S02.E03: coMplications

[Bort]

Quote

Polaris's 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.

Airdate: Tuesday, October 9, 2018

[UNOSEZ]

I want more of the morlocks.. I assume TPTB know that there isn't gonna be a ton of ppl who will want any kind of redemption for Lorna right.. Cuz she's dead to me.. Andy sucks.. But he is a moody teenager.. Lorna up and abandoned the man "she loves" for... I actually don't know as much as I like Grace byers.. And her mutant seems like a cool villian/anti-hero... I don't know her plan or goal besides mutant homeworld... And if Lorna can leave while pregnant.. All the ppl who had loved and protected her for something that vague... Marcos is better off away from her.. He just needs to get his kid

[Grammaeryn]

I was worried for a second that Reed would disintegrate his wife! I wonder if he has both Fenris powers? Or he’ll be able to contain/offset Lauren and Andy.

[JasmineFlower]

I'm not sure what to say about this episode. But I'm confused about the direction of the show and rapidly losing interest.

[HunterHunted]

I'm kind of glad Lauren put her foot down with Reed because he was being a dumbass if epic proportions. His plan was to continue to lie about his powers and hope it resolves itself. I'm choosing to believe Reed got his common sense from Sharon Gless because his father wasn't this stupid.

Any plan that actually changes the status quo for mutants and can be accomplished with just 6 mutants probably has a very high likelihood that it could result in a world war. Whatever it is, it's probably not a good idea.

Dawn is clearly a mutant because the X gene is recessive. Reed's dad figured out how to suppress it in Reed, but it's literally impossible for Dawn not to be a mutant because both of her parents have 2 copies of the recessive gene. I guess she could be like Graydon Creed, Mystique and Sabertooth's son with no powers.

[bow]

New prediction I had this week before I get started watching the episode (I take notes during the episode and post my complete thoughts after): part of Reed’s new powers will neutralize his children’s powers, making them unable to manifest their joined power if he chooses. Just a guess.

What was the purpose of that flashback with Marcos?

Are the sewer bunch the Morlocks??? Someone tell Blink to shut up. Those effects with the hidden wall were actually pretty cool.

No way that cop would help Turner, just because his daughter “died” because of a mutant massacre. I still think she’s alive and probably one of those girls who were rescued.

Well that car ride seems like a good father/daughter bonding experience. For real, though. Im not being sarcastic.

So cops automatically hate mutants? That doesn’t seem fair.

In the tunnels, John said there were “five of them,” but there were actually six. What a strange detail to mess up with the dialogue. Just in - they are the Morlocks!

I love Lauren’s story. I’m sorry for what happened to her, and I can totally feel for her. What an amazing tv moment. Especially with the #metoo movement that’s happening now. I don’t mean to get too political, but the show introduced it and it was executed brilliantly. It wasn’t too heavy. Natalie Alyn Lind is going to go far.

That new character is a great villain.

I mean, who would listen to Turner at this point?

 

This is actually my favorite episode so far. It was great! I might actually watch it again. I’m so glad the second season isn’t disappointing so far.

21 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

Dawn is clearly a mutant because the X gene is recessive.

I think you mean dominant, not recessive.

[HunterHunted]

59 minutes ago, bow said:

I think you mean dominant, not recessive.

Nope. I meant recessive. I have a bachelors in biology and went to med school. If it were dominant, then a mutant parent with only one copy of the gene would always have at least a 50% chance of having mutant children even if the other parent isn't a mutant. If they have 2 copies of the dominant gene, they can only have mutant children.

A recessive gene means that when one parent is a mutant and the other only has one copy of the gene, there's a 50/50 chance that their kid will be a mutant. If the other parent has no copies, the kid will never be a mutant unless the kid is mosaic. It's basic mendelian inheritance.

Dawn has 2 copies of the recessive x gene from her parents and her parents only have recessive copies to pass down; she will always be a mutant unless she has some other gene that blocks the protein receptors for whatever the proteins the x-gene makes (ex. androgen insensitivity syndrome).

 

In other topics, Jace is a dumbass and annoying as fuq. Continuing to invoke his daughter's death undermines everything he went through last season, which actually presented him with some completely independent and valid reasons why he'd want to capture the underground. Lorna is fucking dangerous. The Strucker kids are actually dangerous and Andy's poor impulse control is a legit reason to be afraid.

[ursula]

4 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

then a mutant parent with only one copy of the gene would always have at least a 50% chance of having mutant children even if the other parent isn't a mutant.

Isn't that what we have with 3 generations of Strykers?

[Gwen-Stacys]

"No way that cop would help Turner, just because his daughter “died” because of a mutant massacre."

I think that look he gives Jace at the end of the episode is supposed to hint at something. Chances are, he also has a deep hatred for mutants and he's gonna show up again later.

I kinda get both sides of the Polaris/Marcos custody issue. It's extremely f*cked up (I forget if cursing is allowed here) that she's keeping him away from his daughter when he desperately wants to be there, but I also get it? The Mutant Underground is not a safe group for their daughter to be with and with the Inner Circle she has unlimited resources. As a parent, that's where you'd want your child to be. Not living in dingy apartments with limited (or sometimes no) access to medical attention. In her mind, she’s helping build a world where her daughter doesn’t have to (for example) worry about people jumping her and cutting out her vocal cords simply because she was born different. Marcos and the underground are literally the antithesis of this. Their methods are to simply coexist and hope for tolerance one day. On top of that, they are blindly fighting the inner circle (without knowing what they’re end game is) just because Andy and Lorna went off with them. That’s it.

At least with X-men/The Brotherhood, they’d sometimes join forces if their end games aligned. The Underground seems to lack that bit of nuance or even the competence that their predecessor had and it’s making it extremely hard for me to side with them on anything.

[HunterHunted]

12 minutes ago, ursula said:

Isn't that what we have with 3 generations of Strykers?

No. Just because the end result is that we have 4 generations of mutants in the Struckers does not mean the trait is dominant. Grandpa Strucker was a mutant because he inherited 2 recessive x-genes from his incestuous parents. He passed one down to Reed and Reed inherited the other one from Sharon Gless who is not a mutant, but carried the gene. Reed passed along his to the kids and Caitlin is a carrier, but it's not expressed because it's a recessive gene. If Caitlin hadn't been a carrier, then none of their children would be mutants.

If the x-gene were dominant, a family could never be surprised by having a mutant kid because at least one of the parents would have the dominant gene with expression of their mutant trait. If a parent had 2 copies of the dominant gene they will always have mutant children.

Before Reed found out that he was a mutant if the x-gene is dominant when he learns that both of kids are mutants, it actually can only be explained away by two options: Caitlin is a mutant and has been lying about it the whole time or Reed's not the father of those kids. A dominant gene only needs a single copy to express the trait.

The government's reaction to mutants would be very different because it would be much easier to pass the gene along until 75% of the population are mutants by just having tons of kids with non-mutants. In about 150 years most of the population would be mutants. Instead of trying to detain and imprison them, the government would probably start sterilizing all of them.

But we know that the x-gene is recessive because there really should be many more mutants out there if the gene were dominant. In a less x-man focused example. Brown eyes are dominant. Blue eyes are recessive. There tons more people with brown eyes than blue.

I'm going to try to do some half-assed Punnett's squares to help explain how you can get to the same Strucker family genetic expression with both recessive and dominant.

if the x-gene is recessive -- bold x is recessive mutant gene; capital H is dominant human gene

grandpa has xx

Sharon Gless has HH 

They can never have a mutant child because her dominant gene will override his recessive gene.

grandpa has xx

Sharon Gless has Hx

They can have kids who are Hx (carry the gene, but are human) or xx (are mutants). The same would be true of Reed and Caitlin.

And if Reed had truly been Hx, they could still have mutant children if Caitlin is Hx too. They could have children who are HH, Hx, and xx (this child would be a mutant). They would have a 25% chance of having a mutant child. A 25% chance of having a child with not mutant DNA and a 50% chance of having a kid who carried the gene, but didn't express any mutant traits.

If the x-gene is dominant (Bold capital X) and regular human gene is recessive (h)

grandpa has XX

Sharon Gless has hh

They can only have a kid who will be Xh and a mutant.

Reed has Xh

Caitlin has hh

They can have kids who are Xh (this child is a mutant) or hh.

If Reed had truly been human, he would have hh genes. If the x-gene is dominant, then Andy and Lauren would be Xh. It means Caitlin had to be at least an Xh or Reed is not the father of the kids.

[ursula]

2 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

Grandpa Strucker was a mutant because he inherited 2 recessive x-genes from his incestuous parents.

I don't remember the show insinuating that Reed's grandparents were both Stryker twins, just his grandfather. I imagine that kind of revelation would be a pretty big deal.

Or is this comics canon?

2 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

If the x-gene were dominant, a family could never be surprised by having a mutant kid because at least one of the parents would have the dominant gene with expression of their mutant trait. If a parent had 2 copies of the dominant gene they will always have mutant children.

 

I thought that mutation was something that was "triggered" in recent years i.e. the "evolution leaps forward" speech. So the X-gene is a "new" gene that recently showed up in the human DNA. It's not a recessive one that's been suppressed for centuries. That's the basis of the Homo Superior versus Homo Sapiens argument. And so far, there seems to be a one-for-one of every mutant parent, regardless of the second parent's X-gene-status birthing a mutant child.

[blackwing]

I'm tired of Andy and even though it won't happen, each week I find myself hoping that something calamitous happens to him.  He has a face that looks like it was made for punching.

The Frosts are getting on my nerves too, and I'm glad that this week explained that their powers are not all powerful, because it was beginning to look like they could do whatever they wanted with their mind manipulation.

Why didn't Lauren throw up a force field when the car was about to crash?

I wish we had seen more of the Morlocks or at least been introduced to each individual.  We only met Erg.  We only heard that one has the power to make illusory walls and that one has the power to create visual windows through green goop.  What else can they do?  Is this the last we have seen of them? 

[HunterHunted]

On 10/10/2018 at 9:32 AM, ursula said:

I don't remember the show insinuating that Reed's grandparents were both Stryker twins, just his grandfather. I imagine that kind of revelation would be a pretty big deal.

Or is this comics canon?

It is comics canon that the original Fenris twins were incestuous. When Otto, Reed's father, talks about his upbringing, he pointedly never mentions his mother and only talks about being raised by the twins. I think the show was trying to hint at the incest without actually admitting it because they knew they'd never get it past the censors. I consider it semi-confirmed because Otto is dead and the only other likely place to learn the identity of his mother is his research notes. If the notes don't include that info, then it's likely that the show meant to make Otto the product of incest. Also when Andy and Lauren really started to use their Fenris powers, they often talked about how good it felt, which I think was deliberately trying to allude to their great grandparents incest.

On 10/10/2018 at 9:32 AM, ursula said:

I thought that mutation was something that was "triggered" in recent years i.e. the "evolution leaps forward" speech. So the X-gene is a "new" gene that recently showed up in the human DNA. It's not a recessive one that's been suppressed for centuries. That's the basis of the Homo Superior versus Homo Sapiens argument. And so far, there seems to be a one-for-one of every mutant parent, regardless of the second parent's X-gene-status birthing a mutant child.

The "evolution leaps forward" speech is from the films, which literally contradicted that several times. X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells us that Wolverine and his psycho half-brother, Sabertooth, are about 200 years old. In X-Men: First Class, Charles talks about mutation more like the regular process and not a recent phenomenon and Sebastian Shaw reveals that he's used his abilities to extend his life and he's more than 100 years old. Age of Apocalypse presents Apocalypse as a mutant who is thousands of years old. I think the "evolution leaps forward" is just a line that they thought sounded good and they never really thought through the issue.

The show also had Caitlin, a nurse, wonder how mutations could skip generations in a scene last year. If they need a reason to explain why there seem to be more mutants now, the explanation is science, modern medicine, and travel. Infant and child mortality used to be catastrophic so lots of mutant children or carriers died before they ever got old enough to manifest. Prior to a decent understanding of science, lots of mutants were likely shunned or killed before they could ever pass along the x-gene. And travel and intermarriage are also a huge impact on the genetics of populations. Part of the reasons that Tay-sachs is as widely tested as it is is because the Jewish diaspora and intermarriage meant that a lot more people could be carriers. It's basic epidemiology, but the people who write these movies, tv shows, and comics don't know enough about the subject to not come up with dumb explanations.

Edited October 16, 2018 by HunterHunted

[ursula]

15 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

I think the "evolution leaps forward" is just a line that they thought sounded good and they never really thought through the issue.

Technically the entire speech was that mutations (both the superpowered version and the garden variety version) have always existed and been part of evolution. So it doesn't contradict the existence of centuries-old mutants. However there's been an increased volume/frequency of mutations which could be caused from anything from climate change to wrong hormones in the food industry.

 

15 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

the explanation is science, modern medicine, and travel. Infant and child mortality used to be catastrophic so lots of mutant children or carriers died before they ever got old enough to manifest

That might account for numbers, not proportions. That is, there are more mutants alive now because there are more people alive, right? But by your theory, there'd be roughly the same proportions of mutants in the world, everywhere in the world at the same time. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

16 minutes ago, HunterHunted said:

I think the show was trying to hint at the incest without actually admitting it because they knew they'd never get it past the censors.

I gotta admit that I don't see all the incest that everyone keeps pointing out in the Stryker family. At least not on the show though the comics bit is interesting.

Edited October 10, 2018 by ursula

[notcreative enough]

How hard would have been for Marcos to kill at least one Frost triplet. All he did was maybe burn one but there seemed to be no lasting issues. 

[CooperTV]

Reed's story remains the only interesting thing about this show for me. I'm glad he and Lauren mildly bonded at last, and that he now has Caitlin's support.

The ex-Sentinel dude is just blah and his entire storyline feels really pointless. The only way it could realistically end is him dying a volent death from the hands of our heroes because otherwise he's unredeemable as a character.

John is a boring character played by really bad actor. He and Clarice together is a compete borefest, as their sewer related B-plot.

[thuganomics85]

And that's why if you start developing mutant powers, it is best to try and find someone you trust, and don't just keep it to yourself.  Otherwise you could end up burning up the steering wheel and crashing the car with your daughter in it!

So, now another group has entered into the picture (Morlocks, apparently), who don't hide that they are Mutants and actually live underground in the sewers.  And it looks like the leader has roped Clarice into being a spy for them.  I'm sure that won't cause any issues with her and John!

I figured Reeva would maybe try and put on a good show to maybe swing Marcos into the Inner Circle side, but they seemed quite content to treat him like shit and make him even angrier.  Nothing else really to say except I hope the face-off between them and the Mutant Underground next week actually goes somewhere.

[CooperTV]

9 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

And that's why if you start developing mutant powers, it is best to try and find someone you trust, and don't just keep it to yourself.  Otherwise you could end up burning up the steering wheel and crashing the car with your daughter in it!

Note the parallels between Lauren and Reed this episode: she also hid her powers (for various reasons, one of them her father being the mutants prosecutor)) from her parents and tried to deal with it alone.

[Lady Calypso]

18 hours ago, CooperTV said:

Note the parallels between Lauren and Reed this episode: she also hid her powers (for various reasons, one of them her father being the mutants prosecutor)) from her parents and tried to deal with it alone.

Exactly, and not only are there clear parallels, but they utilized it through Lauren and Reed's plot.

I really liked this episode for the fact that some of the characters were actually smart. Lauren was smart in telling her father why he was an idiot for trying to keep this secret by talking about how she felt like she had to hide her own powers and how she felt like it affected their family in a negative way. Plus, Reed had to hear one of her stories and how much he missed because of his job. And then Reed told Caitlin! And Caitlin stopped thinking about Andy to be there for Reed! It was a nice family moment sans Andy. I find that I do enjoy Reed a bit more this season, but I guess a lot of that has to do with Lauren.

Meanwhile, Lorna and Marcos get to see each other, and Marcos gets to see Dawn. And then...I guess love trumps mind control? At least they explained it through the sisters saying that they can't control feelings. At least SOMETHING happened.

Reeva isn't impressing me anymore. She's really really dumb by dismissing clear obstacles in her way. She dismisses Marcos when she sees how close he came to breaking free of not just the sisters' control, but Reeva's powers as well. She calls him basically insignificant and for them to keep on their plan for their revolution, but....does she not realize that she NEEDS to prepare for these unexpected events to occur? She does try with Andy, which is well and fine, but she didn't account for his stuff with his family, and...I'm not sure she has a plan with Andy's connection to his sister. Is Reeva going to try to bring Lauren in or is she just going to hope that her speech with Andy worked? Her ego is getting in the way, but I think she's also just really super dumb. 

Also who's dumb is Clarice. I HATE secrets and now she's not telling John about being hired as a spy. Why can't TV characters just be smart when it comes to secrets? 

[Raja]

On 10/9/2018 at 9:28 PM, bow said:

 

So cops automatically hate mutants? That doesn’t seem fair.

 

Not fair but the inspiration for the franchise. You can substitute cops in  Mutant/X-men series for a 1953 Sheriff's Deputy in Mississippi with  a then Negro or Colored person.

[Lantern7]

It took me days to watch this episode. The Flash takes priority on Tuesdays, then I need to watch The Challenge afterward, and I always need to burn other stuff off the DVR. It's a shame . . . even though The Gifted is slightly about "meh," it's still good. I went to a panel on the show last week at New York Comic Con, and it looked like everyone there was having a great time making it. I didn't go to their signing at the Marvel booth . . . partially because I forgot, partially because the series takes lower priority, and I didn't want to admit that to the stars. "Wait, so you don't DVR and watch at 9?!?" "I got The Challenge! It's a sickness! Jamie, please tell them-" "Hey! I only did that the one time! Don't drag me into this!!!"

Basically, it's a riff of "Not Without My Daughter," with Marcos (with an "s"?) not willing to accept Dawn's current situation, even if the Hellfire Club/Inner Circle is the better option for her at the moment. And, of course, Marcos had issues with his father, so he doesn't want to be absentee. I'm hoping he and Lorna reunite. I know that she did crash a plane and kill people, and that she doesn't really deserve immediate redemption, but seeing Lorna on the same side with the Cuckoos, Reva, and whatever the fuck Andy thinks he is doesn't seem quite right to me.

Man, Reed's powers are terrifying to watch in action. Totally not being sarcastic. Nothing makes a car chase even worse as disintegrating the steering wheel as you grab it.

I like the idea of Morlocks here, especially since thye haven't really fit into any other X-Men live-action property in some time.