Faced with the opportunity to rescue imprisoned mutants from the Trask facility, the Underground must consider whether the risks are worth taking. Meanwhile, the Struckers must try and adjust to the new revelations about their family history – could Lauren and Andy have the same powers as the Von Strucker twins?

Last time out we had an explosive finale as Reed’s father saved his life after having revealed Reed’s true heritage to him. This being The Gifted, that means this instalment largely deals with the impact of those revelations as Reed shares them with the rest of the family. Caitlin struggles to take it all in, while the kids differ – Lauren less interested than Andy. Of course, knowing what they now do, Reed and Caitlin want to assure themselves that their children don’t possess the same destructive power as their ancestors, but they won’t necessarily like the answers they get.

Elsewhere, our new telepathic mutant, Esme, is insisting that the Underground execute a dangerous operation to infiltrate Trask and retrieve the mutant prisoners there, including her own family. The way that this is played is ambiguous – it’s difficult to get a read on exactly what Esme’s motivations are, with the performance and the writing leaving the viewer no wiser by the end of the episode.

But the important thing is just how dangerous the mission will be. There’s a danger here with the sort of ‘problem of the week’ format that The Gifted follows, that every week the scale and difficulty of the issue is raised until it gets to ridiculous proportions. Fortunately, the show started small and has been restrained in raising those stakes so we aren’t there yet. However, the Trask facility is their most dangerous challenge yet – a facility purpose built to keep Mutants out, as much as to keep the prisoners in. Fortunately, the Underground has access to Lauren and Andy to help out with some of the more destructive aspects, although as Reed hasn’t shared all of what he knows outside his family, they don’t quite understand what they’re enlisting…

Meanwhile, Agent Turner is hell bent on tracking down the mutants, and his determination in this regard leads to him guessing what might be their next target. As the episode progresses, the tension ratchets up – nobody at Sentinel believes Turner and he’s on the verge of losing everything because people think that he’s lost it and his emotional trauma is impairing his judgement. The show has been clever enough by this point that the viewer feels genuinely torn, half wanting Turner to be proven right in the face of the doubt of his fellows, but knowing what that would mean for the protagonists.

The showdown, when it comes, is not what you might expect. It’s not upbeat, for sure, and there are two characters who each act exactly opposite to what the show has led us to expect to this point. Indeed, this may be a turning point, with implications that reach far into the future.

Verdict: Slower and more deliberate than last week, but still excellently paced and plotted. The show goes into the mid-season break with a hell of a cliff hanger, and lots of questions I look forward to seeing answered in the second part. 8/10

Greg D. Smith