The Gifted – coMplications

By: Darryl Ley

Six years ago in Colombia we see Marcos Diaz/Eclipse (Sean Teale) and his colleague arrive outside of a church. Marcos has come to see his father Sebastian Diaz (Kamar De Los Reyes) who is battling cancer. He offers to transfer him to the care of a cancer specialist. His father condemns him for working for the cartels and says he won’t accept his blood money and calls his mutant powers demonic but telling him to leave. We learn his father abandoned him and forced his mother to hide her powers.

In the present we see Lorna Dane/Polaris (Emma Dumont) and her doctor talking to the Frost Sisters (Skyler Samuels). Baby Dawn is sick and they need Marcos and his powers to treat her. They argue until Reeva Payge (Grace Byers) arrives and sends the sisters off to find him. Marcos wakes up late with a hangover following the events of the night before. John Proudstar/Thunderbird (Blair Redford) and Clarice Fong/Blink (Jamie Chung) are already up planning their day and they are going to find Erg. Clarice tells him that he is sitting things out today and tells him to sort himself out.

After they leave Clarice asks John if anything is wrong, noting the change in his behavior since his trip to see Evangeline. He denies that there is anything bothering him, which she clearly doesn’t believe. Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer) is reliving his powers activating the day and, on his way, to pick up supplies he is stopped by Caitlin Strucker (Amy Acker) and they both apologize for the argument they had before.

Caitlin wants him to talk to their daughter Lauren Strucker (Natalie Alyn Lind) and asks if Lauren revealed anything to him which he denies. She suggests that Reed take Lauren along with him on his trip to Baltimore. At the Inner Circle Andy Strucker (Percy Hynes White) comes to see Lorna and questions whether bringing Marcos is a good idea. He seems particularly worried about the prospect of her having to see him again.

Marcos is at a café when he begins to hear someone calling his name. It is then revealed that the Frost Sisters have tracked him down. He meets them in the parking lot and agrees to be taken to see the baby when he finds out she is ill. The Frost Sisters make him put on a hood and refuse to give him details. They also read his mind and find out that he blames himself for not being there with Lorna and their child.

Reeva goes to see Andy and asks him to stand by her side during Marcos’ visit.  She believes that only anyone can stand up to an enemy but going up against a friend is true indication of strength. After she explains this Andy eventually agrees to stand with her. John and Clarice go looking for Erg in the DC tunnel. Eventually, they realize that someone is actively hiding the settlement.

Jace Turner (Coby Bell) goes to a police station and makes an appeal to speak with the Sergeant on call, but the desk officer refuses until Jace talks about the death of his daughter on 7/15. Reed and Lauren are on the way back from their run when Caitlin calls having found disarray in the secret office from when Reed lost control of his powers. The phone call makes him very nervous and when he hangs up his powers activate, and he disintegrates the wheel and they crash into a parked van.

They quickly flee the scene to avoid being captured when Lauren questions why he hasn’t told them about his powers. Reed is still very much in denial. John and Clarice are still looking for the hideout when Clarice figures out her powers can reveal what they are hiding. They find the hideout but are stopped by guards as soon as they find it.

Jace speaks with the Sergeant Lopez (Robert G. McKay) at the police station about his research. He recognizes that the light seen the previous night was the work of Marcos and tells him that he used to be employed by Sentinel Services before leaving for private security. While looking through the police’s existing files he hears the call reporting Reed and Lauren’s accident and immediately heads off to it.

Marcos is brought in front of Reeva and sees he is being guarded by Bulk (Renes Rivera). She explains the situation and when challenged Andy steps in telling Marcos to listen to her. Marcos is eventually taken to Lorna and the baby with the doctor monitoring her. Lorna reveals Dawn’s name, which translates to “Aurora” in Spanish (the name the couple decided on previously). He takes baby Dawn in his arms and seemingly reverses the jaundice with his powers.

Back at in the DC tunnel system Clarice and John are taken to Erg (Michael Luwoye) who is prepared to talk but only with Clarice, which she agrees to despite John’s protests. Erg reveals the reason he agreed to talk was because he could make use of Clarice’s powers and appeals to her citing her visible mutant traits as something she shares with them.

At the accident site the police are analyzing the scene while Jace speaks to witnesses about what they saw. He also sees a blood trail that Reed left when he and Lauren were escaping. Near the accident site Reed and Lauren have found a vehicle that they break into and he hotwires while Jace hones in on their location. He is seconds too late to stop them, but he does recognize Lauren before they leave.

Erg shows Clarice the settlement which houses dozens of mutants. He says here they can live free and unafraid. When Clarice argues that the X-Men fought for freedom Erg disagrees and says that they fought for tolerance. He then shares the story of one of the mutants there attacked by Purifiers who beat her and destroyed her voice box because she was different. Erg eventually says he will help her in exchange for her working with him by providing him information from the outside world.

Lauren and Reed are driving back when he suggests that they don’t tell Caitlin which Lauren pushes back against saying that he had promised no more secrets. Reed tries to justify it but Lauren tells him about a time where she lied to when she used her powers after she was harassed by a boy at a party. She blamed it on a group of mutants after he said that it was his job to go after mutants who use their powers dangerously. Reed is stunned and Lauren worries that her staying quiet then might have led to their current situation.

At the morlocks’ hideout John is waiting when Clarice returns from her meeting and she shares the information she got about the Inner Circle’s activities – they hacked into the Health Department. Marcos is holding baby Dawn while the doctor performs some tests. Marcos is understandably reluctant to leave, but hands over the rattle he made and says he made the wrong decision when he let her leave with the Frost Sisters. He asks Lorna to go with him, but she refuses and Lorna says that Marcos staying there would not work out.

As Marcos is being led out under the influence of the Frost Sisters. His strong feelings for Lorna and Dawn break through their mind control and he attacks them, He is stopped by Reeva who uses her powers to disrupt his attack causing him to burn his own arm and ultimately knocks him unconscious. Jace returns to the police department only to find that the Sergeant has called Atlanta and heard the Sentinel Services story on him as a rogue agent. He asks Jace to leave and as he does we see desk officer Wilson (Tom O’Keefe) watching the confrontation with interest.

John and Clarice talk about the morlocks and he finally opens up about what Evangeline said to him. She said he was a failure and that Lorna and Andy will never leave the Inner Circle and were instead more likely to become adversaries who they had to kill. They are interrupted by John sensing a beaten up and barely standing Marcos coming in the door telling them where he has been and saying he wants to hit the Inner Circle back.

Reed comes back to the clinic and has a talk with Caitlin and tells her about his mutant powers coming back. He reveals it started when Andy left with headaches which was similar to how it started when he was a child. The two hug while Lauren watches on with tears in her eyes. Back at the Inner circle the Frosts and Reeva discuss how much of a problem Marcos might prove to be and how he was able to break their control. Reeva is eager to look to the future and put their big plan in motion as we move to the end credits.