The Gifted season 2, episode 11 review: meMento

The Gifted returned to the usual complications with “meMento.”

Fox ensemble action drama The Gifted returned with the eleventh episode of its sophomore season, titled “meMento.”

Last week in “eneMy of My eneMy,” the episode revolved almost entirely around the rescue attempt by the Atlanta Mutant Underground remnants to save John Proudstar/Thunderbird (Blair Redford) from the clutches of Jace Turner (Coby Bell) in the Purifier compound.

This meant a temporary reunion between Marcos Diaz/Eclipse (Sean Teale) and Lorna Dane/Polaris (Emma Dumont) and Andy Strucker (Percy Hynes White) with his parents Reed (Stephen Moyer) and Caitlin (Amy Acker) and his sister Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind), as Polaris and Andy left the Inner Circle headquarters to help their old teammate.

Ultimately the mission was successful, though Thunderbird was heavily wounded by repeated shotgun blasts to the chest. Caitlin vowed to eradicate the Inner Circle in an effort to get Andy to return to the family permanently.

Given the tunnel vision of last week, this episode started to deal with the unresolved plot threads laid elsewhere throughout the season – with the emphasis on “started.”

A haunting melody

Lauren is obsessed with the heirloom from Andreas von Strucker, listening to the music box’s melody on repeat while researching everything she can find on the internet about her family history. Because her parents are Reed and Caitlin, they argue over whether this obsession is a good thing or not.

When a nightmare causes her to flash back to the night when Andrea died, she starts hurling razor-sharp energy discs around the room, smashing up more furniture. (Like father like daughter.) After the landlord calls the cops, and Caitlin masterminds a diversion to shoo them away, Lauren finds a hidden letter from Andreas saying basically, “It’s up to you now,” where she then threatens the landlord with about as much ferocity as Andy (Percy Hynes White) did the Purifier last week.

More Eclaris friction

Lorna can’t decide what to do. So she pulls Marcos’ SUV off the road to help her think things through. Reeva (Grace Byers) is plotting something so devious Polaris is seriously reconsidering jumping ship again, for good this time. Apparently the mass breakouts in “gaMe changer” set free a crew of mass murderers who annihilated most of the passengers on a cruise ship several years ago.

On a visit to the Morlocks’ sewers, Eclipse again meets (and flirts with) the pretty optimist from “afterMath,” though again nothing happens, as she can tell he still cares deeply for Polaris. Again, she has good advice for him, to forgive her and try to pick up from the rubble they’ve made of their relationship.

When she drops into his apartment for a minute some time later, they have a heart-to-heart talk and manage to start again.

Turner coming around?

Turner is still processing his interrogation with Thunderbird in the last episode, and he grabs Ted (who survived a door blasted into him) for a quick raid on a homeless shelter for teens that might be harboring mutants.

After it seems like he could see the error of his ways after a teen points out the injustice of his actions, Ted straight-up shoots another teen in the other room for no reason, and Turner unhappily covers for Ted to prevent his suffering a horrible fate in jail.

While TV personality and secret high-level Purifier Benedict Ryan (Peter Gallagher) spouts on his show about the need for humans to rise against mutants, and spins it into Turner being a hero in stopping a terrorist plot, Paula calls and hints she might want to get back together. To his credit, due to his guilt over his choice, he immediately hangs up.

Where things currently stand

Andy is thrilled by the new Inner Circle recruits.

As soon as he’s recovered enough to remain conscious, Thunderbird gets a phone call from Evangeline Whedon (Erinn Ruth) telling him that the leaders of what few Mutant Underground chapters need to meet immediately to form a war council.

Erg (Michael Luwoye) has agreed to help out the Underground, in return for an unspecified favor in return from Clarice Fong/Blink (Jamie Chung).

While spying on Reeva, Polaris and Eclipse witness a meeting between her and Ryan, where they exchange file folders.

Given a real-life presidential speech, the start of this episode was delayed by about twenty minutes. This GIF from the Fox Twitter account seemed very appropriate.

Mutant miscellany

• It could be that my math is off, but I thought Andrea and Andreas were active in the 1950s. The cold open flashback was dated 1895 New Orleans, shortly after Andrea died. How does that work?
• “People bend, people adapt, but they don’t really change,” Caitlin tells Blink.
• “I need you help,” Lorna states quietly with meaning. “So you turn to carjacking?” Marcos asks.
• “Do you want the Understatement of the Year award sent to your house?” Blink wearily snaps at Marcos.
• Murderous Lauren feels much more dangerous than Murderous Andy.

The Gifted’s next episode, “hoMe,” will air on Tuesday, January 15 on Fox. It will mark the three-quarters mark for the season as episode 12 of 16; the Frosts (Skyler Samuels) are trying to recruit Lauren, whose abilities are rapidly increasing in power. Hopefully more threads will begin to be resolved.