“Magneto was right.”
WARNING: This review contains spoilers for X-Men ‘97: Season 1, Episode 8!
The three-part finale of the first season of the widely-lauded X’Men ‘97 began this week and it pulls no punches. After last week’s action-packed episode sprinkled with bombshells like the transformation of Boliver Trask into a Prime Sentinel and the survival of Magneto, “Tolerance is Extinction - Part 1” winds together several threads to prepare the audience for this season’s finale showdown. Are you ready?
Last week’s episode saw the return of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor’s time-traveling son, Cable, who has returned to help the X-Men defeat the new threat that is Prime Sentinels. The X-Men learn that in Cable’s future, Bastion replaced humanity with Prime Sentinels, hybrids created with the Techno-Organic virus. (His future recap paves the way for cameos of future versions of X-Men veterans: Polaris and Rachel Summers!) This is the same virus that Sinister infected Cable with in Episode 3 of this season.
Our favorite blue devil, Nightcrawler, has moved in with the X-Men following Gambit’s death and we’re all better for it. While caring for Rogue who is still recuperating from the last episode, he shares the importance of family of your own volition with Jean, who continues to struggle with her emotions being mixed with her clone, Madelyne Pryor, who died during the Genoshan massacre. “Blood is blood. Family is a choice.”
While Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Beast, and Morph stay in the mansion to care for Rogue, the Grey-Summers family consisting of Jean, Cyclops, and Cable travel to Bastion’s childhood home. There, they learn his origin, born from a father infected by Nimrod, creating something new that is an amalgamation of “past, present, and future”, and descended from every Sentinel. This confirms Bastion as a threat we have never seen before. One has to appreciate the parallels held between the bond of Jean and Cable, and Bastion and his mother—both sons infected with unfathomable technology and reaffirmed by motherly love.
As Bastion moves his final chess piece, he is supported by two familiar faces: Dr. Doom and Baron Zemo. Sure, Bastion is a physically threatening villain, but it’s his methodology that makes him chillingly familiar. When he clarifies the purpose of Genosha, how can one ignore the similarity to the genocide happening in Gaza? “Overload their bandwidth, too much to compute. Because when your skin’s not in the game, apathy is your answer.” And when he strokes out the motivation behind the Prime Sentinel program, how can one ignore the similarity to the uprising of white supremacy? Operation Zero Tolerance utilizes bigoted basement dwellers, “average Joes”, in the face of fears of mutant replacement. This echoes the far-right replacement theory that claims that non-white immigrants are working to replace white citizens. Can anyone else hear the white supremacist “You will not replace us” chant from Charlottesville ringing in the background?
With the pieces in play, Bastion makes his move. Both teams, at the X-Mansion and in the field, are attacked by Prime Sentinels, leading to the revelation that Beast’s friend, Trish Tilby, has also been infected. The Grey-Summers family leads an impressive getaway, while Wolverine and Nightcrawler fight to protect Rogue with a synergy that perfectly encapsulates the beauty of their friendship. Not enough can be said about the riveting animation, particularly when Wolverine is transported through the Brimstone Dimension when Nightcrawler BAMFs.
Simultaneously, Roberto and Jubilee still manage to carve away screentime that would be better spent elsewhere. While the X-Men are doing X-Men things, the two are living lavishly via the Da Costa fortune, while Roberto’s mother continues to be ignorant about her son’s mutant status. Roberto continues to be quite unlike his equal parts arrogant and melodramatic comic book self, muted and suppressed, and passive to the world around him (also, is he getting lighter?). However, Roberto finally does something in this episode when he saves Jubilee and expresses his ability on the fly. In the end, though, the Prime Sentinels apprehend the two boring and unconvincing lovers when his mother sides with them over her son at a fundraiser held for Genosha—perfectly encapsulating the flimsy standing of a performative activist.
Although fans have theorized for weeks that the stone-cold Valerie Cooper is Mystique, this week’s episode seems to snuff out that rumor. We discover that she is working with the coalition between Bastion and Sinister, who still have an imprisoned Magneto that she eventually frees. The zoom-in on the tattooed serial number on Magneto’s wrist is not just a callback to his past, persecuted by Nazis because of his Jewish heritage during World War II—but a reminder of how much of an echo mutant oppression in the present is, ringing a similar song for this survivor. It is Valerie Cooper’s speech to Bastion after freeing Magneto that stands out as one of this episode’s most poignant aspects. The scariest thing about Genosha wasn’t the death or the chaos, no, nobody was shocked at mutant pain on widescale—it was that at the end of the day: Magneto was right.
And he saves the day when he sends out a global EMP that deactivates all the Prime Sentinels, simultaneously taking down humanity’s infrastructure. “Enough,” he proclaims as we’re graced with another set of cameos in the form of Spider-Man (confirmed as the Peter Parker from the 1994 TV series!), Silver Sentinel, and Omega Red. However, this has likely only bought the mutants time.
This episode not only saw the revelation that Charles Xavier is still alive, selfishly living a grandeur life away from the mutant struggle with the Shi’ar, but also his late arrival at the very end. But in the face of the Genoshan massacre, Rogue choosing to kill Trask, along with Magneto retracing his old paths—is there room for Xavier’s dream? We can only find out how the X-Men receive their old professor in next week’s episode.
Rating: 4.5/5
