The Gifted- Season 1, Episode 4: eXit strategy

"Call me Polaris. You're sending me to Hell; I think it's the least you can do."

So this introductory arc is over as this episode sees the springing and ultimate freedom of both Reed and Lorna as they are transferred to what we’re told is a helkush ultra-secure prison for mutants; I’m sure we will be seeing this place later but for now the good guys have won. For now. Now they can spend some time interacting with each other, the Mutant Underground and the Struckers together.

We get an interesting and charged chat between aliens and Reds while they’re in separate cells, reminding us that he has done reprehensible things and ruined a lot of lives, coming to an epiphany only when his own children were affected. This reminds us to pause before considering him a hero since his conversion. He has a lot to atone for; families torn apart and children separated from their parents forever, for no reason. His actions are as evil as those of Trump.

Last episode was about moral compromises; this time Marcos gets his turn as he finds out what is needed for the rescue by visiting his ex, Carmen, who proves to be the head of a drugs smuggling gang- and agrees to do morally dodgy stuff for her. Yet another character, in a world full of terrible moral dilemmas as happens under tyranny, dips his hands in the blood. Caitlin also learns that she has to let her children take some risks, and to be fair she is pretty badass herself.

We also have troubling scenes of Clarice dealing with the emotional after effects of her newly planted false intimate memories with John, but most of the episode consists of the rescue, with plenty of rather gripping action- not least due to the presence, on the Sentinel side, of Pulse, whose powers can among other things disrupt mutant powers. It’s an exciting and entertaining episode, but the end of an arc. So what next...?