First Things First…
This episode originally aired as Episode 4.3.
Hey, Morph is back!
There’s a really fast glimpse of him on Muir Island at the start of the season in “The Juggernaut Returns,” but nothing is ever said about it. So I wonder if they’re following up on that scene and he’s actually there—maybe still recovering from Mister Sinister’s manipulation throughout Season 2.
Morph isn’t one of my favorite X-Men, but that could be interesting.
4 Things I Like
4. Rebuilding the Sentinels’ Aura
“The Sentinels are our worst nightmare come to life. I prayed we had eliminated the last of the Sentinels. They have but one purpose: to find, control, and destroy mutants. We cannot reason with them, only fight. They are without conscience, without fear.”
Professor X
The threat the Sentinels provide has ebbed and flowed throughout the series. In the series premiere, they whooped the X-Men and nearly killed Morph. But at other times, they’ve been handled fairly easily.
Here, though, the discovery that they’re back unsettles the team—especially Professor X. He really sells them as a threat.
Just like wrestlers talk up the danger an opponent presents, so when they beat them it feels like a bigger deal, the same concept happens here. Taking out the Sentinels at the end of this episode now feels more impressive and like a bigger win.
3. Master Mold Reborn
“Our mission remains unfinished. Mutants still live. The time has come for Master Mold to be reborn.”
Master Mold
I like that we’ve been revisiting some prior villains lately. Here, we get Master Mold, who needs a new body but whose “brain” is still intact.
I think my favorite thing about Master Mold is that he comes off as maniacal, or “mad,” as Professor X calls him, but he actually acts completely rationally—within the context of his programming and design. As he tells the Professor…
“A machine cannot be mad, Professor. That is a human failing.”
Master Mold’s entire purpose and reason for being is to exterminate mutantkind. And his plan—to create a cybernetic link between himself and the Professor’s mind, increasing Xavier’s telepathic powers a thousandfold but putting them under Master Mold’s control—sounds like it would’ve worked if he could’ve pulled it off.
2. A True Friend
“Just for the record, Morph, I always knew in my gut you’d be coming back.”
Wolverine
Going back to the series premiere, when Cyclops had to make the tough call to leave Morph and Beast behind after the Sentinels dominated the X-Men, we’ve always seen Wolverine’s deep caring for Morph.
It was clear again in Season 2, when Mister Sinister put Morph through it. Wolverine never gave up on him, even when Morph was conflicted, manipulated, and sometimes worked against the X-Men.
And nothing has changed. Wolverine is happier than anyone when Morph returns.
He jumps at the chance to bring him in the field with him. When that goes poorly, he tries to comfort Morph and tells him it wasn’t his fault that Xavier got taken by the Sentinels as Morph berates himself and wallows in self-pity. And he’s devastated at the end when Morph chooses to leave again.
Unless it involves his heartache over not being with Jean, we don’t see emotion like this from Wolverine often. That makes it all the more effective—and makes Morph feel like a more valuable team member.
1. Morph’s PTSD
“I’m fine! I’m ready. We’ll never know for sure if all of you hold my hand every time things get tough. I have to try.”
Morph
There’s a reason this episode is called “Courage.” Morph has been through the ringer and has to find his way out the other side.
The episode opens with him on Muir Island—I guess the glimpse they showed earlier in the season was on purpose—and Moira tells him…
“You seem to be over the nightmares, Morph. And there’s not a thing wrong with you physically. But I’m worried. You were in bad shape.”
The weird thing is, I assumed his PTSD was related to his time under Mister Sinister’s control. And that may be part of it. But he also almost got killed by Sentinels before that, and that’s what comes into play here. So it makes sense that he freezes when he faces them again.
On his first mission back, Morph spots a giant footprint and immediately starts to spiral. Then, when he realizes Wolverine had already figured out the Sentinels were back and was trying to leave without Morph finding out, Morph yells at him…
“Don’t baby me. Either I’m on the team or I’m not!”
Then, when the Sentinels show up at the mansion and grab Xavier, Morph has a gun trained on them but chokes and can’t pull the trigger. He actually sits there crying afterward as he apologizes to Wolverine.
Morph’s choking—and, later, his facing his fears and coming through in the clutch—probably aren’t as nuanced as they could be. But I still found this to be a solid, sympathetic portrayal of a character demonstrating great courage despite the trauma he suffered.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. Trask and Gyrich
“While you’ve been wasting your time, Trask, look what I’ve caught. Now clean it and cook it for lunch.”
Henry Gyrich
These guys make great villains—when they get to cook.
I find the storylines about anti-mutant bigotry some of the most compelling X-Men stories. And with Master Mold reemerging, it makes sense for him to bring in Trask and Gyrich.
But they barely do anything. The only reason they’re not in the “Don’t Like” category for this episode is because I like the idea of them being forced to hide out together in a remote jungle. And I love Gyrich slapping a fish straight out of the water onto Trask’s notes and ordering him to cook it.
2 Things I Don’t Like
2. “Rough” Interrogation
“Beast was easy on you. You’ll tell me all your secrets, even if I have to blow them out of you.”
Morph
After the team leaves him behind while they follow the coordinates Beast got out of the Sentinel head they captured, which bring them to Gyrich and Trask, Morph decides the Sentinel must be hiding more secrets. And he’ll do whatever it takes to get them.
Well, he’s right…
… but the interrogation is pretty lame. All he does is slide three indicators all the way to full power, and the Sentinel immediately reveals an additional set of coordinates.
Even worse, he says he’s not going to contact Cyclops and share the coordinates. He needs to do this himself. But when he arrives at the destination—which is Master Mold’s lair—the team is already there.
1. Not Ready After All
“I came through today, but what about tomorrow, or next week? Moira was right. I’m not ready yet. I was just too bull-headed to admit it.”
Morph
The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the message sent by Morph leaving again at the end of the episode. He decides he’s not ready after all, despite facing down his fears.
Anyone in his position obviously has the right to make their own decision. And I won’t pretend to know what this type of trauma is like. But after choking the first time he saw Sentinels, and being told by Cyclops to stay behind after that, he still finds the courage to go help his friends and face his fears. He proves he can do it.
And he performs great in the fight. He uses his shapeshifting power to turn into Omega Red and a few other mutants who are much stronger than himself. He almost singlehandedly destroys Master Mold. And when he pulls the trigger for the kill shot, he’s not disguised as someone else.
This doesn’t mean he’s cured of his trauma, of course. But when you do the thing you’re afraid of, isn’t the reward usually a little more courage, so you can build on it and do it again next time?
Instead, Morph just proved that he could do it—in spectacular fashion—but now says he’s not ready after all.
It doesn’t feel like the most logical turn of events. It feels more like they wanted to write one episode where they bring Morph back and he gets to be the hero, but then they needed a way to write him out of the show again.
Tim Matassa
Isn’t courage also about admitting you’re wrong?