‘The Gifted’ Recap With Spoilers: “iMprint”

The episode opens to a flashback of the Frost sisters, just girls at this point, within some kind of facility where they are being held prisoner with power-dampening powers. They are taken out for an “exercise” and ordered to go into another prisoner’s mind and find the secret he’s hiding. He hides his thoughts. The facilitator tells them to become “three minds in one” and work together. Esme resists but agrees after he threatens her family.

In the present day, Esme is in the Frost Sisters’ putting a balm on the burn wound that Eclipse gave her. Andy and Rebecca eat breakfast. Andy finds Polaris and tells her that it is time for another training session. Polaris is annoyed with the intense training but agrees to come along.

The Frosts try to decide what to wear. Sophie and Phoebe are annoyed that they always have to wear sleeves to compensate for Esme’s burn.

The training session sees Polaris, Rebecca, and Andy train for a SWAT team assault. They perform well, but Polaris is annoyed with how vague Reeva has been about what they’re actually training for. Reeva refuses to reveal anything more.

Caitlin checks Lauren for a concussion after Lauren’s head trauma, but she doesn’t think Lauren has one. Caitlin was able to track down a psychologist that work at Lynwood with Rebecca. She plans to pay a visit and try to find out what the Inner Circle wants with Rebecca. Reed wants to go with Caitlin, but Caitlin says Reed need to stick to training to get a hold of his new mutant powers. Reed says his powers remind him of when he was sick as a kid.

Jace speaks at another gathering of Purifiers. He’s been looking at the patient files from the clinic. He noticed that certain mutants being transferred to Baltimore have gone missing. Jace expects the Mutant Underground. He cautions about being too brutal or drastic and being labeled a hate group.

Lauren and Andy communicate in dreams. Andy tries to convince Lauren to come to the Inner Circle’s side. Lauren notices the inside-out safe from the Inner Circle’s training room. She touches it and when she wakes up her finger is bleeding.

The Frost Sisters try to convince Reeva to share some information with Polaris. Reeva says she doesn’t have time but gives the Frosts permission to handle it.

Polaris is trying to comfort her crying baby. Esme secretly uses her psychic powers to calm the child and get her to fall asleep. Polaris says she needs to go see what it is the Inner Circle is planning for herself, that she owes it to dawn. Esme agrees to take her.

Reed trains with Thunderbird. John tries to teach Reed about the connection between his powers and his emotions. Thunderbird berates Reed and his power triggers and destroys a radiator.

Eclipse and Blink show up with footage from Shatter of the Purifiers bombing a church where mutants were saying. Thunderbird decides they need to stand together. They head out to meet with Shatter and his cell. Shatter tells them how they are overflowing with mutants who need a place to lay low and that their human allies aren’t available any longer. Thunderbird keeps trying to encourage Reed to work through his emotions, but Reed isn’t interested in opening up.

Shatter overhears the conversation. Reed is trying to work on new fake IDs for the mutants. Shatter shares the story of how he woke up a mutant, looking different and turning things into crystals. He tried to kill himself with a bullet to his head but only cracked his outer skin. Shatter encourages Reed to accept who he is.

Esme brings Polaris to the see the Inner Circle’s target, Creed financial. Esme tells Polaris about how Creed has pushed an anti-mutant agenda, funded the Kick epidemic, and has ties to Purifiers. Polaris is still skeptical. Esme reveals that Creed Financial funded the lab that created Esme and her sisters. They’re clones. She tells Polaris about how they used their psychic powers to mind control the lab’s guards and escape the lab.

Reed senses a problem when he realizes that none of the mutants in the church when it was bombed were hurt. Thunderbird realizes it’s a trap. The mutant underground prepares to evacuate everybody but the Purifiers are already there.

Jace offers to turn any mutant who turns themselves over to the proper authorities. The other Purifiers are itching to open fire.

Esme and Polaris return to the Inner Circle’s headquarters. They’re in good spirits, but Polaris notices Esme humming a tune. It’s the lullaby Polaris sings to Dawn when they’re alone, that was passed down to Polaris from her aunt and her mother. Polaris realizes that Esme was in Dawn’s head. She uses her powers to tighten Esme’s necklace around her neck. Polaris warns Esme that if any of the Frost Sisters so much as looks at Dawn she will kill them. Reeva uses her power to force the elevator open and stop Polaris, who storms away angry.

Lauren tells Caitlin about the dream she had with Andy last night. Lauren says Caitlin wouldn’t recognize Andy now.

Caitlin and Lauren meet with Dr. Taylor. They ask about Rebecca Hoover. That immediately puts Taylor on edge, but she says she’ll tell them what she can. Taylor says she had issues with the treatment of patients at Lynwood. She leaves to go get her notes. Laren senses that something is wrong. Lauren finds Taylor calling someone on the phone for help. Lauren uses her powers to crush the phone and demands answers. Taylor says she can’t talk about her patients. Caitlin reminds Taylor about her other patient, Michael, but Taylor says it wasn’t up to her and she should have done more. Taylor shows Lauren and Caitlin a video of Rebecca turning a Lynwood orderly inside out. She did the same thing to her own family.

The Frosts and Reeva argue about what to do with Lorna. Phoebe and Sophie want to just use mind control. Esme says that can’t be their solution to everything, that that’s what the Creed scientist wanted them to be. Reeva decides it’ll do for now.

Thunderbird and Blink try to come up with an escape plan. Blink is going to open up a portal for everyone to escape through as fast as they can. Before she can open it, the Purifiers throw gas into the building. The mutants scatter.

A group of them are cornered. There’s a service elevator, but there’s a wall between where they are and where the elevator is. Reed thinks he can use his powers to break down the wall while Shatter draws the Purifiers’ fire and Eclipse provides cover. Reed struggles to work up the emotion to trigger his powers. Jace fires an armor-piercing round at Shatter, breaking through him and killing him. Reed gets the wall down and the mutants head for the elevator.

Esme tries to make amends with Polaris. She apologizes for going inside of Dawn’s head. Esme says she felt the love of a mother inside Dawn, something she has never felt. She tells the rest of her story. There were originally five Frost sisters. Celeste and Mindee were held back as leverage on the day the other three made their escape. They tried to save their sisters, but they couldn’t get them out in time and the lab killed them. Esme says she never told anyone that story before, not even Reeva. She says she felt her sisters dying as it was happening. Esme says she would do anything to protect Dawn from that and that whether or not Polaris helps the Inner Circle she is on Polaris and Dawn’s side.

Jace examines a piece of Shatter. The press is covering the Purifiers assault as the biggest mutant bust in years. Jace says that wasn’t how he wanted things to go down, but then he learns that Shatter was one of the mutants who supposedly died in Atlanta.

Caitlin and Lauren return home to find that Reed has lost control of his powers and destroyed much of the furniture in their apartment.