So ‘GaMe changer’ marks the mid season finale of The Gifted and boy did the episode go out with a bang! Lines have been crossed, the Inner Circle’s plans came into fruition and Andy and Polaris finally kicked ass in a gripping and action-packed chapter that truly belonged to the Hellfire Club. Matt Nix is doing a great job of making us question just who is on the right side, there’s no clear cut good vs bad like in the animated series, and it’s refreshing that we’re lead to question this. I genuinely cannot wait for the second part of the season!
The episode kicked off with this week’s flashback focusing on Rebecca’s pretty tragic backstory, much like most of the ‘evil’ mutants in the X-Men, there’s a legitimate reason why they went down the dark path and you can really feel for her here. Her parents betrayed their own daughter and sold her out to Sentinel Services, combine that with years of torture in mutant jail and you can understand why she’s turned out the way she has. And once again she’s betrayed and tortured by the very people who freed her, as Reeva imprisons her in a dark, constantly moving metal box – it’s a tricky moral situation that Andy clearly reacts badly to, leading to tragic consequences.
Meanwhile in the Mutant Underground, Thunderbird further blurs lines and goes off the deep end as he holds an executive from Regimen hostage, interrogating him for information on the Inner Cirles’ next target. Blink has been worried about Thunderbird’s erratic behaviour for a while now and it’s a shame to see how this has affected their relationship – I was a huge fan of Thunderblink at the start of the series! Things turn south very quickly as a radicalised Jace and his gang of violent Purifiers hunting down mutants. It’s utterly terrifying to see such a dramatic transformation into right wing violence and extremism as he seems to enjoy pinning Thunderbird to a dumpster before capturing him.
But the highlight of the episode truly had to be seeing Andy and Polaris breaking into Regimen and destroying the servers which controlled every mutant prison collar – freeing every imprisoned mutant and greatly evening the odds for the mutant revolution! This truly was one of the best episodes of the series so far, but I’m afraid to see the chaos and violence that may erupt between mutants and the Purifiers!
