Viewer Log: X-Men: Evolution ep 47

 Is three still a crowd when they're all the same guy?

Last time on X-Men: Evolution, Logan went on a bit of a trip. Everyone’s favorite X-Man was kidnapped by HYDRA to use as bait to lure out his clone/daughter X-23 (dubbed Laura by me as it’s her comic name.) Logan and Laura traveled the wilderness for a bit before they get nabbed by HYDRA goons Gauntlet and Omega Red. Madam Hydra, aka Viper, arrives to witness Laura’s reprogramming, only for everyone to learn that Laura got grabbed intentionally and she plans to blow HYDRA sky high. Logan attempts to save her, but she shoves him to safety before executing her plan. HYDRA’s top brass is all seemingly killed in the explosion, as is Laura, but it’s quickly revealed that the woman with healing powers somehow survived a big explosion. Color me shocked. At the same time, Jean and Scott taught a Mutant class and earned the New Mutant’s respect.  Pretty simple. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

Smug Scottish Scoundrel.

 

We open with a party of some kind being thrown in an old Scottish castle. The party is run by an angry looking blonde named Lucas. He travels through his party and then into the dungeon, showing off his telekinesis as he opens doors and trapdoors with his mind. He meets with someone called “David” and tells him that if he wants to end this, he needs to call “him.” A phone rings and is answered by Charles Xavier. The young man, David, begs for his Father’s help. Oh my.

 

Later, we join the X-Men as they fly the X-Jet to Scotland. It’s looking like Ororo, Scott and Jean are running point on this one. Charles is in the middle of a clearly awkward conversation with his ex-wife, Gabrielle, and explaining that no, Cerebro didn’t just tell him this random Mutant in Scotland was his kid.

 

Back at the mansion, Hank supervises his as they make a hasty exit for school. Jean and Scott call in and it’s revealed that Kitty and Kurt are both down with the flu. It’s revealed that a weird side effect of the flu is that Kurt randomly teleports when he sneezes. Kitty is fine but miserable, so hers is a much more normal illness.

 

On the flight, Charles explains the situation a little more to Scott and Jean. Yes, he was briefly married to a Gabrielle Haller about 17 years ago, and he had no idea about his son until today and that he’s been kidnapped. We’re shown a brief shot of David in prison below the castle as the scene transitions. They arrive at Gabrielle’s home and Charles is all business from the get-go. His ex-wife doesn’t even get a hi before he’s asking if the police have been contacted. Ororo is more cordial and introduces herself and the other two. Charles asks for a list of David’s friends and favorite locations, but Gabrielle reveals that they’d just moved to the area and he barely left the house since.

 

Strong resemblance in the Xavier family.

We cut to David. David is able to escape from the dungeon he was being held in and runs up to the upper floor where the party is happening. Either Charles made record time flying to Scotland or this is quite the rager of the party. David runs from the party guests but ends up stuck between them and a cliff side drop to the ocean below. Not good.

 

Jumping back to Charles, he’s admonishing his ex for keeping David from him. Gabrielle tells him it wasn’t about punishing Charles, it was about not having her son grow up with a father that didn’t have time for him. Okay, analyzing, Charles was a workaholic with little to no work/life balance, Gabrielle wanted him more present in the relationship and he wasn’t willing to do that. Got it. She admits that not telling David about Charles may have been a mistake. Outside, the angry blonde, Lucas, is watching. He spies Jean on the upper level.

 

Going down, down, down in a burning ring of fire.

In the room, Scott and Jean are examining David’s things, looking for clues. Scott feels weird poking through someone’s things. Jean teases him about it for a second, but then spies a little boy watching them. They go after the boy, but he disappears. Gabrielle joins them and explains that that’s Ian, an orphan David found a few weeks ago that they took in. He’s been living with them ever since. He’s mute, so he can’t help with David. Jean, being a literal mind reader, wonders if she might have some luck. She runs out to find Ian. She get’s cornered by Lucas instead, who traps her in a ring of fire before knocking her out.

 

Back at the Mansion, Kitty goes to Kurt looking for tissues. She tries to shake him awake but is instead teleported by him by sneeze. First to just outside the school, to in the middle of a class (living everyone’s worst nightmare of being at school in their pjs) and then to the middle of downtown, where she gets splashed by a passing car. Not a great day for Kitty.

 

Jean is taken back to Lucas’ castle. When she wakes up, she’s chained but Lucas releases her a moment later. He introduces himself and tries to convince her to have some fun with him. She throws him aside telekinetically and tries to leave. Lucas hits her with a mental blast and she collapses. He tells her that she’s going to stick around as it’s the only way she’ll find David.

 

Back at Gabrielle’s, Ororo lands as Scott busts out a motorcycle as part of their search for David and now Jean and Ian. She hadn’t seen any sign of them in the air but noticed fires in the distance. Gabrielle says that’s McFadden Castle and teens party there. Scott heads out, promising to be cautious. While Scott is gone, Charles says they should look for Ian, as he thinks the boy knows more than he’s letting on.

 

Scott makes it to the castle, walks through the party and immediately meets Jean. She wants him about Lucas, and Scott immediately goes to challenge him. Lucas quickly overpowers them botoh, using telekinesis and some kind of force field to protect him from Scott’s optic blast. Jean tries to throw him but Lucas is just too strong telekinetically. Scott is put in a helmet and chained to a wall and Jean is locked in the heart of the castle. Lucas warns her she’s not strong enough to break herself free so there’s really no point in trying.

 

The adults are driving the X-Van, looking for Ian. It’s foggy, Ororo tries to do something about that, but before she can, she almost runs over Ian. They get out and grab the child. Charles tries to read his mind but is being blocked somehow. He tries harder and gets flashes of Lucas and McFadden Castle. Ian runs off. They try to follow, but Ian causes a ring of fire to encircle them. Gabrielle is shocked to learn he’s a Mutant, and Charles is more troubled to learn that Ian is working with David’s kidnapper.

 

Jean, meanwhile, throws her telekinetic force around, breaking her out of her cell and into David’s. She introduces herself to David and tells him that his dad is on the way. Jean frees them and flies them out of their prison. They run but get turned around quickly. David says they’ll just need to walk until they hear music. David is obviously bitter about his absentee father, Jean tries to hype her mentor but David doesn’t believe her. He reveals that Lucas told him about Charles and that this whole thing is about Lucas going head-to-head, or brain to brain, against the great Charles Xavier. Kid has got moxie, I’ll give him that.

 

Charles, Gabrielle and Ororo arrive and find Scott. They free him and Jean and David arrive a moment later. Charles’ shakes his son’s hand… and David starts transforming. He shifts from himself into Ian, who throws up a wall of fire. Jean announces that David is Ian, and Ian shifts to Lucas. Lucas explains that he is Ian sometimes and sometimes not and it’s quite vexing. Yeah, for those who haven’t seen David Haller aka Legion, he’s an incredibly powerful Mutant with an intense form of DID. His unstable mind has several alt personas and each has a power all their own. He throws everyone out of the flaming ring, saying he wants a little quality time with his dad. Charles tells the others to stay back while he handles this.

 

Dude loves his fire.

Lucas is clearly David’s anger and abandonment personified, as he yells at Charles for not giving him the time of day before now. He causes a massive quake to show off his powers. Lucas shifts to David and David tells Charles’ to run. Charles wants to help his son and puts his hands to David’s head. Charles enters his mind and is confronted with manifestations of David, Lucas, and Ian. Charles throws Lucas and Ian back with his powers, engulfing them in light. David begins to glow, too, and Charles tells him to grab his hand. A hand grab’s Charles and he pulls hard. In the physical realm, David shifts into Lucas. Lucas, high on his freedom, reveals this was his plan all along. He wanted to be the only personality in his head and he knew that Charles was the only person strong enough to do it. He gleefully announces that he’s free as he flies off. Both Gabrielle and Charles start to cry at the loss.

 

The team returns to the Mansion. Hank welcomes them home, and tries to give Charles’ moral support but the professor just moves past him. They realize that he needs time to process what happened. Jean asks about Kitty and Kurt, and Hank is pretty sure they’re well rested by now. We cut to Kurt’s room where he finally teleports himself and Kitty back to. Kitty, dirty and extremely angry, starts hitting Kurt with his pillow and listing off all the places he teleported them to.

 

The last scene is of Charles and Ororo together. Charles points out that the real tragedy in this is that he lost his son before he even really got to know him. Ororo tells him not to give up hope, as David can find his way back, and he’ll be waiting when he does. That’s a happy thought to end on.

 

This episode is good in concept but is a bit lacking in substance. We only get a little bit of David, Lucas, and Ian each and while the episode acts like it’s being mysterious and spooky, I think it’s pretty clear what’s happening from the get-go. Granted, I knew all three boys were the same person, but I think even someone who hadn’t heard of Legion would have noted that it’s weird we didn’t see any of the boys together at the same time. Hell, even in the opening shot, we just see Lucas talking at David, not the two of them together. It’s a spooky mystery only in the sense that the characters don’t know what’s going on. Plus, we get so little of Ian that I honestly wonder why he was included. Like, I know a two person personality split would be kind of dull, but a mute boy that appear twice before the big reveal makes it like a 2.5 split personality instead of a real 3 person one. I’d have just liked to know what Ian’s stake in this was. Like, why was he cool with being purged? Surely he wanted to live as the one-and-only too. I will say, I like Lucas as a version of David’s dark side. He’s had a few evil personalities in the past, while Lucas is original to Evolution, he checks all the boxes for a dark alt. He’s David’s explosive anger, his resentment and feelings of abandonment personified. They did a good job exemplifying how powerful Lucas is, mostly by him easily overpowering Jean, one of the strongest characters in the series. His plan too is solid. Inconsistently swapping between two other personas can be damned inconvenient, I’m sure, and who better to purge one’s mind that Charles Xavier? It’s simple but elegant. Unfortunately, the series ended before they could expand more on their version of Legion. I’d like to think that if there’d been a season 5, we’d have learned that Charles’ purge wasn’t perfect, or that over time David recovered in the back of Lucas’ mind and he started to manifest again or something. The Kitty-Kurt plot was silly but harmless. I’d have used the time for more time with Lucas and David or something but that’s just me. So yeah, this was a fun concept, it was just a bit light on details for me. Next time, the return of Spyke. See you then. 

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