Wolverine and the X-Men 1x24-25
Dec. 25th, 2020 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urth posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tori_reviewsI hope you all are having a good and safe Christmas/holiday season. I can't offer much, but have a twofer review.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x24: Foresight (Part 1)
Unlike the series premier 'three-parter' this actually seems like it might be a single story done over three parts; which raises the question that comes up sometimes whether I should review them as a single story or as three separate chapters. I think (going in, we're all acquainted with how wordy I can end up being) is that I'll hit a few high points of a review per episode but reserve most thoughts until it's done.
I continue to dislike how this show does Wolverine's enhanced senses. Either his nose can tell time or not. If the strength of a smell tells him the sequence of events so precisely then he should be able to tell if Emma was out there with the helicopter or if she came later. He does seem to be pretty sure, but why can't he then covey it to others? But if he can be that precise then why didn't he smell-see Emma and the other big wigs in Jean's room when he started there? It's actually less egregious here than it was in the samurai episode, but it's something I complain about.
In some ways this episode has more reason to focus on Logan than a lot of episodes have (if we accept him as team leader needing to be in charge of the big decisions); but as they showed the other characters I kept thinking how little we've gotten from most of them. Bobby and Kitty remain blank; Beast hasn't had any episodes focused on him; Storm really only got one plus a bit of extra focus in the Arch-Angel ep, and the stuff there came out of nowhere; Rogue's had jack all to do since she rejoined the X-men; where's Godzilla-girl? You'd think in a 26 ep season we'd know more about a few of these characters. Really, Wanda is more important than most of the X-men, and she doesn't have that much development.
I can't decide how much truth I think is in Emma's explanation of what those folks are up to. I'm sure it's not the 100% truth, but I can't decide if I think it's 80% true or 10%. I'd like it to be mostly true, that would show a little grey area in that the bad guys think they're doing the right thing but could easily end up destroying the world if they go on with this plan. And to a small degree I think the show still wants us to side with Emma and not see her as a true villain, so it's not impossible that they're going the misguided route; but I get serious vibes of them trying to harvest the Phoenix power, maybe put it into Emma so that kind of power is on their side for...whatever else they want to do. I also kind of wish these guys had appeared at any other point in the season, contributing more to the story than standing around in ridiculous outfits for the final confrontation; they could have been behind other schemes showing their motivations ahead of time.
You may notice I'm not sure how to refer to this group. The only thing they've been called so far is the 'Inner Circle' and I know sometimes a group like this gets called the 'Circle Club' because it should be. the 'Hellfire Club' but they don't put that in a kids show. And since I have questions about their motivations, I'm not sure whether or not to call the the 'Phoenix Cult.'
I also have serious questions about the identical ladies standing around here. That's too weird for me not to have questions about. I'm also going to have things to say in the end about Emma's treatment of Scott throughout this show (and Logan to a lesser extent).
Also, I can't recall a lot of other X-Men media I'm aware of where Kelly is the good and reasonable one. Yeah, it's comparison to Magneto, and I don't really understand Magneto's motivations, but kind of an odd choice.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x25: Foresight (Part 2)
Well I got some of my questions from part 1 seen to, others not so much.
I think I am going to go with Phoenix Cult, and their motivations are about what I expected the story would go with. They didn't want to make Emma the bad guy but they're not playing very level with Jean either. I'm pretty sure early in the season I said she was giving me Ward vibes, except this it more what people (including me) expected them to do with Ward right after the reveal, have them not be that bad and mostly trying to do the right thing just misguided in judgment. I'm not sure which I would say is more interesting in concept; after all very few people think of themselves as the bad guy in the story and usually believe they're doing the right thing; on the other hand, actually committing to revealing that a character the audience was meant to like on first encounter was actually a villain and not give them a redemption arc is something you rarely see. Both take a lot of planning though, and while I do think there are glitches in how well the Ward reveal holds together on close examination, it mostly worked; while this seems shallow. Did the Phoenix Cult suddenly change their goal in the last few weeks/months while Emma was out; if so, why isn't there more dissension? Were they always like this but deliberately kept her in the dark; if so wouldn't her telepathy have either given her an inkling or at least noticed they were working to keep her out of something?
Also, I feel this is another place where the unstated ages of the characters is a problem; because Emma has been presented as a cunning adult throughout the season, but here she seems like a naive young adult. Yes, adults can be misguided and have their loyalties changed, but having the whole rest of the group turn on her/the plan so quickly makes me feel that she's the one who missed something.
I still don't understand who the telepath girls are (they just seem like function props so far, but they're weird. And, if they're supposed to have power comparable to Frost, could they not have knocked her out too when they took Jean? They could have done it to less of a degree and there could have been an excuse offered about why she'd wake up first; but if they're not completely letting her be part of the in-club nor taking her with them so she was sure to be around when Jean woke up, why did she need to be part of their leaving the mansion? Hell, making it seem like whoever took Jean also took Emma, like maybe they're collecting telepaths might have been a better idea; it's not like she needed to do anything more to put them off the scent and none of them can use Cerebro.
What this episode mainly made me want was an intense family drama around the Maximoffs and running Genosha. Because as Genosha was being destroyed I kept wishing that we had spent more time there so we cared about what was being crushed. And there's some bizarre family dynamics I want fully explored; there's a lot of material in the way it seems Magneto babies Lorna, disrespects Pietro, and favors (in an abusive way) Wanda, that I wish was fully explored. This would have been a lot more interesting than most of the Wolverine episodes this season.
I haven't actually talked about the future plot in either of these eps so far, and it's because I find I don't care. That world doesn't feel real, and I know the show isn't going to have it become real, so I don't really have a hook to catch on to. Charles is still alive in the present, he's just projecting himself back in time occasionally. Not to draw a second AoS parallel, but as flawed as the s5 future arc is, it was actually our characters experiencing it and it gave us and them a good view of what was at stake if they couldn't change the history of the future. This hasn't laid out time travel rules that have any logic to them, nor has it made the future feel like a realized world, nor any of the characters in it matter; and I include Charles in that, we haven't seen him in his natural environment to get us invested in him and the show keeps presenting him as an asshole (probably unintentionally).
One thing I did think about this episode though; future-Logan should be telling the story. It's Wolverine and the X-men because we're seeing Logan's POV on how the world ended. None of this dumb-ass Logan should be the leader nonsense, he's the survivor (because he would be) and he and Charles go on a quest to change things. They could even keep some of the dumb Logan side stories we had to sit through, because we're seeing events from his POV; which would also explain why most of the other characters disappear from the story or aren't fully developed, Logan wasn't paying attention to know if Bobby and Kitty were dating or what was going on between Magneto and Kelly. I don't know that that would have worked, but it might have justified some things (while leaving the question of why they made the choice to foreground Logan so much at all) and been a more interesting version.
While I suspect the show can stick the landing in terms of these last few episodes, in terms of redeeming the season for being so uneven and dumb or addressing it's major flaws, I have my doubts.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x24: Foresight (Part 1)
Unlike the series premier 'three-parter' this actually seems like it might be a single story done over three parts; which raises the question that comes up sometimes whether I should review them as a single story or as three separate chapters. I think (going in, we're all acquainted with how wordy I can end up being) is that I'll hit a few high points of a review per episode but reserve most thoughts until it's done.
I continue to dislike how this show does Wolverine's enhanced senses. Either his nose can tell time or not. If the strength of a smell tells him the sequence of events so precisely then he should be able to tell if Emma was out there with the helicopter or if she came later. He does seem to be pretty sure, but why can't he then covey it to others? But if he can be that precise then why didn't he smell-see Emma and the other big wigs in Jean's room when he started there? It's actually less egregious here than it was in the samurai episode, but it's something I complain about.
In some ways this episode has more reason to focus on Logan than a lot of episodes have (if we accept him as team leader needing to be in charge of the big decisions); but as they showed the other characters I kept thinking how little we've gotten from most of them. Bobby and Kitty remain blank; Beast hasn't had any episodes focused on him; Storm really only got one plus a bit of extra focus in the Arch-Angel ep, and the stuff there came out of nowhere; Rogue's had jack all to do since she rejoined the X-men; where's Godzilla-girl? You'd think in a 26 ep season we'd know more about a few of these characters. Really, Wanda is more important than most of the X-men, and she doesn't have that much development.
I can't decide how much truth I think is in Emma's explanation of what those folks are up to. I'm sure it's not the 100% truth, but I can't decide if I think it's 80% true or 10%. I'd like it to be mostly true, that would show a little grey area in that the bad guys think they're doing the right thing but could easily end up destroying the world if they go on with this plan. And to a small degree I think the show still wants us to side with Emma and not see her as a true villain, so it's not impossible that they're going the misguided route; but I get serious vibes of them trying to harvest the Phoenix power, maybe put it into Emma so that kind of power is on their side for...whatever else they want to do. I also kind of wish these guys had appeared at any other point in the season, contributing more to the story than standing around in ridiculous outfits for the final confrontation; they could have been behind other schemes showing their motivations ahead of time.
You may notice I'm not sure how to refer to this group. The only thing they've been called so far is the 'Inner Circle' and I know sometimes a group like this gets called the 'Circle Club' because it should be. the 'Hellfire Club' but they don't put that in a kids show. And since I have questions about their motivations, I'm not sure whether or not to call the the 'Phoenix Cult.'
I also have serious questions about the identical ladies standing around here. That's too weird for me not to have questions about. I'm also going to have things to say in the end about Emma's treatment of Scott throughout this show (and Logan to a lesser extent).
Also, I can't recall a lot of other X-Men media I'm aware of where Kelly is the good and reasonable one. Yeah, it's comparison to Magneto, and I don't really understand Magneto's motivations, but kind of an odd choice.
Wolverine and the X-Men 1x25: Foresight (Part 2)
Well I got some of my questions from part 1 seen to, others not so much.
I think I am going to go with Phoenix Cult, and their motivations are about what I expected the story would go with. They didn't want to make Emma the bad guy but they're not playing very level with Jean either. I'm pretty sure early in the season I said she was giving me Ward vibes, except this it more what people (including me) expected them to do with Ward right after the reveal, have them not be that bad and mostly trying to do the right thing just misguided in judgment. I'm not sure which I would say is more interesting in concept; after all very few people think of themselves as the bad guy in the story and usually believe they're doing the right thing; on the other hand, actually committing to revealing that a character the audience was meant to like on first encounter was actually a villain and not give them a redemption arc is something you rarely see. Both take a lot of planning though, and while I do think there are glitches in how well the Ward reveal holds together on close examination, it mostly worked; while this seems shallow. Did the Phoenix Cult suddenly change their goal in the last few weeks/months while Emma was out; if so, why isn't there more dissension? Were they always like this but deliberately kept her in the dark; if so wouldn't her telepathy have either given her an inkling or at least noticed they were working to keep her out of something?
Also, I feel this is another place where the unstated ages of the characters is a problem; because Emma has been presented as a cunning adult throughout the season, but here she seems like a naive young adult. Yes, adults can be misguided and have their loyalties changed, but having the whole rest of the group turn on her/the plan so quickly makes me feel that she's the one who missed something.
I still don't understand who the telepath girls are (they just seem like function props so far, but they're weird. And, if they're supposed to have power comparable to Frost, could they not have knocked her out too when they took Jean? They could have done it to less of a degree and there could have been an excuse offered about why she'd wake up first; but if they're not completely letting her be part of the in-club nor taking her with them so she was sure to be around when Jean woke up, why did she need to be part of their leaving the mansion? Hell, making it seem like whoever took Jean also took Emma, like maybe they're collecting telepaths might have been a better idea; it's not like she needed to do anything more to put them off the scent and none of them can use Cerebro.
What this episode mainly made me want was an intense family drama around the Maximoffs and running Genosha. Because as Genosha was being destroyed I kept wishing that we had spent more time there so we cared about what was being crushed. And there's some bizarre family dynamics I want fully explored; there's a lot of material in the way it seems Magneto babies Lorna, disrespects Pietro, and favors (in an abusive way) Wanda, that I wish was fully explored. This would have been a lot more interesting than most of the Wolverine episodes this season.
I haven't actually talked about the future plot in either of these eps so far, and it's because I find I don't care. That world doesn't feel real, and I know the show isn't going to have it become real, so I don't really have a hook to catch on to. Charles is still alive in the present, he's just projecting himself back in time occasionally. Not to draw a second AoS parallel, but as flawed as the s5 future arc is, it was actually our characters experiencing it and it gave us and them a good view of what was at stake if they couldn't change the history of the future. This hasn't laid out time travel rules that have any logic to them, nor has it made the future feel like a realized world, nor any of the characters in it matter; and I include Charles in that, we haven't seen him in his natural environment to get us invested in him and the show keeps presenting him as an asshole (probably unintentionally).
One thing I did think about this episode though; future-Logan should be telling the story. It's Wolverine and the X-men because we're seeing Logan's POV on how the world ended. None of this dumb-ass Logan should be the leader nonsense, he's the survivor (because he would be) and he and Charles go on a quest to change things. They could even keep some of the dumb Logan side stories we had to sit through, because we're seeing events from his POV; which would also explain why most of the other characters disappear from the story or aren't fully developed, Logan wasn't paying attention to know if Bobby and Kitty were dating or what was going on between Magneto and Kelly. I don't know that that would have worked, but it might have justified some things (while leaving the question of why they made the choice to foreground Logan so much at all) and been a more interesting version.
While I suspect the show can stick the landing in terms of these last few episodes, in terms of redeeming the season for being so uneven and dumb or addressing it's major flaws, I have my doubts.
