The Gifted season 2, episode 13 review: teMpted

The stakes continue to rise on The Gifted, as “teMpted” ends with a bang.

The pressure’s rising even more for the characters of The Gifted with episode 13 of its second season, titled “teMpted.”

Last week’s “hoMe” had a lot of moving parts to keep track of: Jace Turner (Coby Bell), still fuming about losing his captive John Proudstar/Thunderbird (Blair Redford) in “eneMy of My eneMy,” covered for a Purifier colleague’s murder of a possibly-mutant teen. Lorna Dane/Polaris (Emma Dumont) continued to spy on the Inner Circle, though she was unable to prevent the assassination of lawyer Evangeline Whedon (Erinn Ruth).

Clarice Fong/Blink (Jamie Chung) finally gave up on the Mutant Underground and broke up with Thunderbird, joining Erg’s (Michael Luwoye) group of Morlocks in the sewers.

With the Struckers, Caitlin (Amy Acker) and Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) took a road trip back to Atlanta to try to see if a relative could help them, only to narrowly escape a Sentinel Services ambush. Back in DC, Reed (Stephen Moyer) discovered the hidden letter in the music box from his ancestor Andreas and finished Lauren’s translation, while his incineration powers flare up again.

After a dream-fight drew actual blood in real life, the Frost sisters (Skyler Samuels) are trying to use Andy’s (Percy Hynes White) telepathic connection to Lauren to convince her to join the Inner Circle.

Back to the clinic

After a Morlock raid for supplies goes awry, Glow (the optimist from “afterMath” and “meMento,” played by Laysia De Oliviera) is shot and is bleeding out badly, forcing Blink into talking Erg into bringing Caitlin in to do surgery. With great reluctance, he agrees.

And Eclipse is needed as a blood donor, as his similar light abilities mean he’ll be the only known match, so he’s dragged along, too, and spends a lot of the episode trying to ignore Glow’s drugged-up flirting.

In order to complete the transfusion, though, Caitlin needs to manufacture a serum, and can only do that at the clinic. So they go to the abandoned clinic, narrowly avoid a Purifier attack, and escape back to the sewers. Erg gets shot, though not before Caitlin guns someone down.

Lone wolf…or part of the pack?

Lauren can feel her psychic connection with Andy has gone haywire, due to the Frosts’ meddling, and she’s trying everything she can think of to keep from falling asleep. That can’t work forever, though, so when she finally drops into sleep, the Frosts use Andy to set up a meeting the next day.

In the morning, Reed finds a note Lauren’s scribbled down, saying she needs to figure things out, and he grabs Thunderbird to help track her down. Lauren wanders around the city lost in thought, interrupting a police harassment of mutants at the bus station before finally arriving at the meeting place, where Reed and Thunderbird eventually catch up with her.

Reed explains about his fascination with the music box and the pull of the dark power contained within their bloodline, but says he thinks he has an idea for a temporary fix to halt the siren call of the Fenris.

Polarity reigns

At Inner Circle HQ, Polaris breaks into Max’s (James Carpinello) room and finds blueprints to the Pentagon, the White House, and several other important buildings on his laptop. When he figures out that someone broke in, she hatches another plan with Eclipse: draw him out.

To do that, she uses her limited hacking abilities to gain access to Sage’s (Hayley Lovitt) surveillance camera footage, learning that Max occasionally goes to a particular liquor store.

https://twitter.com/TheGiftedonFOX/status/1087906285452849152

When he gets suspicious of her excessive friendliness, he confronts her during a training session, only to be lectured on her standing as Inner Circle royalty, thanks to her father.

Where things currently stand

In gratitude for saving Glow’s life, Erg grants Caitlin honorary status as a mutant, and as an honorary Morlock.

Reed gives Lauren a dose of the power-dousing serum, while the Frosts are quite unhappy with Andy since Lauren didn’t show up; and their connection is severed fro a time due to the serum.

Eclipse ambushes Max at the liquor store, unhappily torturing him into a carjacking, only to be shot six times at point-blank range. Eclipse staggers out of the car just before it blows up.

Mutant miscellany

• The Frosts talking through Andy made his connection to Lauren really uncomfortable tonight. Anyone else get that?
• Erg had a key role this episode; we learned in the flashback that the betrayal that split the Underground six years ago came from his non-mutant girlfriend.
• She’s no Skye from Agents of SHIELD, but Polaris does a pretty good job of surreptitiously gathering information.
• It sounded like Wallace Shawn was one of the mutants on the bus being harassed, though I didn’t see him.
• Blink’s sarcastic line of the night: “Can you make the science-ing any speedier so we can get out of here?”
• Saddest line of the night, also from Blink: “Can you guys hug Zingo (Thunderbird’s border collie) for me?”

The GIfted returns in two weeks with episode 13, titled “calaMity,” on Fox at 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, February 5. It looks like it will live up to its title – the trailer that played over the end credits included Reeva Payge (Grace Byers) and the Frosts discovering Lorna’s mole activities, Turner’s Purifiers invading the Morlock tunnels, and Blink getting shot during a battle.