Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 37

 Time for a rewrite.

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Evan was going through some changes. The youngest member of the main X-Men team over the last few episodes has had issues with controlling his spikes. They would grow with only mild provocation, shoot out with a sneeze, and not retract at all unless he forced it. While dealing with that, he attended a skateboard competition sponsored by Spear Sport’s and its new Pow-R8 drink. The Morlock Callisto reveals to Evan that Pow-R8 is poisonous to Mutants after he takes a mouthful and almost dies and asks his help to shut down the bottling plant. He does, destroying the bottling plant with just a little help from the X-Men. Unfortunately, Evan’s spike condition is getting worse, and he elects to stay with the Morlocks, for at least a little while, to try to learn how to deal with being a Mutant that can no longer hide what he is, much to Ororo’s heartbreak. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Hey Mastermind, your muttonchops are neat.

This time, we start on the streets of Venice. A man with impressive muttonchops is walking around the city, using some sort of mental power to change his appearance as he crosses paths with people. The metal around him starts groaning and shifting and we hear Magneto’s trademark magnetic noise, and he tries to run. Magneto corners him, flying in from a distance. The man tries to hide or defend himself, but Magneto tells the man, Mastermind, that his illusions don’t work on him. He grabs Mastermind and tells the muttonchop-having Mutant that he has a job for him.

 

We jump to a traffic jam on a bridge, Wanda Maximoff being driven somewhere. Her drive is interrupted by a massive fire breaking out atop the struts of the bridge. The fire takes on the form of rearing horses. As everyone else runs, Wanda gets out and spies her father’s Aussie henchman Pyro dancing amidst the flames.

 

Moving on, we arrive at Bayville high as it’s being let out. Nightcrawler is walking with his girlfriend Amanda, who is trying to encourage him for his big “meet the parents” moment. Kurt is worried because his image inducer has been acting up. Amanda says that’s fine as she wants her family to meet the real him, turning off his inducer and showing off Kurt’s blue form. He hurried turns it back on. We see Toad watching them atop some garbage for a bit before hopping away. How odd. Kurt does want to meet them but thinks showing his blue look might be a bit much for the first meeting. He and Amanda see the fire, as do Scott and Jean who were driving by.

 

Wanda's pissed.

Back on the bridge, Wanda knocks Pyro from his perch with a magic blast. Pyro shows off some parkour skills and recovers, but not before dropping a key chain that Wanda picks up. It says Arrowrose. He causes a big explosion by blowing up a oil tanker, knocking Wanda to the side of the bridge. Scott and Jean, and Storm save people from the debris and put out the fire. Jean and Scott pull Wanda up and ask what that was about. Wanda tells them that dear old dad was telling her to stop following him or looking for his errand boy, Pietro. Jean mentions Pietro isn’t in hiding, but back at the Brotherhood house, obviously infuriating Wanda.

 

At the Brotherhood House, Pietro is using his newly given position of leadership to force Toad, Blob and Lance to do his bidding. Blob is making him lunch, Toad is being forced to hold the TV antenna on the roof, and he berates Lance for how long it’s taking him to fix the transmission on the jeep. Lance, in frustration, tries to crush him with a chair. The others say they’re fed up too. Pietro starts a speech about how they need strong decisive leadership if they’re going to move up to the big leagues with Magneto, but then sees Wanda walking up the street, screams, hides in the closet and tells them not to tell her he’s here. Toad greets her warmly, but Wanda shoves him aside without a glance. Toad betrays him immediately. Pietro again claims he doesn’t know where Magneto is, that he only contacts Pietro when he needs something. She shows Pietro the Arrowrose keychain and Toad thinks its related to Mount Arrowrose, a nearby ski resort. Toad tries to get Wanda to notice him, proclaiming his devotion to her and asking what he needs to be to win her love. She blasts him and says, “Someone else.” Poor Toad, but I 100% get the revulsion. The line someone else gives him an idea.

 

He cleans up nice.

Kurt arrives at Amanda’s house and introduces himself to her parents, Magalia and… he doesn’t have a name so I’m going to call him Frank. Her folks seem to like him, but he’s incredibly nervous. At that moment, his inducer starts acting up and he turns into his blue form. He teleports around, just barely dodging Frank and Magalia’s glances until he gets his inducer working again. Amanda tells them he’s a “track star” to explain his quick movements. We jump to after dinner, and we see someone creeping up on the house. Toad bursts in and tries to steal the image inducer. He and Toad wrestle for the inducer, causing major damage to the Sefton house as they do. But he doesn’t break her grandma’s vase, so that’s something. He kicks Toad out of a window, but he then fires his tongue out and steals the inducer, revealing Kurt’s real form to the Seftons. Damn.

 

Surprise, Mother F***er!

Sometime later, Wanda is riding the ski lift to the top of mount Arrowrose. A guy sits beside her and obviously hits on her, but then he smiles, revealing Toad’s teeth. Wanda blasts him out the side of the lift. Later, Wanda’s scarf gets blown away, another guy offers to get it, but starts frog hopping, revealing him to be Toad. He's blasted again. Wanda sees Pyro take the ski-lift. She follows and is joined by Toad again. This time he’s pretending to be Eric, the Ski instructor. Toad impresses her with this one, but she sees Pyro snowboarding off and follows him. She follows Pyro to a giant metal dome. Before she can do anything about it, she gets gassed by a sphere and taken inside.

 

Later, Kurt is looking forlornly at a picture of him and Amanda. Toad comes in, asking for a favor. Kurt immediately attacks him, demanding his inducer back. Toad says he’ll give it back in exchange for a small favor.

 

Magneto, this is pretty messed up, not going to lie.

Inside the dome, Wanda is being held in restraints. Magneto comes in, revealing that he instructed Pyro to lead her here so they could have a father daughter chat. He claims that leaving her at the hospital was difficult, but he claims it was for her own good. He says that he had hoped they could start over, build a new relationship, but Wanda says screw you dad. Magneto tells Wanda that her quest to destroy him has become a liability, so he’s going to… correct that. He calls in Mastermind and tells Wanda that Mastermind will alter her memories and that, hopefully, her mind won’t be too damaged by the process. Mastermind starts working, changing Wanda’s worst memories about the hospital and time after into happy memories with her, Magneto, and Pietro.

 

Outside, Toad and Kurt arrive. Kurt tells Toad that he’ll help him with this, but they’re getting his inducer back as soon as their done. Toad reveals he does, in fact, still have it. Kurt takes it and is about to storm off, but Toad appeals to their similarities. Namely, that they both must hide things about themselves to fit in. Kurt agrees to keep helping. Kurt put the inducer back on and turns into Erik. They teleport inside. They dodge around Colossus moving boxes and find Mastermind messing with Wanda’s head. Mastermind tries to warn Magneto, but they’re too quick. Toad tries to get the restraints off, but they’re too tight, so Kurt just grabs Wanda and teleports them a few feet over to get her out. Just as Magneto, Pyro, Gambit, and Colossus arrive, Kurt teleports them all away. His minions are about to give chase, but Magneto stop them. He asks if Mastermind finished the job, Mastermind confirms, and Magneto says to let them go. Back at the lodge, Wanda wakes up and sees Erik’s handsome face. Hazy from what happened, I imagine, she kisses him without thinking, only for him to turn back into Toad. Kind of a nice twist on the fairy tale, kiss a handsome prince and he turns into a Toad. Kurt speaks up for Toad, saying he is gross but he did risk his life to save her. She thanks him, he catches a fly with his tongue, she shutters in disgust and storm off.

 

Later, Kurt has an evening walk with Amanda. We learn that while her parents have forbidden her to see him, like any teenager she said, “screw that,” and is going to keep dating Kurt. Much to his own surprise and joy.

 

At the Brotherhood house, Wanda is tidying up some of her things, and Toad is utterly baffled at her sudden disinterest in killing her dad. She remembers being mad at her dad, but not why. Toad tries to tell her, but Pietro rushes him out of the room. Pietro tells Toad to just let that stuff drop, as if she’s no longer hunting Magneto, she’ll stay at the Brotherhood house, near Toad. Toad happily agrees, as he decides if she can get over hating her dad, there is hope for him yet.

 

Okay, while it’s not the worst thing Magneto has ever done, rewriting his daughter’s mind to get her to stop pestering him is probably the most messed up thing he’s done to an individual. Oh, and this is never fixed in series, Wanda spends the rest of the series believing she grew up with a kind and loving father. Messed up. I am impressed with Toad’s level of commitment to trying to win over Wanda. I feel like showering regularly, brushing his teeth and stop eating flies would be much, much easier than stealing a hologram watch. Trying to trick her is very, very wrong but I can appreciate his dedication to trying to win her over. Kurt continuing to be insecure about his looks is not a plot point I love, but I get why it keeps coming up. Being a teenager is hard but being a blue furry demon looking teenager is infinitely worse. I hope the Sefton’s forbidding Amanda from seeing him was more about wrestling with a Toad and wrecking their house than him being a blue demon. I hope you liked Mastermind, not sure if he officially joins the Acolytes, but he serves as Magneto’s on staff telepath from this point onwards. Next time, Rogue’s powers go haywire in a BIG way. See you then. 

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