Marvel

‘The Gifted’ Pilot: “Exposed” Recap With Spoilers

The police are chasing Blink, a fugitive mutant who escaped from a holding facility. The corner […]

The police are chasing Blink, a fugitive mutant who escaped from a holding facility. The corner her in an alley, but she uses her power ability to create a portal to escape, taking half of a police vehicle with her.

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Thunderbird, accompanied by Polaris and Eclipse, uses his tracking ability to track down Blink. Her teleportation abilities are it making it difficult for him, but they eventually find the front of the cop car.

They find Blink inside an abandoned workshop. She’s apprehensive at first, but they convince her that they’ve come to help her and are not with the police. Thunderbird tells them that the police have arrived.

Polaris uses her ability to control magnetism to kills the lights, including those on the police vehicles outside. The cops open fire while Thunderbird searches for another way out. Eclipse uses his ability to produce light to blind the cops while they all try to escape out the back of the building.

On the way to their way out, Eclipse is shot in the arm by an officer. His wound emits bright light. Polaris goes into a rage and uses her power to assault the police. They use a taser to incapacitate her and take her in while the other mutants escape.

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The next day, Reed and Caitlin Strucker are at Bellview High School talking to the principal about Andy, their son who they believe is being bullied. They become annoyed with the principal and Reed threatens to sue the school if they don’t get his son help. He then gets a message that he needs to go the “Garland” to conference with a suspect.

Lauren Strucker, Andy’s sister, is video-chatting with her boyfriend and trying to figure out what to wear ot the dance. She heads downstairs for dinner with her mother and Andy, but things get awkward when Caitlin asks Andy about his day and the topic turns to mutants.

At the Garland Detention Center, Reed enters Polaris’ plastic cell. He offers Polaris reduced charges in exchange for information on the mutant underground. She refuses. He opens the door to her cell and enters and tells her that he’s trying to help her. She uses her powers to manipulate the metal screws in Reed’s knee, making the point that if she wanted to kill anyone they’d be dead. Reed gives her a document alerting her to a factor she may not have been aware of. This new information upsets Polaris and she lashes out with her powers.

Caitlin goes to the car to leave for the dance and is surprised to find Andy waiting for her in the passenger seat. He snuck out but convinces her to let him come along.

They get to the dance and Lauren splits off from Andy to hang out with her boyfriend. Andy tries to ask a girl to dance, but the girl walks away before he has the chance. He then notices his bullies have arrived. They start pushing him around, angry about the call their parents got from the principal, and then shove him into a locker room.

They hold him down and start spraying him with cold and then hot shower water. Andy lashes out under the stress, pulling everything around towards him, causing walls of the school to crumble and lights to shatter. Pipes bend and the ceiling starts to fall in.

The kids at the dance run for the door, but Lauren runs back inside to look for Andy, using her own mutant gift to create forcefields to shield herself from falling debris. She finds him still screaming. She manages to calm him down enough for them to begin running for the exit.

Act II

The Gifted Pilot Blink

Thunderbird and Eclipse brought Blink to a mutant underground cell house in Atlanta. Blink is filled in on what’s happened.

Thunderbirdย patches up Eclipse. They argue about whether they should go rescue Polaris until the news comes in about the incident at the high school, which ends the conversation.

At home, Andy tries to explain what happened to Caitlin. In the course of the conversation, Lauren also reveals that she’s a mutant and that her powers first manifested three years ago. She was afraid to tell her parents because of what Reed does for a living.

Sentinel Services, led by agent Jace Turner, comes to the Struckers’ front door looking for Andy and Lauren. Caitlin tries to block them, but they knock her over and enter the house. Andy intimidatesย them with his powers, allowing them to escapes in their car.

Act III

The Gifted Pilot Jace Turner

Caitlin calls Reed from a payphone and tries to explain what happened. It takes him a minute to realize that they weren’t attacked by mutants at the school, but that they are the mutants from the school.

Reed reunites with them at a diner on the outskirts of Atlanta. HE tries to assess the situation from a legal perspective. Its only then that Caitlin mentions that it was Sentinel Services and not the police who came for the kids. He says Sentinel Services is a federal agency. He becomes more concerned and tells the family that they have to go on the run and try to get out of the country. He remembers that the last time Sentinel Services got involved in one of his cases the subject disappeared.

Turner goes to Reed’s office to scour it for information.ย Reed’s colleague, Carla, notices this. As she walks outside, she gets a call from Reed asking for the files on the underground mutant network. She’s worried, but agrees to help him because it involves his children.

The other Struckers are hiding out a motel. Andy and Lauren walk outside and discuss their shared mutant status. Lauren has learned to control her powers a bit. She shows him by manipulating a bag of chips inside a vending machine. Andy tries to do something similar and ends up crushing the machine.

Back at the undergoundย hideout, Blink approaches Eclipse to thank him for saving her. She asks for more information on the organization. He says its a national network with cells in big cities and that it was first founded just after the mutant laws went into effect, which was just before the X-Men disappeared. This particlarย cell was founded by Polaris and set up in a this abandoned bank that was abandonedย since “Oakwood.”

Eclipse is eager ot rescue Polaris. He asks if Blink’sย powers could get them into the holding facility where Polaris is kept, but she tells and then shows him that if she tries to go somewhere she can’t see or hasn’t been the result can be bad.

Eclipse’s phone rings and he’s surprised to find Reed Strucker on the other end. Reed offers Eclipse information on Polaris and the DA’sย case against the underground in exchange for help for his family. Reed tells Eclipse that Polaris is pregnant.

Act IV

The Gifted Pilot

The Struckers wake up in their hotel room. They notice a Sentinel Services drone outside the motel searching for them. Fearing that the drone will recognize their vehicle, Lauren uses her powers to help the family hijack a worker’s truck make a quick getaway.

Eclipse waits at Tex’sย lounge to meet with Reed. Reed arrives and they have a tense negotiation about Polaris, with Eclipse revealing it is his child she’s pregnant with, and how Eclipse can help Reed’s family, but they finally come to an agreement and Eclipse gives Reed a location. The deal is that Reed’s family goes tonight, but Reed stays behind until they find Polaris.

At the mutant hideout, Blink tells Thunderbirdย that Eclipse snuckย off to help a family. Thunderbirdย tells Blink to come along so they can find him.

The Struckersย meet with Eclipse. Eclipse is telling them about how they’ll get the family past the southern wall and hooked up with new identities when Sentinel Services arrives. Reed tries to negotiate, but Turner isn’t hearing it.

Thunderbirdย and Blink arrive, and they all flee. Turner gives the order to deploy robotic weapons to pursue their targets. One of them attaches itself to Thunderbird’s leg. Eclipse uses his powers to shoot it off, but it repairs itself enough to keep pursuing.

The chase continues. The mutants find themselves cornered by the robots. Eclipse shoots some of them and Lauren puts up a forcefield, but she can’t hold it forever. Thunderbirdย tells Blink that she has to open a portal for them to escape. She does, and the group begins diving through one by one. Andy uses his powers to tear all of the Sentinel robots apart. They all make it through the portal except Reed, who is shot and can’t make it through before Blink passes out and the portal closes.