1x09 The Cure

[7.4/10] This is another episode that's a bit too narratively busy for my tastes. But it has a certain plot structure that helps. You have four separate groups trying to find Dr. Adler -- Rogue on the one hand, Avalanche & Pyro on the other, Cable lurking around as well, and Professor X and Moira McTaggert bringing up the rear. (And that's before you get to Cyclops and Jean showing up.) Mixing and matching them makes the episode a little jumbled, but the fact that they’re all roughly after the same thing helps provide at least a little focus to this one.

What I appreciate about this episode though is the focus it puts on Rogue. The advent of a supposed cure creates some existential questions for the X-Men. Mutants are ostracized for being different. The ones we know can largely pass in regular society, but the Morlochs can't, and not every mutation is easy to live with. The question over whether to embrace the prospect of a cure not only raises interesting questions about the pros and cons of these gifts, but dovetails nicely with real life questions about disabilities, and whether it’s right to want to cure things that have people lead different, but no less worthy lives.

Rogue is a good focal point for that. It’s easier for Wolverine and Storm to declare that they’d never give up being mutants because their powers give them nothing but benefits. (That’s an oversimplification, but you know what I mean.) For Rogue though, hers means she can't ever get physically close with someone, can't feel physical affection, without hurting the ones she loves. You can understand why she would seriously consider giving up her strength and flight if it meant she could experience close contact again. (And our chance to see her unfortunate first kiss in a show-don’t-tell flashback drives that point home.)

The show takes that idea seriously, even as it makes things a little overblown pr the aries’ usual high volume emotional setting. But she has a good arc here: asking for Dr. adler’s help, getting involved in the cody of errors that comes from all these people looking for the same person, and coming to decide that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks when her powers allow her to save Jean’s life, and she realizes the good she can do and the person she’s become worth holding onto, even if it comes with challenges. I like that idea a lot.

The rest of this is largely plot machinations, but I can appreciate most of this. I dig that Cable’s still around, going after Dr. Adler because he created the collars that allowed Trask and Gyrich to imprison the mutants on Genosha. Avalanche and Pyro looking to become Apocalypse’s goons is straightforward, and the pair are fairly generic, but they make for decently colorful intermediate obstacles for the good guys, which is about all you can ask for from low-level mooks. Xavier and Moira trying to get to the bottom of Adler’s research and cure isn’t bad either.

I’ll confess that I find the introductions for Apocalypse and Mystique a little underwhelming given what significant roles they play in the typical X-Men stories. I mean really, Apocalypse trying to get his hands on a machine that makes mutants into his slaves is pretty mild superhero stuff, rather than Big Bad shit. But he does have a visually-striking look, and the notion of Mystique killing off the real scientist and taking his place is a nice entree to her powers.

Plus hey, the debut of Angel! He too is a good stand-in for the mutants who have gifts and resources, but for whom the visible parts of their mutations create challenges in romance and other aspects of their life. If I recall correctly, he’ll cross paths with our heroes and Apocalypse again, so it’s nice to plant the seeds for that here.

Otherwise, I like the homage to “Nightmare at 20,000 feet” from The Twilight Zone with Rogue. And Rogue interacting with Mystique and Cyclops interacting with Cable has a certain cachet that I wonder if the show will follow-up on down the line.

Overall, this one is a bit too overstuffed, like several X-Men episodes so far, but the Rogue material is good, and what this seems to be setting up for later on gives it some extra oomph.