…that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities, or so the quote goes. The Gifted season 2 (series?) finale, titled “oMens,” examines those choices as sacrifices are made and not so subtle messages about our current political landscape are thrown in our face.
In other words, just a normal episode of The Gifted.
Except, not really. Because this time, the sacrifice feels real – even though I have no doubt they’ll find a way to take it back if they get a season 3 – the choices are more important than Mutant Underground vs. Inner Circle and the message of taking responsibility for your actions, of doing the right thing, lands in a way it never truly has before.
Yes, in the world we live in, the message of intolerance is more important than ever, but this time, The Gifted isn’t harping on that, or at least, it’s not harping just on that. Instead, it focused on inaction, on the perils of staying quiet and saying nothing, doing nothing, while bad things happen.
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people,” Martin Luther King said, and this episode takes this message to heart, and with it’s usual lack of subtlety, shows us Reed, in particular, making the choice to be a hero.
Not just by walking into that building at the end and taking Reeva out, though yes, but by “figuring out what it all means, and how it can make us better.” Because the message here isn’t that if your powers are about blowing shit up and you’ve been suppressing them for a while you should just go blow up the bad guys and get it over with, the message here is that everyone, no matter their gifts or abilities, can do something to change the world, it’s just about figuring out what.
At times, I have loved this show, and at times this show has frustrated me to no end, but even when the plot choices have left me scratching my head, I have never stopped loving these characters, I have never stopped rooting for them, and I have never stopped feeling for them.
Maybe that’s why as much as this season wasn’t truly what I wanted or expected – it had very high points and some low lows – I still had to sit down for a good ten minutes after the episode ended and breathe through the pain of losing Reed Strucker, breathe through the pain of knowing that Andy, Lauren and Caitlin were never going to be whole again.
Because I know that feeling, I do. You go on, of course you do. You do it because that’s what they would have wanted to, you do it because you have to, but nothing, absolutely nothing, can ever put you back together again, not completely. That’s not the way grief works.
It’s not the way life works.
So, yes, this finale hit all the emotional notes it needed to hit, and it tied up things in a pretty little Reed-less bow, with even Clarice, and I told you she wasn’t dead, coming back at the end, but it also, surprisingly, opened up the story-line to a more interesting possibility in season 3. Now, the question, of course, is if the show will get that season 3.
Not if it deserves it, no. I won’t go into that. There are many shows that do much better than The Gifted at constructing plot, but there are few who do better at characters and diversity. So, for whatever that’s worth, I would like a season three. This show deserves one more chance to be what it should have been.
Though I will demand they get rid of any and all mentions of Bryan Singer if that does happen. Please. It’s 2019. Let’s be obvious about this as well.
Things I think I think:
- Lorna and Marcos having entire conversations with their eyes will never get old.
- Don’t you just love that Lorna blames herself and Marcos absolutely does not go all no, Lorna, you didn’t do anything.
- Tell me Blink went to the future or something. TELL ME.
- Every second this show has ever spent on Jace Turner has been a second lost.
- If we do get a season 3, I hope it’s not at FOX. I’d love to be able to binge this.
- I know there is setup for the Esme thing, I just …would have liked more setup for the Esme thing.
- “You can’t build a nation on the murder of innocent people.”
- I wish that were true.
- Sadly, Reeva knew it too.
- Every second of Marcos speaking Spanish to Dawn is a joy.
- Okay, speculation point, if the energy is Reed and Reed is the energy would his own energy really destroy him? Seems unlikely.
- But where did he go, then?
Agree? Disagree? Share with us in the comments below!
The Gifted aired Tuesdays at 9/8c on FOX.
