The Gifted – “eXit strategy”

“eXit strategy” is our fourth episode of our biggest name non-testudines mutants’ television offering.  This time, our resistance fighters take the fight to recapture Polaris and Baron Von Reed from Sentinel Services.

Title: “eXit strategy”

Director: Karen Gaviola
Writer: Meredith Lavender & Marcie Ulin

Cast:

Stephen Moyer as Reed Strucker
Amy Acker as Kate 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
Elena Satine as Dreamer
Michelle Veintimilla as Carmen
Zach Roerig as Pulse
Matt Doman as SS McAuley
Tom Glynn as SS Guard #2
Josué Gutierrez as Francisco (as Josue Gutierrez)

Premise:

When the mutants devise a plan to take down Sentinel Services, Eclipse seeks out an old friend from his dark past in order to obtain some useful information. Meanwhile, Lauren and Andy attempt to combine their powers in order to help the group. (From Trakt.)

High Point:

The battle that raged at the end of the episode was very enjoyable for me.  My wife felt it the outcome was a bit too predictable, but agreed that had it gone the other way it wouldn’t have been a surprise.

The mention of corn muffins does a very good job of taking this fantastic tale of super powers and brings it back to the world where the viewer lives.

Low Point:

They do seem to be leaning heavily into the stereotypes and tropes of most genre shows.  Of course there is going to be a jail break, of course things go wrong, of course the mother wants to protect her kids, but allows them to help because she has to!

The Scores:

Originality: 1/6 I can’t give the show many points for originality, but I am also not sure what I would expect them to do differently without abandoning the idea of being rooted in our regular dramas, (but now with more mutants!)

Effects: 6/6 I like that Andy’s destructive blasts are visible even outside of the target without actually having to destroy a thing to know where it is.

Acting: 6/6 Amy Acker arguments affirm amazing acting.

Production: 5/6 While Lorna’s hair was consistent this time, some of the non-principal cast never seems to look as realistic as our primary characters.

Story: 5/6 Yes, it is rooted in every other drama’s tropes, it left us enough “Chekhov’s Guns” that I didn’t know which one would go off by the end of the episode.

Emotional Response: 5/6 The final battle felt tense and I did not go into it assuming that the good guys were going to come out intact.

Overall: 5/6

In total, “eXit strategy” receives 33/42

4 replies on “The Gifted – “eXit strategy””

  1. It was kind of nice that none of the events obviously required any of the main characters to be carrying an idiot ball in order to happen the way they did. Even the screw-ups on the part of the bad guys at the end were at least plausible in context. (The chaos of a fight could easily lead to exactly those sorts of errors.)

    It was also nice that the “source of information” had their own agenda and said agenda is likely going to have consequences.

    (Also, meta site note: not exactly helpful to get “you must be logged in to post a comment” when the comment form shows that one is already logged in.)

    • The “source of information” was one of the Chekhov’s I was thinking of. I could see a dire scene being Dues Ex Machina’d by their appearance. I don’t see that being executed well, so I was glad it didn’t happen.

  2. Yeah, this is a Multitask Show for me at this point. I was literally doing 3 other things while watching it. One of which was watching a video on youtube.

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