The Gifted: the dreaM

Review by An Honest Fangirl

"You set the world on fire, and now you're worried that your daughter might get burned?"

I really, really want to like this episode. And I think that I do like it on some level, but not nearly as much as I was hoping that I would.

A lot of really interesting things happened this episode.We got a lot of movement towards the next phase of the plot. But there was also a lot of blatant shuffling pieces around and out of character moments that occurred solely in order to move to the next phase of the plot. Some reveals, or rather confirmation of known facts, were handled well, and some were handled incredibly poorly. All in all, I think that this was an incredibly solid but frustratingly disjointed episode.

Let's break it down.

I'm very unsure of where Rebecca is going as a character. I honestly missed that Fade managed to grab her at the very end until I skimmed over a recap while writing this review. It feels cheap to kill her off at this point, but what other option is there? She obviously can't be a fully functioning member of the Inner Circle, not after killing 37 people. (38, if you count the poor guy in the alley.)

I really liked how there was an immediate backlash to the massacre though, and I wish that the episode had focused more on that aspect as opposed to the various characters' reactions to the backlash and riots. Which is where I start to run into my problems with this episode.

I can't decide whether or not I buy Lorna suddenly sending Dawn away to grow up somewhere safe and sound. On one hand, she's been so focused on her safety that I can see where she would do anything, even give her to her aunt, in order to ensure that she remains out of the crossfire. However, that same focus makes me doubt that Lorna would ever agree to let Dawn leave her sight for a meaningful amount of time.

It also doesn't help that the scenes involving Lorna, Marcos, and Dawn fell flat. Like he said, he never really got to know his daughter, so I didn't care that he would never see her again. It just felt like a continuation of the status quo.

The other major scene that fell flat to me was the reveal that the lovely and helpful geneticist actually wanted to find a way to suppress and eliminate the X-Gene. I had a feeling that there was something wrong with the whole set up – people were far too happy and wholesome – but the actual reveal was such a nonevent that I wasn't sure if I heard it right. Maybe it was Lauren's non-reaction that felt weird. I expected something from there, but she still just sat there and did nothing.

Although that did lead to a nice, small moment with Andy feeling her pain. I've really missed their relationship this season so far.

But to go back to Lorna for a moment (wow, this review is going to be as disjointed as the episode), I really enjoyed the flashbacks surrounding her. They drew some very, very heavy (handed) parallels between her and her true father, and that honestly makes me very excited. He was always my favorite from the comics, and I'm looking forward to seeing her embrace her father's legacy. Maybe we can actually get a proper Hellfire Club.

All in all, there were a ton of super strong scenes and pieces that exist really well in isolation. However, when put together, the seams started to show.

Random Thoughts

Was this the first time that we got explicit confirmation that Lorna is bipolar?

What are the odds that we'll actually see Lorna's dad in person? Slim to none? It'd be really, really cool, though.

Am I allowed to explicitly say who Lorna's dad is or is that still a spoiler?


I never got a sense of the timeline in this episode. It took place directly after the events of the last one, right?
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An Honest Fangirl loves superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, and really bad horror movies.

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