My issue with The Gifted is this, and it’s always been the same. When this show is firing on all cylinders, it’s amazing, the kind of show you wish you could binge because you don’t want to stop watching, you just want to exist in the same place as these characters forever. When it’s not, however, when it’s not …it’s really, really not.
And you know what they say the definition of insanity is, right? Same thing over and over again, expecting different results.
It’s hard to know which The Gifted you’re going to get from week to week, or, sometimes, from scene to scene. Some characters: namely Lorna, and Marcos, lately John, Clarice and Lauren, stand out. Others, particularly the secondary ones, just get washed out. We don’t care enough, and the plot keeps moving along so damn slowly that it feels like we’re never going to get a resolution.
We’re here for the characters, but if we don’t get to spend enough time with those we care about, then the episode, hell, the scene, doesn’t work, because everything else is just moving so sluggishly it might as well not be moving.
“calaMity” embodied the best and the worst of this show. When it was good, like in the final few scenes, it was outstanding, with the tension at its highest level and the moral implications of every decision laid out in a way that’s both powerful and yet simple at the same time. When it was bad, however, it was terrible and slow, as slow as this show has ever been, because yes, that’s been the problem, it’s taken us entirely too long to get here.
Maybe the problem is those three extra episodes. Maybe we would have done better with thirteen. Maybe then this whole Strucker nightmare of a family situation wouldn’t have been dragged out so long that I didn’t care, maybe we’d have gotten to Lorna and Andy rejoining the Mutant Undergound before. Hell, maybe Clarice would be alive.
(She can’t be dead, can she? Can she?)
But the thing is, I called all of this shit that I just saw in that outstanding trailer for next week’s episode before. And I watch a lot of TV, but I’m no psychic. This show was always going where it was going, and that’s usually something I enjoy about the show, how very little it deals in subterfuge. But boy, you could throw me a twist every now and again, couldn’t you?
Or, hey, at the very least, you could hurry it up and get to the point in a way that allows me to enjoy the characters I enjoy spending time together.
Now there’s only two episodes left. And the battle we all anticipated is coming. Yipeee. It might live up to the hype. It most likely will, if you consider what I said about the ups and downs of this show. But all in all, is it worth it to live with the uncertainty of what might come next for a character or two you love?
My answer is still yes, but check with me after the season ends.
Things I think I think:
- Ah, so Reeva helped this dude. Reeva really is the worst.
- Ironic, that he was willing to work with a mutant to get power. Tells you all you need to know.
- The Strucker family drama has dragged on for too damn long without resolution.
- Lorna’s bored face is giving me life. Can I have that in a gif?
- I didn’t really think you were going to hurt Marcos permanently, The Gifted, but thank you for not hurting Marcos permanently.
- Trying to make it ring with your mind indeed. Worrying about Lorna is like his default.
- Marcos defending Clarice, how the tables have turned.
- We all have to find the thing we believe in, and for that, for that we’d give up anything.
- “Last time I checked it was still against the law to shoot people.”
- Not that you care much, Jace.
- Fuck you.
- Everyone in this fucking show has manipulated you.
- I hate the Purifiers so much.
- Strucker drama = BORING.
- Clarice makes Turner to be a mastermind. He isn’t. He’s just got friends in high places.
- Like John was gonna say no. He’s a boy scout.
- Lorna worrying about Marcos is my aesthetic.
- I really hate Reeva too.
- Sage was really and truly a wasted character.
- FINALLY SOME STRUCKER RESOLUTION, THANK GOD.
- “I was wrong, I’m sorry.”
- Funny, Clarice.
- Funny.
- “I’m not leaving without Clarice.”
- Caitlin Strucker for the WIN.
- No.
- No.
- No.
- She can’t be dead.
- No.
- Fuck you, Jace.
- Fuck you.
Agree? Disagree? Share with us in the comments below!
The Gifted airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX.
