Men than movies are. After all, the X-Men are supposed to be a diverse group full of different talents, specialties, and personas, but the movie adaptations have mostly just focused on Wolverine as a leading romantic hero. But now that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has taken his final bow (in Logan, earlier this year), the franchise is freed up to pursue more open-ended forms of storytelling.

I’m really happy with The Gifted; can you tell? The show is only one episode in, but so far I think it works super well and has lots of potential — and also builds on Logan in interesting ways. For instance, as in Logan, the X-Men here are gone, and nobody knows where they’ve gone.

One reason I think The Gifted works well is it doesn’t dawdle with retelling stories you already know, but instead adds depth and speed. Right away we’re plunged into the familiar sight of a lone mutant getting chased by authoritarian police; such scenes have long been used to establish mutants as a hunted and hated minority, on par with many real-life groups. In this day and age, the most obvious metaphor is illegal immigrants — but, of course, unlike actual immigrants, Blink (Jamie Chung) has the ability to make trans-dimensional portals through space and time. The makeshift Underground Railroad of mutants that shows up to help is similarly empowered. Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale) is capable of manipulating powerful light energy, John Proudstar (Blair Redford) can track other mutants (helpful!), and Lorna Dane, a.k.a. Polaris (Emma Dumont), can control magnetic forces. Does that last one sound familiar? It should — in the X-Men comics, Polaris is Magneto’s daughter, and she inherited his trademark powers.

Thanks to their powers, this mutant team is able to save Blink — albeit at the cost of Lorna, who is injured and captured by police in the escape. Right away, the show establishes a very real underdog dynamic. There will be no free lunch here; saving one person means sacrificing something or someone else.

After that intro, we meet the family at the core of the story. Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer) works in mutant detention and helps bring in Polaris, but is currently more focused on troubles at home. His son Andy (Percy Hynes White) isn’t talking to him anymore, even though he complains about bullying at school. Little does Reed know that both of his children are the exact same kind of person he’s spent his life hunting, torturing, and killing. He soon learns the hard way, though, when Andy’s powers explode at a school dance, nearly destroying the entire building and ending any pretense of secrecy.

Tired of being kept on a tight leash at home, Andy sneaks out to the dance with his older sister Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind). Unfortunately, Andy is immediately swarmed by bullies. This, of course, is the second most common depiction of mutants. If they’re not refugees running scared, then they’re almost definitely a lonely kid getting bullied at school.

Unfortunately for said bullies, Andy has had enough, and the forced shower torture soon causes him to lash out with his powers, which strongly resemble telekinesis. The whole school starts caving in and coming down, but luckily Andy has his older sister to protect him. Lauren demonstrates her own skills, forming a forcefield to protect them from falling debris as they escape. Like Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four (another Marvel property still in the Fox camp), Lauren can use her forcefields to push things around as well as protect herself: a useful, multi-purpose, cool-looking power. (Recap continues on page 2)

Back home, there’s no time to keep up pretenses. Andy and Lauren’s mom, Caitlin (Amy Acker), has a tough time accepting that her kids are mutants, even though Lauren has apparently used her powers to save them before. Caitlin learns fast, though, when federal agents from Sentinel Services knock on their door without asking nicely. This is probably my favorite detail of The Gifted so far. They took the Sentinels, which in the original X-Men comics were giant killer robots programmed to hunt and kill mutants, and turned them into a human agency more closely resembling ICE. Many reports have alleged abuses by ICE agents, from denying pregnant woman health care to kidnapping and deporting high school students. Such accusations are of course invisible to many Americans, just as the persecution of mutants has been invisible to Caitlin so far. But luckily for her, her kids have superpowers, and all three make their escape.

Now officially on the run, Caitlin quickly informs Reed of the situation, and though the revelation clearly takes him off guard, he starts rolling with it quickly. He uses his office to get in contact with Marcos. This show doesn’t mess around; when it has two pieces that fit, it puts them together. Reed needs to get his family safe, and Marcos needs to rescue Lorna, so they make a deal.

Unfortunately, this is an underdog story, so the deal goes south. When the Struckers meet Marcos at an abandoned warehouse, they’re quickly ambushed by Sentinels. Now in full force, these agents also have some more traditional Sentinels on hand, in the form of spider robots. They may not be giants, but these robots are still tough; Marcos blasts one with his sun powers for a long time, and the only result is a busted leg that the robot discards without a second thought.

Luckily, Blink and Proudstar quickly catch up with them, and Andy seems more powerful than anyone understands; a gigantic telekinetic blast turns the Sentinel robots into spare parts. Unfortunately, there’s still no free lunch in this story; as Andy gets pulled through Blink’s closing portal, Reed gets shot and falls behind. And scene.

This was a great, fast-paced start to The Gifted, helpfully directed by X-Men movie maestro Bryan Singer. While expertly deploying many familiar tropes from the X-Men mythos, the show also feels like a genuinely new story rooted in our current cultural moment. I’m excited to see where things go from here!