bhut

Tonight, we are back. Real life still sucks – and that even without taking into account that Mr. Stan Lee is gone: I was never his biggest fan, but regardless, his death is being felt already; what is coming out of it is another story; onto ‘the Gifted’?

Well, let us try. This week’s episode - ‘no Mercy’ – was something else; in S2, ‘the Gifted’ are having issues into combining all of their narratives into one, and it shows.

What has happened in ‘no Mercy’? The Inner Circle robbed a bank. Jace met some sort of an evil politician/TV show host/someone-someone, and is going to star on his show. And the Mutant Underground are dealing with the fact that Reed’s problems are getting worse, and that they suck, at the same time. Let us elaborate?

‘no Mercy’ felt like three or four separate stories with little connecting them, period. The bank story line with the Inner Circle feels completely detached from the Mutant Underground story line, period. At least with Jace, the show’s scriptwriters put in effort to connect his TV appearance with the Inner Circle’s bank attack, and showed his inner struggle. (Hey, it sells the numbers, ratings and otherwise, so there!) The Mutant Underground, on the other hand? We had the Struckers doing their family issues thing, while on the other hand, we had Marcos all but stirring up trouble between John and Clarice regarding the Morlocks. Sorry, I still enjoy ‘the Gifted’, but John and Clarice’s conflict feels especially contrived – it really does. As we have seen in the past, the Mutant Underground, (i.e. Marcos) was aware of the Morlocks before S2, (technically speaking), so what is their problem with Morlocks? This conflict just holds no water, even by AoS’ standards, and that is just sad, because in S1 ‘the Gifted’ were more like AC, than AoS…

Anything else? Rebecca has a bigger chip on her shoulder than the rest of the Inner Circle do, now many people are dead, and Reeva’s true test as a leader has come: how will she handle Rebecca and her disobedience? She did have a plan, she gave Rebecca an order, and it did not work. Reeva will need to bring Rebecca to heel eventually, because if she does not, Rebecca might turn on her, and Reeva’s entire master plan will derail completely.

Here is a fact: as far as leadership goes, Reeva pictures herself more like Dumbledore than Riddle. She is willing to sacrifice anyone for the greater good, (whatever she perceives it to be), but good is the key word here. Rebecca is more like a Death Eater instead – she does not care about who gets in her way, as long as she succeeds. Andy Strucker is currently riding the metaphorical tiger, and it is an open question if he will succeed. (The fact that Rebecca’s character was upgraded is put aside – real life matters, even on a TV show, you know?) What next?

Well, on one hand, ‘the Gifted’ were showing Rebecca to be bad news since she appeared; the question is, is she irredeemably bad? (And what about Andy? Where does he fall here, again?) AoS tried its’ hand with redemption, (especially in S2), and made a hash of it; AC tried something similar…also in S2…but got cancelled after the second season, so that was the end of it; the greater MCU is just meh on it…so it’s anyone’s guess as how this will turn out. The same goes for Jace, though with him it’s more of an open question will he become just a narrative engine to expose the social ills of the world of ‘the Gifted’, or will he come into open interactions with the Mutant Underground (or any other mutant characters on the show) instead.

Anything else? S2 of ‘Runaways’ is coming on December 2018; S2 of ‘C&D’ – in spring 2019, and detective Mayhem will play a proportionate role to Ty and Dy, who are the titular characters after all. Real life does suck, but not always, it seems.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!