The Gifted – S02E03 – coMplications

After boring us with a filler episode for the second episode of the season, The Gifted comes back strong with multiple plot points happening this week, including the introduction of The Morlocks to the XTVU.1

Title: “coMplications”

Director: Michael Goi
Writer: Michael Horowitz

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
Skyler Samuels as Esme Frost / Sophie Frost / Phoebe Frost
Grace Byers as Reeva Payge
Michael Luwoye as Erg
Frances Turner as Paula Turner (voice)
Kamar de los Reyes as Sebastian Diaz
Tom O’Keefe as Officer Wilson

Premise:

Polaris’ baby begins to suffer from a deadly illness, leaving the Inner Circle unable to heal her, and prompting them to turn to an unexpected source for help. Meanwhile, Reed and Lauren take an excursion to deliver illegal meds, but Reed’s powers complicate their plans. Then, Thunderbird and Blink meet the leader of the Morlocks – a shadowy group of mutants that live underground – who offers to help them find the Inner Circle, but the two factions may not have the same goals. (From Trakt.)

High Point:

I appreciated that we had a few things finally happen.  I was also impressed with how well they conveyed the desperation that a father would feel when he can’t be with his baby.

Low Point:

The reason they had to bring Macros to visit Dawn felt very forced.  I get that they needed a reason that it needed to be him, but it really felt like the baby had come down with a bad case of plot.

The Scores:

Originality: 5/6 There were a lot of elements of the Morlocks they brought in from the comics, but this was the first time I heard of voluntary scarring one’s self to make one less human looking.  The Inhumans in the comics supposedly wear masks when they are too human looking, but that didn’t feel like unoriginal theft so much as moving some elements around.

Effects: 6/6 All of the fantastic elements of this show seem perfectly real, with the possible exception of Reeva’s power use reminding me of an old Smashing Pumpkin’s video.

Acting: 6/6 Sean Teale (Marcos) might have overdone it last week, but this week he hit everything perfectly.  I really saw the internal conflict and panic as described in the high point.

Production: 5/6 I had to dock them a point because so much happened this week, you think some of it could have been spared for last week’s filler episode.

Story: 5/6  Things pick up and move forward, they didn’t feel like they were dragging anything out, letting everyone take a step forward this week.

Emotional Response: 6/6 As a father with three daughters, I might have emotionally responded to this episode more than most.

Overall: 6/6 I hope the show can continue with this pace.

In total, “coMplications” receives 39/42.  (This feels like it might be too high for the episode, but I double checked the math.)

1X-Men Television Universe.  That’s a thing, right?

3 replies on “The Gifted – S02E03 – coMplications”

  1. Yeah, the baby had a bad case of plot. But at least that type of treatment really is used on that particular afflication. (I looked it up because it felt as bad as a mother’s mental block preventing childbirth which I’m pretty sure doesn’t actually happen.)

    • Actually….

      (I hate starting things that way, and yet, here I am.)

      …my wife had her third child at the local birth center, and learned all sorts of things about pregnancy and birth. At a hospital, all these doctors and nurses fussing over the mother causes mothers to be nervous and slows or halts the labor. This is because a hospital wants a birth on their schedule, not the mother’s. This adherence to a schedule is what has lead to the rise of non-natural birth, especially with the introduction of Pitocin, which speeds up the birth, but also causes a lot more pain because it is all more intense. This causes a lot more Epidurals, which numbs the mums below the waist, which then slows and stops a birth. There’s interesting statistics about how the vast majority of Cesarean sections happen towards the end of a OBGYN doctor’s shift and on Fridays. Having typed all this, I want to point out that this was my wife’s soap box, and I seem to have found myself standing on top of it without any sorts of references or links.

      Al of that was just to say that the idea that a mother being uncomfortable with the situation is completely within the bounds of reality, and is more likely than a hospital making the birth easier as you see on other shows. That’s why humans have been successfully reproducing and giving birth for tens of thousands of years before hospital births became common.

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