First Things First…
How on Earth do you follow up “Remember It”?
The promising thing is that Storm’s arc is compelling, too. And she and Forge were absent from the last episode. Now, they don’t have to share and get reduced to a mini episode.
My only issue with their arc is that it’s moving so fast and has felt rushed, especially with Forge already telling Storm he loves her. But we’re onto the back half of the season, so I guess we need to keep things moving.
5 Things I Like
5. Deathbird Shit Talks Everyone
“Xavier would see his Milky Way ghetto become our new throne world.”
Deathbird
I fell for it.
I knew better than to trust Deathbird. In her brief introduction in the original series, she tried to team with Apocalypse and was betrayed. There’s no way she’s one of the good guys.
But, there she is at the start of this episode, battling Ronan the Accuser, with Gladiator on her side. So I thought, maybe…
In all honesty, though, it doesn’t matter that she turns out to be a power hungry, bigoted piece of shit. She’s so sassy to everyone that I couldn’t help but enjoy her!
It starts with Ronan. After she whoops his ass, she says to him…
“Be honored to fall at my feet, Ronan, for you shall be memorialized as the corpse upon which I posed.”
Later, though, when she’s with her sister, Lilandra, whose mere name makes her roll her eyes, she talks about Charles being “born on the wrong side of the stars” and being from an “inferior home world.” She believes if Lilandra goes through with her plan to marry Charles, the Shi’ar will be aligned with humanity, and she finds that distasteful.
But that barely scratches the surface of her bigotry. Later, in addition to Deathbird launching a disinformation campaign against Lilandra by accusing her of going mad like D’Ken, she also says…
“How can we entrust our mighty empire, which has endured for eons, to a ruler descended of simians? Have our blood mixed with his inferior freak fluids?”
Savage—and truly awful!
I so want Deathbird to stay in the show. But with Charles deciding at the end of this episode that he must get back to Earth right away, even if it means ending his relationship with Lilandra, I’m not sure how she’d fit into the story.
4. Trust in Sinister
It looks like Bolivar Trask fucked around. Now he’s finding out.
Even the evil genius behind Master Mold and the Sentinels believes the genocide on Genosha went too far.
Sucks for him. Not only is that blood on his hands, but it turns out he got in bed with Mister Sinister to carry out the attack. Now he’s in Sinister’s service—permanently, if I had to guess.
Sinister was already one of the best villains from the original series, and I LOVE what they did with him earlier this season. He’s a great choice for a Big Bad, and I assume we’ll see more of him in the final four episodes of the season.
3. Forge Lies Again—and Helps Storm Save the Day
“A big, evil owl that feeds on anger and self-loathing? Call me chum in the water.”
Forge
I’m not sure how much more time has passed since “Lifedeath – Part One,” but spending time with Forge and Storm at his home in another episode makes their relationship feel less sudden, even if that doesn’t completely make sense.
One act of thoughtfulness from Forge that goes a long way is when he insists on going with Storm to Snowsnake Tower to get the cacti that will heal his wound.
Even though Forge is incredibly weak at this point and shouldn’t travel, he insists, saying that if he gets worse while Storm is gone, he doesn’t want to be alone.
That might be partially true. Who could blame him for being afraid of dying alone.
But that’s not the real reason he sucks it up and goes with Storm.
The truth is, he knows Storm will have to get into some tight, dark spots to get the cacti, and her claustrophobia is bad.
Storm never would’ve let him travel in his weakened condition just because of her weakness. So, yeah, Forge lies to her again. And, yeah, the cacti is to save his life, so he has a selfish reason to ensure she can get it.
But he knows she’s going to try regardless. And this small ruse lets him be there for her, and shows a level of understanding of her, that tells me they really do have a strong, loving relationship.
2. Decision Time
“His name is Magnus. And I wish to remember him.”
Professor X
Those Shi’ar and their damn traditions…
Deathbird is so against Lilandra’s marriage to Charles that she invokes the rite of M’Dashaa. Essentially, it’s a loyalty test. And as the person doing the invoking, she gets to decide what the test will be.
Her choice?
Not only must Charles renounce Earth AND his X-Men, but Lilandra must use her psychic powers to scrub from his memory all knowledge of Earth and of his identity prior to coming there.
Talk about harsh… we know how much Charles loves his X-Men. He’s already done more than a lifetime’s work on behalf of mutants on Earth. To willingly give up any knowledge of that is to erase who he is at his core. That’s why he says Deathbird’s challenge goes too far.
On the other hand, he’s finally found the love that’s eluded him his whole life. How do you give that up?
Lilandra raises a decent point, too. She asks why he’d even want to remember his time on Earth, a place that nearly killed him because he fought for tolerance for his own kind.
When it’s decision time, he seems unable to go all the way through with the challenge. But no matter what decision he would have made, his vision of a giant skeletal Gambit makes it crystal clear. He tells Lilandra…
“While I cowered in the cosmos, the unthinkable has happened.”
Charles treats this decision with the careful consideration it deserves. But now, he’s coming home.
1. The Façade of Leadership—and of the Shi’ar Empire
“The power of your empire is, in truth, a harvest of stolen worlds. Younger cultures that, had they not been tilled to death, would now be empires rivaling your own. Fearing this, you strike at the knees and claim you can help them walk again. But only if they assimilate. Submit. Which brings us to this conclusion. The Shi’ar empire is a snake oil racket.”
Professor X
The Shi’ar are the good guys and the Kree are the bad guys. Right?
So it sounds reasonable when Lilandra says…
“Once we crush the Kree, an educator such as you can teach them our ways. Do as you did on Earth. Play the role of peacemaker.”
Yep… crush your enemies… might is right…
But it’s all a bunch of bullshit.
Lilandra is on the money when she says to Charles early in the episode…
“All ruling is make-believe. I pretend to be perfect, as my subjects would never love the woman beneath the armor. Not like you do.”
Part of the make-believe nature of leadership for the Shi’ar is pretending that just because they have the power to conquer other worlds, force them into submission, and require them to assimilate their ways or face extinction, that they also have the right.
They do not.
I guess it took Charles a while to see through the Shi’ar’s acts of aggression. But here, in the moment when he has to decide whether to renounce his identity and memories, he chooses to call out the hypocrisy.
Using his psychic powers, he brings the Shi’ar council to a classroom in the astral plane and has them sit in desks while he chomps on an apple in front of a chalkboard in front of the room.
Here, he goes on a tirade that strikes at the heart of the Shi’ar empire—and, consequently, at the heart of Lilandra.
He calls the slogan “might is right” “the rhyme that sells the lie.” He basically advocates against life being a zero-sum game. It’s not necessary for your neighbor to suffer in order for you to be great.
It’s a compassionate perspective when looking at the world, whether on an intergalactic, international, or even interpersonal level.
I just hope he can prove it to be true.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. Repowered
“What are demons, but reflections of our fears and shame. Things we bury within us, hide from loved ones, even as they poison our hearts… until we finally heal our adversary by embracing it.”
Storm
In the darkness of the cave, face to face with a literal demon, Storm realizes it’s not just the result of the X-Cutioner’s weapon that’s keeping her powerless. It’s also that she’s been believing the lie… the lie that she’s better off without her powers.
Once she acknowledges this and embraces her true self, her powers come roaring back, full force.
I’m fascinated by the power of the mind, in stories and in real life. So it’s all well and good to discover she’d been limiting herself, at least to some degree.
But… what does that say about the X-Cutioner’s weapon and its effect on her?
Beast seemed frightened by the power of the concentrated blast it emitted. But if Storm hadn’t already been having doubts about whether she should have powers, and daydreams about being human, would it have not affected her at all?
This result feels like it would’ve been more appropriate if there hadn’t been a very real explanation for Storm losing her powers in the first place. I’d understand if her powers were failing her because of her doubts, and once she put those doubts to bed, they returned. But is the cure to the X-Cutioner’s weapon really just belief?
Tim Matassa
