Kurt get's a bit distracted by an... explosive girl.
Last time on X-Men: Evolution, the
X-Men kicked off a new semester. A bunch of fresh, New Mutants joined the
Xavier institute, and Bayville got a new principal in Edward Kelly. The Brotherhood
boys, getting listless without Mystique to crack the whip and feeling tired of
being cooped up, attempted to out Mutants to the world. The X-Men were able to
put a stop to the show, with Magneto playing secret aid by disabling the broadcast
moments before the show started and Xavier wiping the minds of all present at
the event, save Principal Kelly, whom he attempted to memory wipe just before
passing out. So, the secret of Mutant kind was kept from 99% of the populace
and the only one that might have some idea is the one based off of one of the
most famous bigots of the X-Men franchise. Shaping up to be a very interesting
semester. Let’s get to it, shall we.
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| Eh, I've seen worse Meet-Cutes. |
We open with the X-Men performing a
rescue drill. Session is run by Wolverine, Scott is like the teacher’s aid, and
Kurt is the “victim.” Once they get the winch set up, they send down one of the
New Mutants, Tabitha Smith aka Boom Boom, to save him. Or try to anyway, she’s
a bit to busy listening to her tunes to pay attention to her cue. Wolverine
sends her down. Tabitha rides down on the rescue basket thing, and flirts with
Kurt a little when she’s at his level. She uses her power to blow away the
rocks on Kurt and then pulls him into the harness. She asks “Badger” to pull them
up, which he does, but after saying “it’s Wolverine,” in a huff. On the way up,
Kurt and Tabitha flirt a bit more, with Kurt jumping from the basket to scare
her, just to teleport back up and “deduct points” for not strapping him in
properly. Tabitha starts getting into goofing off with Kurt and throws a few
more of her bomb pellets, which accidentally go off and knock Kurt out and off
of the harness again. Thinking fast, Scott blows the rocks in the ocean below,
and Wolverine free dives to save him.
After the session, Xavier scolds
them both for goofing off and nearly getting Kurt killed. He grounds the two of
them, confining them to the school and the institute, no powers, and they’ll
have to do double training sessions. Xavier is tough but fair.
We jump over to the Brotherhood
house. This is our first time seeing the home of the anti-X-Men and it… looks
like a home of four teenage boys. While she hasn’t been gone long, I got the
distinct impression they started turning the place into a sty shortly after
Mystique disappeared. The Brotherhood boys are having money issues, no food,
the place is a wreck and they really don’t know of anyway to make money. Toad
is obsessed with busting down Mystique’s door to loot her room, but the others
keep pointing out what a colossally stupid idea that’d be.
At Bayville High, the school is
running a carnival to raise money to rebuild the gymnasium, which unfortunately
got torched last episode when the Brotherhood tried to reveal Mutants to the
world. They don’t remember it that way, but that’s how it went. Principal Kelly
asks his secretary to make sure to drop off the proceeds into the wall safe every
hour, just as a shady character comes in. How convenient. The character, Mr. Smith,
is looking to speak with his daughter Tabitha. While the secretary looks up
Tabitha’s info, he smiles somewhat evilly at the wall safe. He’s told that Tabitha’s
on a restricted visitor list, and if he wants to see her, he has to go through
the Xavier Institute. He says he’ll do that.
We jump over to Tabitha who is
having trouble with her locker. She blows the lock with her powers, only to
realize she was at the wrong locker, whoops. Kurt pops over and the two flirt a
bit, before Tabitha snags one of his books because she can’t find hers and runs
off, leaving Kurt literally spinning. As she runs to class, her dad runs into
her. We see pretty much instantly that she’s NOT happy to see him and tries to
get him to buzz off. She runs off before he can say too much.
Kurt and Scott have lunch together
at the cafeteria. Scott gives Kurt his condolences for being forced to miss the
carnival. Kurt asks if Scott’s going with anyone, at which point he looks over
at Jean and Duncan and grumbles that it’s not likely. Tabitha walks by, she returns
the book but tries to steal Kurt’s juice next but he points her to the vending
machine if she wants one. Kurt is clearly smitten, but Scott’s not sure that “that”
is a good idea, and warns his surrogate little brother as much. Tabitha meets
Lance at the vending machine just as he causes a localized quack to get a free
soda. She compliments him on his technique before just blowing the whole machine
to get soda. Tabitha, I know you might not have thought of this, but you are
kind of on the short list of people who can do that and the rumor mill will
eventually get back to Xavier, just saying. Lance says she’d get along well at the
Brotherhood house, but she scoffs at the offer.
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| Remember, the guy in the chair can literally erase your mind, keep that in mind if you try to threaten Charles Xavier. |
At the Institute, Xavier is
extremely polite but curt to Mr. Smith. He has no parental rights over Tabitha,
and his (I assume) ex-wife was quite clear that she doesn’t want him near
Tabitha. Smith tries to threaten Xavier, telling him to let Smith see his
daughter or he’ll call up news crews to blow the Institutes secret, but he does
so as Logan walks in. Logan does not take kindly to people threatening his boss
and makes it clear that either Smith removes his hands from Xavier, or Logan
will remove the hands from Smith. Tabitha walks in then, and I guess convinces
Xavier to let her have a moment with her Dad. We learn in no uncertain terms that
Smith used Tabitha as part of several get rich quick robberies before he lost
custody of her. She knows he’s just here to force her to steal for him again,
and she’s not having it. He claims the money is for her mother, whom he also
claims he’s working things out with, whom is sick. Tabitha agrees to help, but
she doesn’t want to see him again after it’s done.
Later that night, Tabitha visits
Kurt as he watches the carnival from the Mansion’s balcony. She flirts with and
convinces him to take her to the carnival just for a few minutes. He says no, at
first, but is quickly convinced. The two have a fun time on some rides and with
some mildly destructive pranks, like blowing up a hot dog in Blob’s face. Blob
and Lance try to chase them down, but Kurt bamf’s them away. Scott is also at
the carnival and seems to be trying to have fun by himself when he ends up
riding the Ferris wheel with Jean’s friend, a girl named Taryn. Oh, Scott, this
is dangerous waters to tread. On the ride up, he sees Kurt and Tabitha and
curse’s Kurt’s stupidity. Tabitha sees her dad, and sends Kurt off for a few
minutes to meet with him.
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| Damn it, even knowing how the episode ends, I'm still kinda rooting for these two. |
Once they’re alone, she tries to
talk him down from whatever he’s planning. She’ll blow video games or payphones
to get the money. Smith isn’t having that chump change stuff and tells her they’re
stealing the fundraiser money. Tabitha doesn’t look happy about it, but goes
along. Blob and Lance overhear that plan, and Lance smiles saying that their
money problems are over. Kurt spies Tabitha and her dad walking off and knows
somethings up. He goes to tell Scott, who is initially very scolding of him for
sneaking out with Tabitha, but instantly on board when he sees how scared Kurt
is. Jean and Evan are the only other X-Men there, so they go to round up back
up.
Tabitha and her dad sneak into the
building, tripping a few alarms but Mr. Smith is confident they’ll be gone before
the cops arrive. Tabitha blows the safe and her dad grabs the money. They run,
but are cut off by Toad, who grabs the bag and leap frogs (teehee) away. The Smith’s
follow, and Toad leads them to Blob and Avalanche waiting in the burnt-out gym.
I guess Pietro had a date? Anyway, the Brotherhood boys try to scare the Smith’s
off, but they’re interrupted by the X-Men busting in. A brawl ensues over the
bag of money, with it ending in Smith’s hands as he runs off. Cyclops is going to
go after him, but Tabitha says she’ll do it instead. They make it to the roof,
where her dad partially falls through the ceiling. She tries to reach out to
him, but he tells her to hold the other Mutants off while he reaches for the cash.
The ceiling collapses, but Nightcrawler bamfs them to safety. Smith knocks Nightcrawler
away and tries to run with Tabitha following, but the Cops pull up and arrest
them both.
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| No one expects a sudden Toad! |
Tabitha is bailed out by Xavier. He
and Kurt meet her outside and he’s none to pleased. She asks about her dad.
Apparently, Mr. Smith had a few outstanding warrants out for his arrest
already, so compounded by forcing his underage daughter to help him steal, he’s
going away for a bit. Tabitha says she’ll get her stuff and go. Kurt says she
doesn’t have to go, but she says it’s not a good fit and that she does. Xavier
says that the door is always open to her when she’s ready.
At the Brotherhood house, the city just cut off their water. It’s right about then that Tabitha stops
by, taking Lance up on that offer for her to Fit in at their place. The others
clearly don’t want her there, but no one is brave enough to say anything. Tabitha
blows the lock on Mystique’s room and waltz in. The boys see their boss had rather…
opulent tastes in bedroom furnishings. Tabitha tells them to stay out of her
room.
Scott joins Kurt musing on the
balcony. He asks about the damage. Kurt is going to have to wash uniforms, wax
the Blackbird, and clean the danger room for a month and that’s after Wolverine
is done training him. While that kind of sucks hard, Kurt seems more
disappointed that Tabitha left. Scott says that maybe once she sees what life
is like, she’ll be back, but Kurt isn’t certain.
Hm… I like this episode. It’s a lot
smaller scale than the last half dozen or so. The fate of the world isn’t at
stake, or Mutant-kind, it’s just the life of one Mutant girl with a rough past
that’s on the line. Tabitha is an interesting character. She’s flirty, a bit
scatterbrained, and a thrill and fun seeker. That’s a fun combo and I could see
why Kurt gravitated to her. But then you can see a bit of her dad in her with
some of her interactions with Kurt. All she has to do is be a little flirty and
he’s more or less putty in her hands. Not a good look, even if I don’t think
she was completely using Kurt. Sure, she had him teleport her to the carnival,
but I got the sense that she genuinely had fun with him while they were
together. Seemed like a two birds one stone situation than her just using him,
ya know? We also saw just a bit of a subplot forming of Scott starting a
somewhat flirtatious relationship with Jean’s friend Taryn. Spoiler, it really
doesn’t go anywhere, but we’ll get to see a bit of how Jean reacts to seeing
Scott with someone else in episodes to come. Uh-oh. Oh, and I should point out
that while Tabitha is staying with the Brotherhood boys, she doesn’t ever
officially join their team. She’s really just crashing at their place. It’s a
bit weird, but kind of nice to see a Mutant that’s more neutral than on either
the good or bad side. So yeah, it’s a smaller scale but fun episode. Next time,
we’ll either do a few more episode of X-Men or I’ll get back on the My Hero
Academia train. Still deciding. Have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/41095371
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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