[6.4/10] I have to give “Time Fugitives” this much: while the premise is still fairly convoluted, once you break it down to “Cable is fighting to save the future, and Bishop is fighting to save his future” the logistics pretty much stop mattering. You still can't think too hard about grandfather paradoxes and the like. But Bishop’s goal is to eradicate the plague, Cable’s goal is the opposite,and the X-Men are caught in the middle. Deep down, that's all you need to know.
That said, this episode is pretty much just a series of fight scenes. More than that, they’re mostly fight scenes the audience has already witnessed, with only Cable thrown into the mix to sweeten the pot. Sometimes that makes a difference. In the skirmish in front of the mutant plague quarantine house, the dueling shots from Bishop and Cable add something to the proceedings. Small touches like Cable using a hologram of himself to dodge attacks and deliver responses has some verve to it.
For the most part though this is pretty much nonstop fireworks without much that makes it memorable, especially when muscle-bond, Liefeld-inspired brutes shooting energy beams of one form or another at another comes a dime a dozen on X-Men.
But I give the show credit for a clever solution to the problem between Bishop and Cable. Using Wolverine as a way to forge the cure that helps stop the plague in the here and now, while also creating the antibodies that stabilize the mutant genome and permit Cable’s future to proceed is a deft choice. It uses Wolverine's healing factor to thread the needle between the two of them, and Cable making the difference in the fight against Apocalypse with his future tech is a nice way to forge a different outcome than the one we saw in the last episode, even if you can't think too hard about how the temporal mechanics of it all work.
I’ll admit, I’m a little tired of Bishop going back to the future and finding that everything’s still a dystopia, since we’ve already done that twice now, but so it goes with superhero stories. And Cable reuniting with his son in the future is sweet, even if it’s silly that this cyborg warrior two thousand years in the future has a kid named “Tyler.” Oh, and as someone who’s in the know, the cryptic hints from Cable and Jean about his connection to her and Cyclops makes for sufficient hook for the reveals in the offing.
Overall, this is still a bit of an unengaging duology since it’s all flash and little substance, but they at least manage to find a clever and satisfying conclusion to the story, which counts for a lot.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-04-24T22:34:07Z
[6.4/10] I have to give “Time Fugitives” this much: while the premise is still fairly convoluted, once you break it down to “Cable is fighting to save the future, and Bishop is fighting to save his future” the logistics pretty much stop mattering. You still can't think too hard about grandfather paradoxes and the like. But Bishop’s goal is to eradicate the plague, Cable’s goal is the opposite,and the X-Men are caught in the middle. Deep down, that's all you need to know.
That said, this episode is pretty much just a series of fight scenes. More than that, they’re mostly fight scenes the audience has already witnessed, with only Cable thrown into the mix to sweeten the pot. Sometimes that makes a difference. In the skirmish in front of the mutant plague quarantine house, the dueling shots from Bishop and Cable add something to the proceedings. Small touches like Cable using a hologram of himself to dodge attacks and deliver responses has some verve to it.
For the most part though this is pretty much nonstop fireworks without much that makes it memorable, especially when muscle-bond, Liefeld-inspired brutes shooting energy beams of one form or another at another comes a dime a dozen on X-Men.
But I give the show credit for a clever solution to the problem between Bishop and Cable. Using Wolverine as a way to forge the cure that helps stop the plague in the here and now, while also creating the antibodies that stabilize the mutant genome and permit Cable’s future to proceed is a deft choice. It uses Wolverine's healing factor to thread the needle between the two of them, and Cable making the difference in the fight against Apocalypse with his future tech is a nice way to forge a different outcome than the one we saw in the last episode, even if you can't think too hard about how the temporal mechanics of it all work.
I’ll admit, I’m a little tired of Bishop going back to the future and finding that everything’s still a dystopia, since we’ve already done that twice now, but so it goes with superhero stories. And Cable reuniting with his son in the future is sweet, even if it’s silly that this cyborg warrior two thousand years in the future has a kid named “Tyler.” Oh, and as someone who’s in the know, the cryptic hints from Cable and Jean about his connection to her and Cyclops makes for sufficient hook for the reveals in the offing.
Overall, this is still a bit of an unengaging duology since it’s all flash and little substance, but they at least manage to find a clever and satisfying conclusion to the story, which counts for a lot.