3x19 Weapon X, Lies, and Video Tape

[7.6/10] It’s weird to say “I love the concept” for a story that’s so grim and sad, but I do. I don’t always think of X-Men as science fiction despite its technological bent. But there’s something very sci-fi about a group of enhanced individuals realizing that someone has been messing with their heads, to the point where they can’t disentangle their real memories from the ones that were fabricated.

How destabilizing would that be> The momentum of the story works well, since the headaches, waking nightmares, and flashes back to harsh vignettes from the past drive all four former members of the Weapon X program mad and leaves them in need of relief. But on a more personal level, it’s easy to feel for these folks, even Sabretooth. Contemplating what it must be like to have your most traumatic memories used to control you, and then to have those memories twisted to where you’re not sure what’s what or which parts of your life are real and fake is galling and terrifying beyond words. It makes us sympathize with our heroes here, and makes the perpetrators who did this to them seem all the more dastardly.

It gives us insight into the psyches of these players, in addition to filling in even more of Wolverine’s mysterious backstory. We finally get to see Weapon X in action, learning about the team where Logan and Sabretooth were partners. We learn that Wolvie’s resentment stems forms Sabretooth leaving Silverfox and Maverick behind to die in their assault on Omega Red. We learn that it meant so much to Logan because he had a relationship with Silver Fox. We see how prep for the adamantium grafting process went awry and spurred Logan’s escape (and Sabretooth narrowly missing getting a set of “tin-plated bones” of his own.

That’s all exciting in terms of the revelations by itself. But I’m more compelled byLogan pleading with someone he got close to that at least some parts of their lives were real. He’s focused on the names they carved into wood signifying their love. Sabretooth remembers his abusive father, whose exclusionary traits have apparently been inherited by Sabretooth’s son. The way these moments are replayed, with different variations, helps show the reality questioning twists that shake the characters’ trust in their own recollection. Seeing a movie set filled with iconography from your life has an uncanny quality, presaging Truman Show and similar stories. I love how the show plays the jarring nature of the discovery.

This is also a good outing for Beast. He works as someone physically able to hang with Wolverine and the others, but also someone with the scientific acumen to help piece together what happened, and the compassion to care about his friend and Wolverine’s former associates.

Talos the Automaton (who’s better known as Shiva in mainline Marvel comics) is kind of a waste. I get the need to do something action-y in each episode to satisfy young audiences, but I'm pretty tired of these fights Though at least there’s a more specific objective to jam a grenade in its shoulder cavity. Likewise, it seems implausible that Beast would be able to get safely away in a random truck full of knocked out mutants with a duplicate chasing them down, but whatever.

Overall, this is an episode full of major reveals that help fill in the gap of Wolverine's backstory and the Weapon X program. But more importantly, they had psychological depth to him, Sabretooth, and their companions, that deepens the tragedy of the character. It’s the sort of bolder, more personal swing I love to see from the show in the latter half of its run, when it seems to be more willing to interrogate the psyches of its main characters.