TV REVIEWS: FTN Reviews The Gifted Season 2 Episode 6: iMprint

The Gifted is nearly halfway through its second season, and it’s continuing to twist the knife with certain storylines. And with “iMprint” we got a bigger look at the Inner Circle and some of their key members, while the Mutant Underground fell into a trap.

This was definitely one of the bigger episodes of the season when it came to both action and character development. First and foremost, we finally got to see the backstory of the Stepford Cuckoos. Apparently, they were clones of an evil conglomerate called Creed (that name should be familiar to X-Men family) who have been hurting Mutants since the 50’s. But, in a nice twist, there weren’t three Cuckoos in the beginning, there were five.

Hearing Esme talk about what happened to them, how they were forced to use their powers to rat out other Mutants was actually rather gripping. It definitely came out better than the previous outburst of “emotion” was saw from her that was because of her “time with the Mutant Underground”, because that didn’t make sense. But this? Much better motivation.

Speaking of which, Lorna got to show just how much she’s not in love with the command structure of the Inner Circle. As the Cuckoos noted, she used to be in charge, and now, she’s a soldier more or less. While that sounds ok at first, a soldier needs to know what’s going on, and I like how she started to fight back against them all. I know that her rebellion is quelled for now, but hopefully, it will rise up again.

Which brings us to the Mutant Underground and the Purifiers. Who had a collision course in a big way. This was a nice payoff from the near run-in they had last week. I truly like how Jace Turner is being the voice of reason in what is truly a hate group. But, he’s starting to turn some of them. He truly believes that they are the “heroes”, and not in the “hate group way”, but in the way of justice. I’m curious to know who some of these “higher-ups” are, and whether we’ll get to meet them this season.

The trap at the command center was actually really well done. It was executed with a good feint that made you think that they didn’t listen to Jace, but then fulfilled the plan near flawlessly. But, there were casualties on both sides, including the loss of Shatter, one of the characters we had in Season 1, and a Morlock in the comics.

This is a perfect segway to Reed, who once again had to deal with his powers. It was good to see them not beat around the bush about how angry Reed was with his powers, both in terms of having them, and then in terms of not being able to use them. Having Shatter talk to him Mutant-to-Mutant was well done, and it made Shatter’s death all the more impactful, as well as the twist of Reed now not being able to control his powers all the more terrifying.

Lauren and Kate got a bit of the short end of the stick this week. Their storyline was important for them information wise, but little was moved forward per se. We do know now that Rebecca actually was put in the hospital for a reason, and wasn’t technically forced there. She really is a psychopath, and that means Andy is in real danger.

That being said, I really hope Kate gets more to do than the doting mom role. She keeps flipflopping on what she’s supposed to do with Andy, and it’s honestly getting a little annoying.

Another thing that’s annoying is that we’re 6 episodes in to a 16 episode season and I’m really not sure where this is going. Whatever is in the Creed Bank better be worth it if this is going to build towards Geneosha. And the Mutant Undergrounds can’t stay on the defensive much longer, their storyline is starting to drag.

Still, “iMprint” did a lot to advance many characters, and create unity and division in all sides of the conflict. I hope we get some more answer soon though.