Hard choices abound for all our protagonists, as both Reed and Caitlin Strucker wrestle with just how much each is willing to do for the sake of their family and how best to go about it. Clarice must meanwhile learn to harness and control her powers, but is there time for her to do this the traditional way before Sentinel Services move Lorna again and the trail goes cold?

It feels odd to be sitting here having watched episode 3 of The Gifted, recalling the impressions it left in its pilot. I recall thinking (and indeed saying) that the show felt ‘safe’, taking no chances and telling a nice easy, predictable story. I also recall praising the way that the actors lifted the material with their commitment. Well, now things are a whole lot less safe, but that commitment is still right there.

Moyer as Reed Strucker has been getting the lion’s share of this. Watching the character as he has been slowly revealed to us has been compelling thanks to Moyer’s performance. That edge of frailty and empathy beneath the upstanding, law-abiding veneer has made the character fascinating to watch, even more so as he has found himself and his family on the wrong side of the law. This week, things amp up further still, with Reed forced to confront the reality of what he so readily agreed to do for the sake of his family on a real and personal level. It’s genuinely wrenching stuff.

Meanwhile, Amy Acker’s Caitlin gets her own chance to shine as well. In other hands, this story of the devoted wife and mother who just wants to find the easiest and safest way to protect those she loves could so easily have degenerated into cliched pap that acted as filler in-between the ‘real’ action elsewhere. Instead, it takes us down a route that shows just how much the showrunners understand the material they are working with, and just how unafraid they are to draw parallels with the real world right now. It’s genuinely unsettling to see the reaction of Caitlin’s brother to his niece and nephew’s newly revealed abilities, and that’s before we get to his neighbours. The X-Men franchise has never been a subtle property in the way it uses its storyline as a parallel for history – on the evidence of this episode alone, The Gifted intends to pull no punches either, and has no qualms about making viewers feel really uncomfortable about how closely some of what they see on the screen mirrors some of what they will be seeing in the world around them.

Elsewhere, we have flashbacks filling us in a bit more on the relationship between Lorna and Marcos, and we get a hint at just how powerful Lorna might actually be. Clarice is struggling to manifest her powers since last week’s trying events, but there’s some disagreement between leader of the Underground Johnny and Dreamer about how best to get her over this.

The episode fair thrums with tension almost as much as it does with relevance, and by the time the credits roll, you’ll be releasing a breath you didn’t know you were holding and wondering how an hour passed you by so quickly. This is how decent comic book television is made. Other studios handling properties about strangely powered individuals would do well to take note.

Verdict: Pacy, punchy and directly in the viewer’s face with unflinching purpose. While it lacks the avant garde weirdness of Legion, it makes up for it in raw commitment to its story, characters and themes. Very promising. 9/10

Greg D. Smith