The Gifted Midseason Finale Recap: “eXploited”

Capitalizing on a strong cliffhanger from last week, The Gifted “eXploited,” is a fantastic midseason finale.

With a good portion of the group captured by Agent Turner last week, everyone has to work quickly to save them. Despite the Mutant Underground splitting up into to two different opposing groups, new addition Esme manages to save the day.

With the Strucker siblings, Dreamer, and Blink all in the custody of Sentinel Services, the clock is ticking for the Mutant Underground to rescue them during “eXploited.” Their worries are no longer about whether one of the members will give up the location of the base, but that they’ll be turned into mutant-killing hounds.

Things escalate even further when Agent Turner willingly hands over the four prisoners to Dr. Campbell so that he can happily experiment on the two children. Polaris believes they should storm the lab now because every second they wait means that the kids could become Campbell’s drugged up puppets. However, Reed and Caitlin want to try and figure out a way to get them out without unnecessary bloodshed.

Esme doesn’t exactly care about what either side wants in “eXploited,” because she’s so focused on getting her sisters back. In the cold opening, viewers get a tiny tidbit of a backstory showing that she had infiltrated an anti-mutant senator’s campaign and only managed to escape with the help of a telepathic warning.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough time to see how she conned her way into politics, but thankfully Skyler Samuels gets a little more to do this week than sulk in the darkness. She convinces the Struckers to approach Agent Turner by pointing out that jail is better than torture for their kids. After they leave, she immediately alerts Polaris of their “betrayal,” and how they can attack the transport if the family does manage to convince Sentinel Services to bring the prisoners back to jail.

Of course, Reed and Caitlin do manage to get Agent Turner to get their kids out of Dr. Campbell’s torture chamber. To be exact, Caitlin manages to appeal to his wife by explaining the horrific details of abuse her family has endured at the hands of her husband and what her children will be subjected to. Sadly, they get the mutants moved too late because Dreamer meets her demise when she tries to protect Lauren and Andy.

Dr. Campbell wants to get their Fenris powers and the kids refuse to give it to him. Yet the cold-hearted way he executes Sonya convinces them to give in because they’re too afraid of losing Blink as well. Even Agent Turner, the man who wanted revenge on her since she messed with his mind, is uncomfortable upon learning of their treatment.

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Any sympathy he has for mutants in “exploited,” gets completely erased by the final scenes. When Marcos takes Esme to go scout the area, she subdues him and mounts her real attack. It was a little sad to see how weak telepaths are portrayed on The Gifted and the XCU in general, but that was all just a ruse for that shocking ending.

Turns out, Esme doesn’t just look into people’s minds, she can also control them. She has the guards turn off the mutant shock colors and then proceeds to have all of the guards kill themselves/each other. Once she’s taken everyone out, she’s reunited with her sisters/clones, the other two Cuckoos. It’s an amazing scene and a huge payoff for comic book fans to see these three characters embrace their calculating but powerful nature. In the closed caption, they’re referred to as the “Frost Triplets,” which does confirm that they will have some relation to infamous villain/anti-hero Emma Frost.

“eXploited,” ends with the Stepford Cuckoos apparently kidnapping Andy, Lauren, and Blink before the Underground can get to them in time. It’s likely that the three of them are working for their own cause and it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the rest of the season.

Next: The Gifted Recap: “outfoX”

In a recent interview, Skyler Samuel left the possibility of Emma Frost showing up on the show open. Could this be the start of the Hellfire Club? We hope so.