If you were hoping for a quick follow-up on the closing moments of last week’s episode featuring Apocalypse and a certain resurrected cajun, I’m afraid I have some bad news. The show is going to slow walk that plot as this week we’re dealing with more Genosha fallout. Considering the magnitude of the event, I’m not sure we’ve really had enough of it. The episode is going to open with a flashback to that attack to help setup a plot during the present. The human and mutant conflict is center stage once again, and some old friends and foes from the original series get to make their X-Men ’97 debut. Oh, and we’re going to the Savage Land!
The opening title adds Polaris (Carolina Ravassa) to the mix this week so she’s onboard for real. She’s also been assigned to X-Corp along with Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith), though no one is sporting the black and yellow in the opening just yet as they’re all still rocking the blue. As for that flashback I mentioned, that is being done to introduce Colossus (Robert Cait) and Magik (Courtenay Taylor), his younger sister whom cartoon viewers only know as Illyana. She was featured in the original series as the kid sister whom Colossus was always looking out for. As we saw with a Morph transformation during the first season, she’s grown up some to a teenager which seems to track if we were introduced to her in 1992 and it’s now 1997. As the trailers for the season let on, Magik is not going to make it through the attack in Genosha. The scene is brief showing her alongside her brother as they try to help fellow mutants and stand against the massive tri-Sentinel, but Colossus can only stare on helplessly as his little sister is annihilated leaving him grieving over her corpse.
This, like in the comics, is the catalyst for Colossus joining Magneto’s Acolytes. We too saw them in the original series with the two-parter “Sanctuary” where they weren’t really positioned as villains, just followers of Magneto. In that story, Acolyte Fabian Cortez attempts to murder Magneto and the X-Men have to expose his crimes. As far as we know, his body has been absconded by Apocalypse following the events in the episode “Fifth Horsemen” so he should not be turning up anytime soon. And we are introduced to the Acolytes via them dropping in on a campaign rally by everyone’s favorite mutant hater Graydon Creed (Ben Pronsky). Apparently, Sabretooth did not murder him at the end of the episode “Bloodlines” which Sabretooth alluded to during his appearance this season. Creed has been left with a scar on his face, but otherwise seems fine. At least, fine for now as the Acolytes, now lead by Exodus (Bo Poraj), have plans for the would-be president. Feeling that he has not been held accountable for his crimes against mutant kind, the Acolytes intend to take him and dispense justice as they see fit.
Xavier (Ross Marquand) is able to take point here and sends X-Corp, minus Cyclops and Jean, to the Savage Land where the Acolytes have made their home. It makes sense since that was where Magneto originally intended to launch his mutant utopia, but things obviously changed. Mr. Sinister also called this place home back in the original show’s second season, and via the great citadel in the middle he was able to operate a device that nullified mutant powers and that is apparently still operational. The X-Corp members are separated quickly with Polaris and Bishop left out in the jungle while Rogue (Lenore Zann), Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), and Beast (George Buza) get to tour the new mutant haven under the watchful eye of their former ally, Colossus. Their goal is to bring Creed home fearing his murder at the hands of mutants would be disastrous for human-mutant relations. The Acolytes seek only to punish him with the punishment being death. Toss in the fact that Creed is Nightcrawler’s biological brother and you have yourself quite the little soap opera. Nightcrawler, being a man of faith, does not wish to see his brother killed even if he personally has no real love for him. And since they can’t exactly fight their way out without their powers his solution is to propose a trial with him defending his brother and Exodus standing as the prosecutor. In the judge’s chair sits Colossus whom Nightcrawler has faith in that he’ll see some worth in Creed and spare his life.
The idea of a trial is pretty hokey on its surface, but I have to concede it does play an important role in adding some color to the Graydon Creed character. It’s easy to just hate him for being a bigot and think no deeper than that, but the episode finds a rather compelling angle all while not making him out to be someone we should have any amount of respect for. The Polaris and Bishop pairing is pretty underserved though. There’s an interesting angle here in that once Bishop loses his mutant powers all of the energy he had stored within him (he’s basically a battery) is trying to escape, but letting it out would likely kill him and perhaps anyone nearby. He can only withstand it for so long putting a running clock on this mission that is basically never acknowledged again apart from the initial explanation. There’s also clearly a chemistry forming between Bishop and Polaris which is played well, but again, not enough time is devoted to it.
I did not like the Magik death reveal when it was shown in the trailers and I still don’t like it very much now. Mostly because she’s just a plot device to motivate her brother. Yes, she served that role in the preceding series, but not at the expense of her life. If you’re going to kill her off, at least let her get to be a character first. Instead, we get nothing which feels like a waste. This being a show based on comic books, it would hardly be a surprise to see her come back and maybe she’ll even be one of the horsemen of Apocalypse, but that’s not a get out of jail free card for bad character writing. Colossus is still quite likable and I was delighted to see Robert Cait return to reprise the role. We do get an action sequence to cap things off and it too features another character death that felt both implausible and like a waste. Sometimes this show comes across as too cavalier when it comes to killing characters off, mostly because they just don’t get enough runway beforehand. At least the appearance of the shrine first spotted in the trailer brings about no more deaths. Even the image that appeared to be Iceman seems to no longer exist. Has that character been spared a gruesome fate? It would seem so since no one has even spoken his name despite his connection to Polaris.
I did really enjoy the Nightcrawler/Creed dynamics in this one. Even if you are not a religious person (and I am not), it’s easy to empathize with Nightcrawler in this one. He’s just trying to find a peaceful solution. He does not defend his brother’s crimes or feel that he should not answer for them, but he firmly believes it would not be right to murder him. He gets tested and pushed, but I really liked his solution. I also just plain like bringing Creed back into the fold because he’s such a detestable human being and a great foil for the X-Men. An element of the show was lost when he basically faded away after season two and keeping the mutant/human conflict in focus is really crucial, in my opinion. The episode does end in a similar fashion to last week’s as the show essentially slow walks the return of Gambit as Death. It does feature a swerve that I didn’t see coming, though it’s one that could also be functionally meaningless as far as the plot is concerned. I guess we’ll find out next week as that episode is titled “The Dead Man’s Hand” and if that isn’t the big Gambit episode then I don’t know what would be.
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