Transcript

Taylor: Hello, listeners, and welcome back to Sisters Assembled, where we are covering X-Men ‘97. I’m going to keep our intro super, super short today because we have a lot to talk about in Episode Eight of the series. So like always, Katie is going to go ahead and kick us off and girl, it’s all you.

Katie: Yikes because as I just said to Taylor, right before we start recording, I feel as if so much happened that I don’t know what happened. I did watch this episode to give some context, almost ten hours ago so it’s been a little bit. But wow, so much happened and I just can’t with this show, every episode leaves me gasping for air. I feel like I am being held underwater and I am genuinely trying to breathe every time something happens in the show. I will say at one point and we’ll get to it towards the end, something happened and I was like, are they going to end this episode right here? And thank goodness they did not but I did think they were going to and I was like, oh my God, I can’t do this. If you’re going to make me wait another week to know what happens and we did get to see a little bit more thankfully again. But yeah, they don’t care about my mental health and that’s okay, I’m okay, I’m doing okay, guys.

Taylor: Yeah. I think the best way to start here is to focus on our villain because he is really the central piece of this episode. Everything that happens, all of the chaos, stems from one being. Notice I use the word being not man because I don’t even know what this person is, but it stems from one being and that’s Bastion. And I do want to point something out because in between last week’s recording and this week, I’ve had the opportunity to read a little bit more about the character, and one thing that I think is really interesting, is that they actually change from his, comic book origin is in the comic book, and I’m going to give you the 30,000ft version because it’s a little wonky, but in the comic book, he is the descendant of both Master Mold and Nimrod. Somehow those guys combined, and then they went through a mystical portal, and as they came out of the mystical portal, they looked like Bastion, so that’s the comic book origin. I actually think his show origin is way more interesting in that his dad was infected by the techno virus, and then that was passed along to Bastion during conception, and from there he came out as like a techno hybrid being. So I thought that was fascinating.

Katie: I also thought it was fascinating. For those of you who are blog readers, I did do a little bit of a to T’s point, a 30,000ft overview of who Bastion is during last week’s blog. I liked the change because I do think it very easily is like he is not a complete like out there android thing. He was born and that’s something they even say in the episode, like he was physically born into this world. I do believe that just to add on, he also then gets some of Master Mold’s, something like essence. I do think they mentioned that in the show is that he is able to, there was something with Master Mold involved with him later in life, but he is born by the techno virus and like there was Nimrod in there somewhere because we saw him, there were glimpses of him. They definitely made it more interesting, they made it stranger, but they made it more interesting. What’s also a little weird and it’s going to be interesting how this now plays out is to your point, he wasn’t exactly from here, but now he kind of is. So I know we had a lot of theories about – even after Episode Five – undoing Genosha and we will get to, some very important statements being made by Mr. Beast over here.

Taylor: I have so many thoughts.

Katie: Oh, I have so many thoughts. The way I gasped, a gasp gasped. But I will say we’ve been talking about undoing it, undoing it, and saying, well, now that we know who this villain is like he’s obviously got to be from the future, he’s obviously got to be whatever, whatever. But now he’s not and I think that’s very interesting to the storyline.

Taylor: Yeah, I agree, and I think from here, the reason I want to start with Bastion is because we could go in so many different directions. I think that has naturally led us into the conversation that Beast was having with the rest of the team because I think we have to address what happened on Genosha and why Cable can’t change it.

Katie: Yes so I’m going to go into this because this is actually from What If? friends and, if you didn’t realize that to be more specific, it is from Season One, the episode with Doctor Strange. I forget the full name of it.

Taylor: Isn’t it What if Doctor Strange lost his heart, not his hands?

Katie: Yes, I think so. I’m so shocked you remember that so clearly because that’s also not a short title.

Taylor: No, it’s not, but it’s one that is so brilliant and so I always remembered that one for whatever, it’s the only one I remember. Literally the only one because I thought it was so smart in the way that it played on like the body parts, but like as the analogy but also how that affected him. And for whatever reason, I just thought that was like so cool. So I was like, yeah, that one, and then I was like, great, let’s pull the only one I know out of my pocket, great.

Katie: Yeah, I give you the credit, but I would say it’s like Episode 7 or 8, it’s definitely later in the season, a little bit later. But essentially it’s where we first learn about Absolute Point. And it’s the idea that or I should say in that episode, it’s that Christine can never be with Strange. That’s just the Absolute Point, he will never get her. And in doing so, or in trying to do so, he loses himself. He gets into really dark magic, and that’s how he becomes what is it? Supreme Strange. He goes really off the rocker, but it is explained by the Watcher that Christine and he are like, it’s an Absolute Point, which he will always lose her if he tries to be with her and we never hear of it again. We’ve talked about it, in I think another What If? during Season Two, I think we might have mentioned it during something else. I think we mentioned it in something in an MCU project at some point. Honestly couldn’t tell you. I know it’s been brought up before because we could never remember the full name of it.

Taylor: Yes, correct.

Katie: Because we always were like, it’s something, but I can’t remember what it is. Well, as soon as it left Beast’s mouth today, I was that Leonardo DiCaprio meme pointing at the TV. I was like, wait a second, I understood that reference. Did you understand that reference? 

Taylor: Two for one. Two for one. 

Katie: I know, I know, I am on fire right now and we are seven minutes in, but he said it and he pretty much said Genosha can’t be undone. Cable even was saying I’ve tried, I get just close enough and I’m pulled out every time because Cable is not supposed to die obviously in Genosha, he’s not supposed to be in Genosha. There you go, folks. Trust me, as a Gambit lover, not loving this news, not loving this news. Especially when Mr. Magneto can rise from the ashes but I can’t get Gambit back? Seems a little rude, but yeah, we can’t undo Genosha. It is what it is. It’s been done. But there are other things that Cable was saying that Bastian is doing that have to be undone.

Taylor: Yeah. Before we get into those things, I just want to point something out slash talk about a theory here. Beast very specifically says our friends at Kamar-Taj and I was like, whoa, sir.

Katie: Oh wait. Yeah, I totally forgot that was also a very large section of that. 

Taylor: Well, Beast was just kind of dropping names and terms and I was like, sir.

Katie: This episode had the weirdest amount of eggs that just dropped in there. There were like four. Yeah, like Spider-Man showed up and I was like, what are you doing here?

Taylor: Girl, we will get to the cameo fest, that was the last, like, there was like a five-minute period where it was like, how many characters can we cram into this episode? We’ll get there, we’ll get there. But what I want to say about that is what makes me most interested in that is two things. One, we’ve already seen the Watcher, who clearly knows about an Absolute Point in time, and two, the only other time that we remember ever hearing the term Absolute Point in time was related to Doctor Strange, who is a member of the community at Kamar-Taj.

Katie: Just not yet, theoretically.

Taylor: Correct but in this universe we don’t know that and so I’m wondering if this is a what-if universe. What if this is like a Multiverse within What If? because it has such a strong tie. So it’s like we’re seeing it within the Multiverse, right but it’s tied to these other What If? universes, because I don’t know how many universes know about an Absolute Point in time.

Katie: It is very interesting to me that Beast is the one who knows it. And I think this and not to get otherworldly by saying this, but I think this is almost a chicken and egg situation. And here we are again, guys because I know how I am with my chicken analogies, but I think that’s what this is. It’s almost like, does the universe have the mutants before it has this, or does the universe, like, not have mutants? You know what I mean? I feel like this is now an ongoing debate where it’s kind of like, where do the mutants fall into all these other universes?

Taylor: Yeah. So taking a step back fully like we’re observing the Multiverse from the outside, we know that some universes have mutants and X-Men in them. We’ve seen them, we’ve literally been in them and some do not like 616. So it is interesting to think about, like what has to happen in a timeline if it’s like statistically it should be 50/50, right? That’s how it should go. So what is and this is getting a little off-topic, but now I’m curious what is that point? What is the what-if moment that says yes mutant, no mutant? Clearly, it’s some sort of genetic thing going on, right? That’s how a mutation works. Everybody is a little bit has a little bit of a mutation. That’s genetics but there are some mutations that go far beyond what you or I would consider a normal mutation in just general genetics now.

Katie: Right and that’s kind of why I bring it back to that chicken/egg sort of thing. Because it’s like to your point, not every universe has mutants, although so far almost every universe we visited does have some version of an Avengers or heroes that would fit into the Avengers-like category, not necessarily the Avengers team. Then again, there are definitely universes that might just have mutants. Clearly, we’ve already seen that the universe X-Men ‘97 is in has both. We’ve seen Cap, we’ve seen Spider-Man, we’ve seen Thor. We’ve seen a couple of others that we will get to from this episode alone. We’ve seen Captain Marvel, who’s like, incapacitated. Who knows?

Taylor: Big yikes.

Katie: Yeah, yeah. RIP I don’t know, but either way, that’s why it’s kind of like in this case, this universe is aware because of Beast. How does Beast know? I don’t know, but Kamar-Taj is around, they must know because he said, according to the people at Kamar-Taj, who he apparently talks to, like he apparently has a direct line to Kamar-Taj. So I think who knows what is based on like, who’s in the universe.

Taylor: Yeah, like what brilliant mind do you have because, in our universe, it’s the Tonys and the Doctor Stranges and, not yet, but potentially eventually, although it’s almost fully confirmed that it’s a different universe, well, let me put it this way. In other universes, it’s the Reed Richards of the world, right? And things like that. So in this universe, Beast is one of the preeminent scholars, which is true, that’s clearly from the comics. Dude is mad smart, don’t let the beastlyness fool you like he is one of the most brilliant minds in the comics. So it is interesting that in this universe, he’s the one kind of untangling that with the help of the people at Kamar-Taj. Is there no Stephen Strange? I don’t know. Is he working with Stephen Strange? Is that his contact at Kamar-Taj? Do the people at Kamar-Taj have contact with the Watcher that we know is watching this universe? That’s why I’m like, it feels to me like it’s in the and I’m going to say this and then clarify it, but I feel like it’s in the What If? universe in the sense that it is in the What If? bubble. If all of these universes live within What If? this is in there too. Which may seem like an obvious statement, because technically, What If? should cover all universes, but we’ve never seen 616. So it’s very interesting what gets included and not included. Are we now considering everything within Marvel animation to be connected to, I should say, What If? Because they’re all Marvel animation projects, obviously Marvel Zombies is going to be, it’s a spin-off. Now we know Spider-Man, the original series that got us into Marvel as kids is a part of it. I mean, that was already confirmed because of the original series, but again, they’re reinforcing that. We’ll get to this later but we saw Doctor Doom, so is that another element that we have to talk about? We saw Baron Zemo like there are so many people that are now connected because of Beast’s comments and also the cameo fest that was this episode. I have so many, I just, my mind is exploding. I don’t even know the words coming out of my mouth, because I can’t even verbalize how quickly my thoughts are racing.

Katie: Yeah, there was a lot of weight in a probably maybe 5 to 10-second statement that was made in this entire episode. There’s a lot of weight in it. I think the biggest thing to kind of right us and put us back on track of just this episode, I’m sure we can do an entire episode going off of where we think X-Men ‘97 lives, and we probably will, knowing us so maybe look out for that in the future. Putting us back, righting our ship. It’s an Absolute Point we can’t undo Genosha but to what I was saying, Cable is pretty much saying, that we can’t let him keep going. We can’t let Bastian win because it messes up the entire future, he cannot be correct. Now we don’t know what his future looks like. I do like that in the older episodes, we kind of would see how things turned out or how we started.

Taylor: They did show it though. They didn’t show Cable starting in his time, but he talks about there being a utopia where basically the mutants are slaves, and that’s basically their role is to be laborers, essentially to build this utopia for I don’t even know if you can consider them humans at that point. The humans/Sentinel hybrids, the Prime Sentinels that he made, which, by the way, I do want to correct something I said last episode. I thought the Prime Sentinels were the things in the cases they’re not. The Prime Sentinels are in fact the humans that were infected. Infected is also the wrong word but who were injected – that’s the right word – who were injected with the nanotechnology and then made into walking Sentinels. So correction on something I said the last episode.

Katie: Listen, if you want to correct that, I’m going to correct the blog post because I went ham in saying like, maybe they replaced their entire skeleton. So yes, let’s correct that they are injected with pretty much like a virus sort of thing. Regardless, not normal and we’ll get to that in a second. 

Taylor: There were heads reattaching. There were heads attaching. 

Katie: Listen, you know what? Let’s get into it. Let’s get into the base. Let’s rip this band-aid off because there’s a lot I gotta say here. I don’t remember what caused me to ever feel the feeling I had watching this episode, but I felt uncomfortable. I felt and you can definitely compare it to any zombie thing you’ve ever seen, but I can’t remember what has made me just feel so like bleh as I watched this episode. But it all goes down to something I gotta go off on really quick and it is that it’s entirely all hypocritical, and I think that’s the most important thing to come out of this episode learning, because what do they constantly say or what is Bastion constantly saying? You wanted to mutate? We mutated too. No, you didn’t. No, you did not. The mutation is random, at least for now because obviously when mutants have like children together, they both have the mutant gene. They’re going to have a mutant child. It’s a dominant gene at that point.

Taylor: Well, yeah assuming it’s dominant.

Katie: Yeah, yeah but I’m pretty sure that was the whole point with like, they knew Nathan was going to pretty much probably be a human because Jean was like, I wish he’d be or I’m sorry a mutant, because Jean said, like, I wish he’d be human, but like, they knew. And going off of all this, that is science at its core, that just happens. We mutate. Why do you think half of us now have dents in our freaking pinky? It’s from bones. Like eventually babies are going to be born with them. They’re just going to become a thing. It’s just like mutations happen naturally. Natural science, just like Beast said, we mutated or I think Beast said it, somebody said it. We mutated from the Neanderthal and that’s all natural. Injecting yourself with nanotechnology to create robotic zombies out of humans is not a normal mutation, my guy.

Taylor: There’s also and like I’m going back to 10th-grade science here, so bare with me, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in 10th grade, but if I remember correctly, the mutation does not happen within a human period. Mutation happens when two genetic codes come together. So we’ll say in this case, a mother and a father come together, their genetic codes come together, and then their DNA, there’s the dominant and then there’s the recessive gene. Those genes duke it out and sometimes something super weird and off the wall that shouldn’t happen in the Pundit Square happens. That’s a mutation. A mutation does not happen when the being and this goes for all living beings, this is not just humans and the human species. This is all species of all types. Once that being is alive, it is not mutation, okay? That is not how it happens. The mutation happens only at the time at which the genes come together from the parents. So if you are already alive, you are in fact not mutating. I don’t know what the word is for it, but it’s not a mutation. Mutation goes from one generation to the next. Does not happen within a generation – period. That is basic genetics and that’s basically all I remember from that so there you go.

Katie: Well, and going off of that to wrap it all together again, to reiterate, you also cannot, well, I know this is probably weird because thinking about it, technically some of the mutant’s mutations could have been triggered by something not necessarily just awoken, though most of the time they’re awoken through like puberty, which is natural, right? But like, you can’t just naturally cause a mutation. That’s just a blanket statement. I could not today just be like, I think I should grow a third arm. I can’t do that and I can’t – and science isn’t where it needs to be – but if I go with science and try to cause that to happen that is not natural. That’s not a natural mutation to Taylor’s point. So I circle back and say hypocrite, this is all hypocritical. Not to mention these are not humans anymore. I don’t know what to call them. I mean, we call them Prime Sentinels, but this is disgusting. And how does it work?

Taylor: Well, before we even get there, before we even get there, I want to talk about something else because when you said hypocrite, that reminded me of the icky feeling and the biggest, one of the biggest questions I had coming out of this episode, which is how many of these people willingly chose to undergo this treatment and how many were forced because that was a lot of people. In fact, it looked like a majority of people and maybe it’s naive, but I would like to think that a majority of people don’t hate mutants enough to willingly undergo some unknown, I would say untested, obviously, there were like many people doing it, but like untested in the sense of like it’s not like the FDA was sanctioning this, untested treatment because they wanted to become soldiers against a mutant kind. Is that really the world that they’re living in? Because if so, that’s freaking pathetic, and everybody who’s a Prime Sentinel, you know what? You can go away, just go away.

Katie: Well, actually, that works well with what I said. How does it work? Because we see how they turn. How do they return to human? Because remember back in Episode Seven, Trask is the first that we see become a Prime Sentinel. Beast even says, no, I’m sorry, Jean says that she can still sense his mind or something in his body so like he is still mentally there. And I’m pretty sure in this episode they even say, like he wasn’t aware, he didn’t know he was turned into this, I’m pretty sure they said that. Thinking of it that way, I mean, listen, I don’t mean to be this person, but last I checked, last I checked, most humans wouldn’t survive getting their head chopped off so great that the technology allows them to do that. But how do they revert? I just don’t really understand the whole reverting back. How does that work? How do they go back to being human?

Taylor: It’s a good question. The thing is, we’ve never actually seen it successfully happen because even Trask in that is it a bariatric chamber, is that the word? Whatever chamber he’s in, he’s unconscious, but he’s still a Prime Sentinel, so we’ve never actually seen someone go back to, like, normal humanity, right? I kind of think it might be a one-way trip.

Katie: I think so, too. Unless Beast is able to find a way to extract the nanotech but regardless of that, again, how? Because Trask was out here whipping his head around 360. And people are getting limbs chopped off and heads and getting ripped in half by Wolverine’s literal claws. So I also would have to think it’s a one-way trip. But speaking of nanotech, if everybody else is like, huh, funny, sounds so familiar, yes, because apparently there was a Stark Expo that Bastian went to that likely inspired him to do the nanotech.

Taylor: Wait, I missed that.

Katie: You missed that?

Taylor: When did that happen? When did they explain that?

Katie: When they visited his childhood home, there was a poster for a Stark Expo that was one of the, again, Leonardo DiCaprio meme. I was pointing that out, I was like, no way.

Taylor: I’m so shook. I totally missed that.

Katie: Yeah, because it was after the Kamar-Taj comment so I was like, wow, they’re really like saying some things and that was only the second out of like five big eggs that were dropped.

Taylor: Dude, five try like seven. That’s crazy. Also, I love the fact that no matter what universe we’re in, Tony Stark has a monopoly on nanotech like nobody else is capable of doing nanotech but Tony Stark.

Katie: Let me say a better statement for us, Team Cap folks out there. No matter what universe we’re in, somehow every problem can be traced back to Tony Stark and that is just a fact.

Taylor: Nobody can see us in this episode, but we’re both wearing our Cap stuff that was unplanned. We’re just Team Cap all day, every day over here.

Katie: Of course. But hey, it could have been Howard. Could be. I doubt it, but now we’re in the 90s, and to your point, this is all different. Thor is already on Earth. Spider-Man’s already in business. The timing is definitely off to what we know of so it could very easily be Tony. We haven’t, to my knowledge, seen Iron Man in any of the X-Men shows. I know we’ve seen – or any of the X-Men episodes – I know we’ve seen Cap now twice. Spider-Man we saw in this episode, and we had a small cameo of him in the OG, but it was like just his hand. We saw Thor, we saw Carol but I don’t think we’ve seen Iron Man.

Taylor: No, I think that’s it.

Katie: But this was the first reference to him was not just the Stark Expo thing, but this is nanotech guys. This is like, literally what Iron Man’s suit is made out of by Infinity War just injected inside of people.

Taylor: Horrifying on so many levels.

Katie: And disgusting. And again, I still question how does this work?

Taylor: I sincerely hope they use Beast as a vessel to explain this in deeper detail, in future episodes.

Katie: I need Beast to appear in absolutely every show because I adore that he’s just like, by the way, here’s how all of this works, and then we just go back to everything and I’m like, perfect, like I am following.

Taylor: The knowledge that that man drops so casually and so calmly, like a balm to my soul. Put Hank McCoy to your point in everything, all the time. Do you think I would have a problem with time traveling the Multiverse the way that I do if Hank McCoy was explaining it to me? I don’t think so. I think I’d be very calm, cool and collected.

Katie: Yeah, you just needed Hank all along.

Taylor: I just need Hank on my shoulder at all times. He actually needs to just explain the world to me, so that’s fine.

Katie: Honestly, he probably will end up explaining the Multiverse to us. Let’s be real. It’s going to happen.

Taylor: The version that Monica is with, probably.

Katie: Oh, yeah, exactly. No, it’s going to happen.

Taylor: Yeah. 

Katie: But regardless, Prime Sentinel’s, scary, not fun, terrifying.

Taylor: I hope they never make it to live action because I won’t like that.

Katie: Oh, if they make it to live-action. Listen, guys, I’m gonna be honest, I’ve been comparing this a lot to the LMDs from Agents of SHIELD. Very fitting, right? No, stop comparing it to them because nothing like the LMDs at this point.

Taylor: No. You all know if you’ve been listening to some of our older episodes, I was obsessed with The Last of Us, despite the fact that, living alone, it actually made me triple-check that my doors were locked and, turn a bunch of lights in my apartment because I was afraid to watch it alone at the tender age of 24 but this scares me like that. And I think if it were to come into live-action, it would scare me even more because I don’t do well with those types of things, and they’re freaking scary.

Katie: They are scary and listen, I know I’ve been begging for Marvel zombies, but I don’t think this is what I meant guys, this wasn’t quite it. But yeah, no, they’re scary and I mean, listen, let’s get into the other big part. Well, there are a lot of big parts, let’s get into the other big part of this, which is Magneto downed them all single-handedly. My guy – okay, first off, again what woman is in that room when they’re doing the animation? Because she said Magneto in his underwear and we’re going to keep him in it. We’re not even going to put him in clothes. 

Taylor: Praise be. 

Katie: Yeah, I just don’t even know. I was like, who’s doing this? Who is doing this? First off, not only did you make of a silver fox for this entire season like you made him like, listen, I love my boy Gambit, but I was like Rogue I get it. I get the debate, I understand, but then like, you were like, let’s have him in his underwear tied up to a wall, I was like, what are you doing? Is this not a kid’s show anymore, like, what is happening? 

Taylor: You’re killing me. 

Katie: I’m just saying, man, it’s been a wild ride with Magneto. 

Taylor: Did X-Men go X-rated this week? Like, come on.

Katie: No, it’s been wild. X-Men? X-rated. That is where we’re at right now. But shout out to whoever’s in that animating room. I get it, Rogue. I mean, listen, I get it. But we kept saying, all season since we’ve been covering the show, Magneto’s got a switch that’s going to switch. Now, actually, two things, two of our theories are kind of coming to fruition. We said something big had to happen with the mutants for him to flip, and that was expected. Something was going to have to, I don’t want to say break his heart, but essentially break his heart enough that he can’t even pretend to believe in humanity. This was it, Genosha was it because the biggest mistake and I still want to know why they were holding him because obviously it was for a bigger purpose and I have some theories on that but their biggest mistake was keeping him alive. Dumb. Out of everybody who’s going to get some retribution and he even said it in Episode Five, he will avenge them all. It’s him. So yes, we were right in saying it was going to have to be a big event. He’s here and he’s ready for war, as Wolverine said, he declared war. But the other one is the flip has to switch when he can no longer pretend to be Professor X because Professor X is back. Now, of course, he doesn’t necessarily know Professor X just came back, which will also get to obviously, in a second but how fitting that in the episode where he comes back, Magneto goes right back to who he really is inside.

Taylor: There are so many things that what you just said brought up. I’m going to try to go through them in like a logical order but I think what’s super interesting is the dynamic and the role that Doctor Cooper played in this episode. As someone who facilitated Bastion, I mean, come on, she had to have been in on it. She knew, she said you never told me about Genosha, but she survived, so she knew she was working with him the whole time but the one thing or two things maybe that changed her mind, Genosha at scale, because I don’t think, I don’t know what her motivation was, but she doesn’t seem like a bad person.

Katie: I also don’t think she was supposed to be there. My impression was she was either not supposed to be there or because she didn’t know about it, that was a turning point for her because she was like, you didn’t care, I was there. 

Taylor: Well, I also think, I don’t know as I said, I don’t know why she allied herself with Bastian, whether it was to control Magneto specifically, and maybe that was why they kept Magneto to use him as like a lesson like, this is what happens if you think that you can supersede humanity because she clearly has it out for the guy like she did not like him. But I think Genosha was a turning point because I don’t know that she signed off on genocide. I really don’t. She just doesn’t strike me as a type of person and look, maybe that’s naive, but I never got super hate vibes from her. I got I’m trying to accomplish something, I’m trying to find peace, maybe I’m going to do some shady deals on the side to make that happen, but I’m not genocidal. The other thing, the other genocide that Magneto lived through, which was the Holocaust, when she saw his tattoos or his tattoo. And I think that is not something that you can overlook, because I’m pretty sure they showed it like twice. 

Katie: Oh they did. 

Taylor: Yeah. It was an important moment for her to realize everything this man has gone through. Not only has he gone through the Holocaust and survived, but now he is going through a second genocide, a second witch hunt basically, against a people or a community that he’s a part of and that’s the moment that it snaps for her into place, oh, I’m on the wrong side of history. I am not going to be remembered fondly. I am going to be remembered as someone who allowed this to happen and probably facilitated it, whether I knew it or not. I worked with this maniac and he’s a disgusting fool and I have to do what I can to stop it. The other thing that’s fascinating about Doctor Cooper is she says, what we’re all thinking: Magneto was right. This whole time, humanity didn’t deserve mutants because all they – I don’t want to say all because they’re bad mutants, too.

Katie: But there are bad people.

Taylor: Exactly, there’s bad in every group, there’s good in every group. No group is a monolith, period, the end. But the majority of mutants want to live in peace. That’s all they ever wanted. Magneto may have gone a little far sometimes in his rhetoric about evolution and blah blah blah. I got it.

Katie: Yet he wasn’t wrong because even Bastian says in 100 years it’s 10 to 1 mutants and humans.

Taylor: Right but at the same time, the other portion of Magneto’s rhetoric was we will never coexist peacefully and that was proven and Doctor Cooper says it. Now humans are fighting back in the dirtiest possible way and using themselves basically as weapons and it’s horrifying. That whole underlying theme, which we have worked our way up to this entire season, is utterly fascinating and that’s why Magneto is the perfect character to embody that and to carry that story forward. You don’t need Charles for this, you don’t need him. It’s Magneto’s show and that’s it. 

Katie: I want to add to that that this was genius writing. Now, I don’t know why the writer was fired from this show that has not come out, we covered that in a Sisters Scoop, I mean, two months ago, it was before the show even came out. However, I believe his name is Bo Demayo, shout out for this because what an amazing thought process to go through Magneto and to have him actually be your driving character for a lot of what is going on in the entire show, from giggles in the first episode to having the Goblin Queen, because hey guys, that happened this season, whether you remember it or not and now you have all of this. Genosha and had you have him being the one to declare the war on humans, he just put the entire world into a blackout and that’s where it ends. We don’t know what’s next. That’s that point where I thought it was going to be over. I really did think, like they were just going to end with the world blacking out and I was like, whoa but it’s a genius thought process. It’s also so interesting because for those who aren’t really familiar with the X-Men or their stories, Magneto is one of the hardest to ever sit there and say he’s a villain because you can get him. He’s also been through far too much, especially this one at this point, as you were pointing out now, he’s lived through Genosha. He’s lived through a second genocide, he is part of a second witch hunt. This Magneto has been through a lot. He is a complex character that is just amazing to see and we’re seeing in an animated show like remind yourself. We are seeing this in an animated show, but it was a genius idea to go through him and I’m so excited, but also dreading what comes next.

Taylor: Yeah, I think a couple of things to that. First, you’re right, kudos to the writing. This might have to be the best writing we’ve ever seen in the MCU. I don’t mean to be oh like shiny new toy, that’s not what this is. Think about the depth and the level of the conversations that we’ve been having for the last eight weeks about this show. Think about the way that the superficial storylines and the small things have all led to this moment, the way that the characters have been developed both alone and together. It is so seamless and to your point, it’s done in animation. It is some of the strongest, tightest writing that we’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely brilliant. I mean, I can’t even say enough. The fact that we get to talk about this every week at this level and talk about these themes that are so deep, but makes it so accessible. I mean, that truly takes an insane amount of skill, and then to be able to adapt that from comics that are 10, 20 years old, or 30 years old, probably, that is so smart to be able to make it applicable to today’s how many times we talked about it ripped from the headlines to make it applicable to the things that we’re facing in today’s society and culture and current events. That’s so smart, it’s just so freakin smart.

Katie: Yeah, this show just keeps batting a thousand and I can’t say it any differently. Like it just keeps winning and so I want to just quick finish up with Magneto because it’s like, where do we go from here? We just ended in a worldwide blackout, Magneto’s out in his underwear, ready for war. Now what? I mean, they know what happened, Wolverine set it. People know what’s going on. I do want to just add this was kind of one of my theories with why they kept Magneto, he could take down the Prime Sentinels. It’s nanotech. It’s still some sort of, like, metal or something because clearly he was able, with the magnetic pulse he took out their charging, essentially took the light literally out of their eyes. So he has the ability to at least stun them, I would say, or at least incapacitate, that’s the word I think is better. So that’s my running theory of why he was kept. My other one is he is a possible lure for Professor X, but now they don’t have him, so I don’t really know how that’s going to work. But I do think Bastian has some beef with Professor X, who we can get right into right now if we want to.

Taylor: Yeah, I do want to go back really quick to it’s not really Bastian. It’s kind of what happens in his like, lair or whatever. I do want to point out again and also question, why was he talking to so many villains. It was Doctor Doom and it was Baron Zemo, and someone even pointed out potentially Killmonger and potentially Madame Hydra. So let’s talk about why we suddenly have a group of villains working together because that is a little scary, and we’re clearly building to something that I think is going to go beyond this season and I think they’re setting themselves up for Season Two quite nicely. I don’t think Bastian is going to make it out, but I do think that his allies are going to make it out, and we’re going to see a lot more interconnection next season.

Katie: Yeah, actually, let’s throw Professor X out and forget about that because these were things I totally forgot, even though I was alluding to them at the beginning of the episode. Yes, Doctor Doom, just like totally appears Zemo, just like totally appears. There’s one of two ways to that I think this works, and you got to think about it both ways. One are they all on Earth currently? Are they all like a superhero or, sorry, a supervillain-like club or are they from other universes? Because clearly Bastian has had connections and the ability to find people from across the galaxy. Who’s to say he can’t exactly find people from across other universes? Because I do think it’s a little weird we have never and granted, I get it, the mutants, the X-Men are dealing with mutant issues, but I can’t think we can completely ignore has Doctor Doom been working? Has Zemo been working? I mean, obviously there are other heroes, so I think we’re living in a weird bubble, but I don’t know.

Taylor: But also my question really, that gets to the heart of everything when it comes to our other villains is what do they get out of it? What does Doctor Doom have against the mutants? What does Zemo have against the mutants?

Katie: Unless it’s to take them all down like you take down the mutants, you can take down all the enhanced individuals, because if you think about it, the Sentinels don’t have to just be for the mutants.

Taylor: But they are though.

Katie: But do the Sentinels just have to be? They are right now. They are currently programmed to take down the mutants or to at least like whatever it is, not incapacitate but you know what I’m saying. They don’t necessarily have to only be for them. They could essentially be for all enhanced individuals.

Taylor: And we did see Sentinels who were reprogrammed to attack humans under Master Mold. So we’ve seen that happen in the past. You’re right.

Katie: Right, so they can easily be reprogramed and I think that’s also why we saw some of our other heroes showing up because I don’t think it’s just and I’m not saying we’re culminating this season with like, oh my god, all the X-Men and the other heroes, no. Could it happen in the future, to your point? Maybe. Who knows? But I do think if the Prime Sentinels make it out of this season, there’s a high possibility that the other villains want them to help take down their problems.

Taylor: That’s fair. That’s scary but it’s fair.

Katie: Because the mutants can’t do crap. I mean, one Prime Sentinel took out almost our entire X-Men team.

Taylor: He completely incapacitated Rogue. She was unconscious for the entirety of this episode. 

Katie: Yeah, thank you. Okay, I was watching the episode, and I couldn’t remember, I was like, what happened to Rogue? Even though I watched the preview before, I always watch the like what happened before, and I literally was like, why am I not remembering why she’s completely incapacitated at the moment?

Taylor: It took me a hot minute because I skipped the preview, and then I was like, what happened to Rogue? And then I was like, oh, she got walloped.

Katie: No, it’s just so much happened after like at the end of the last episode and then throughout this episode that I truly was like, I don’t remember why she’s knocked out, but yes, okay, that is why. But think about it like he took them all out. The only reason that they survived was because Cable came with one of his, like, future bombs and knocked the Prime Sentinel essentially unconscious. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know I would have to think as far as our little villain club, it has to deal with possibly taking down their threats. I mean, Zemo’s big thing is, he hates the Avengers. I don’t really know his comic origin too well but I don’t think the MCU version was that different.

Taylor: I think it was.

Katie: I mean, like, the origin is still relatively similar of, like, they do something to PO him. There are definitely big differences in how Baron Zemo is in the comics, but I don’t think they completely like, or redid his character. I just think they went off of one small part of his story. 

Taylor: Possibly. I have a feeling he’s a full-on Nazi in the comics, I think so.

Katie: Well, maybe I lie.

Taylor: Yeah, I’m like 90% sure he’s a full Nazi.

Katie: Well, then he makes sense why he’s here. Although, listen, like Mr. Doctor Doom, you kind of fit into that realm too.

Taylor: What do you mean?

Katie: He kind of fits into the realm of, like, not human.

Taylor: Yes, correct.

Katie: Interesting.

Taylor: Because he has his whole thing.

Katie: Well, I mean, regardless, he has powers, but also then he is like a weird metal man. Magneto would have a field day with Doctor Doom.

Taylor: I know, but that’s to cover up his scars because he’s so disfigured and he’s vain. Vain as heck.

Katie: Yeah, but he actually starts to turn metal, doesn’t he? Because isn’t that the whole thing? Okay listen, I’m going off the 2002 movies or whatever year they came out, but like, isn’t that the whole thing? He starts to literally have metal like forming in his body and so I thought he started wearing the mask because of that.

Taylor: No, I think he had an accident and he really mucked up his face and he’s very vain. So he was very self-conscious about that hence the mask. I’m like, pretty sure.

Katie: I’m pretty sure the accident was what happened in space and then he started like having metal like.

Taylor: Yeah, but there’s like a whole there’s a whole lot of backstory there that was swept under the rug.

Katie: Okay, Doctor Doom is not important here right now, so let’s ignore this.

Taylor: We will do all of our research before our Fantastic Four era, and have all of our ducks in a row before we spread any lies about Doctor Doom.

Katie: Yeah, this is not the most important part of this right now. Regardless, yes, the villain club it’s interesting that they included that. I’ll be intrigued to see how that goes further. You did mention you don’t think Bastian is going to make it. I don’t think either. But my bigger question is, will the Prime Sentinels because I can’t, you say no?

Taylor: I think yes, they’re going to make it.

Katie: Okay, yeah I thought you said no because I was like, I’d be shocked if they didn’t. We have literally been dealing with the Sentinels since the first episode. Poor Jubilee’s out here like I have to avoid malls like traumatized. Girly cannot win.

Taylor: I know and the mall is her safe space.

Katie: I know, but like girly can’t win out here. So I don’t think the Prime Sentinels can just disappear, I really don’t. They are the next step in the evolution of the Sentinels, and so I think you have to continue them, at least in the next season.

Taylor: I also don’t know when you have the Friends of Humanity, for example, who I would think would be the first ones to sign up.

Katie: And I’m sure they were.

Taylor: Yeah. It’s like Pokemon gotta catch them all. You’re never going to catch them all. There are just so many people that have now become Prime Sentinels, some of which, to your point earlier, may not even know that they have been affected by this until they get near a mutant, it’s dormant and then they just kill. So like, let’s say hypothetically, they find a way to get the nanotech out, if you don’t even know you have the nanotech in until you turn well, how are you supposed to undo that? You’re never going, someone’s always going to slip through the cracks.

Katie: Okay, first of all, as an almost level 45 on Pokemon Go, I can confirm it is very difficult to catch them all. But second, correct and that’s why I want to say it was Jean or at least it was the Summers as a family unit, which was iconic in its own way, but they were all together when they went to Bastian’s old home, and that’s where they get attacked by his mom and then his whole town and one of them says, like, he turned his entire town. You can’t tell me they all agree. You can’t tell me that the entire town said, yes, implant me with this technology that I don’t really understand what it is, but do it anyway. I can’t see that that is valid so to your point, if he was infecting people, I mean, what if he had it in like the drinking water or something? I’m just throwing out a theory. If he’s infecting people, it is a virus, you can catch it. Hello, Covid 19, anybody remember that?

Taylor: A literal pandemic of nanobots in your body. Horrifying. New fear unlocked.

Katie: Yeah, which we still don’t know how you undo.

Taylor: Yeah. The last two things and we’re going to try to cover them quickly because we are coming up on time here. Professor X, there’s not a ton that we can say about him that we haven’t already said, because he was in the episode for all of 30 seconds. So everything that we’ve said in past episodes go revisit because I don’t think I’ve changed my opinion on how that’s going to happen, except to say we called it. People are POed that they lied. We’ve been saying that four episodes mark another one for us in the win column. Thing two, the Jubilee storyline is actually rising to the ranks in terms of importance.

Katie: This is what I love about this show because, listen, we complained.

Taylor: We did.

Katie: And at the time, let’s be real, we were dealing with the Goblin Queen. So we were like, why would you take us away from that? What is the point of this? And we complained about the first half of Episode Four. I’m actually pretty sure we complained about the second half too, for other reasons, but we complained about the first half because we were like, why are we doing this in the middle of what was an iconic storyline and then they slapped us in the face with Episode Five so luckily we forgot. But this is why I love this show, and this is why I eat my own words every time because they always do something for a reason and we saw that. This whole Jubilee and Roberto storyline is critical, now it’s coming in. They are captured by the Prime Sentinels. Therefore Bastian technically probably has them. This is all important. We’ve wrapped all the way around.

Taylor: Yeah, a couple of things. One, let’s not overlook who told him to go with them. His own mother.

Katie: I saw it coming, but it still hurt.

Taylor: A microcosm of what’s happening on a grander scale. Families being intolerant of their own loved ones. His mom, she can go kick a rock as far as I’m concerned. Two, there actually is comic book precedents for Bastian kidnapping Jubilee so this is following right along. I don’t remember the exact details, so I don’t know. I also don’t think the article I was reading told me how, but he captures Jubilee, so that feels very much in place. So yeah, taking another little bit from the comics, we are watching Jubilee and Roberto, so who knows what’s going to happen to them? I mean, other than extermination – well, actually we do know what’s going to happen. Mr. Sinister, because he made it very clear that he was excited to have and I quote, a pen full of mutants in order to experiment on. Chilling and terrifying for 7:00 in the morning when I was watching this. Thank you, Mr. Sinister, for being the man of my nightmares.

Katie: Yeah, I mean, this season as a whole just keeps going. And even though the episodes are getting to the point where they’re dwindling, we only have two left, I genuinely am sitting here and I’m like, what is happening? Because there’s so much that still has to go down. Bastian, to your point, has Jubilee. This is comic book precedents. Now you bring up Mr. Sinister, who has been involved in all this, fittingly, of course, and it’s like, what the crap? Like what is happening at this point?

Taylor: Remember when we complained about the slow episodes?

Katie: No, I know, oh, we were like, oh my God, could you not give us more of this? And then like they did and we were like, oh, great, and then suddenly everybody started dying and it was not so great.

Taylor: Yeah, yeah. Like no shade, I literally am living for this every week, but wow, you’re going for it, Marvel. You said, hey, you thought we were going to tease you with animation, you thought we were going to go easy? Let me rip your heart out, stomp on it, put it back in your chest, rip it out again, and then do it multiple times. That’s what is happening right now.

Katie: Yeah. This episode shows us that we’re not prepared for Nine and Ten and that’s scary because I think we even said in Episode Seven, like it was leading up, we were getting there, they were setting the stage but I still feel like we’re setting the stage and not in a negative way. Things are moving forward for sure, but I’m not sure how this is going to end. We’ve already lost one X-Man. What’s next? And that was in Genosha, we’re heading towards war.

Taylor: Yeah, I mean, if I had to hazard a guess, season two could be an all-out war. We may just watch X-Men battling it out in season two.

Katie: Well, I want to point out, for those who might not have spent time on the internet leading up to this episode, or for those who didn’t watch the OG series, there was a list of a couple of episodes from the OG series that were recommended to watch prior to this episode. One of them, interestingly enough, and I can’t remember the name of it, was an episode in which Wolverine and Storm – and this is important to remember so everybody who has watched it can kind of play it – were together. It was the only episode where they’ve ever been romantically linked, and they essentially were in the future, and that future was them fighting pretty much a bunch of, I don’t know, like robotic kind of monster things. Pretty much, they were fighting the humans, it was an all-out war. And that episode was recommended prior to viewing this one, or at least viewing the rest of the series and so you kind of just triggered that thought in me as you said that because is that the direction we’re about to go?

Taylor: Important to note two things from that episode. The trigger for getting to war was the death of Charles Xavier early on in his life. Two the man who was leading everybody into war, into battle, Magneto. Are we going into that future? Are we trading the Bastian leads future for that future? I don’t know, could be interesting.

Katie: Definitely could be. And what’s even more interesting to me is Cable is still here and that means anything can go.

Taylor: All we need is Bishop, and we’ve got the Holy Trinity: time travel, Bishop, and Cable.

Katie: Yeah, but just to put out there Cable’s like, by the way, lost him in the time stream when I was a whole child and grew up alone, and I was like, what? Like, just drop that on us. But it does answer a lot of questions.

Taylor: Also, when’s Bishop coming back, like, where is he? Is that going to be a whole storyline?

Katie: Knowing him his future might be fine.

Taylor: But if he lost him in the time stream, Bishop may not have gone back to his future like we might have an episode in season two that focuses on where the heck Bishop went to. 

Katie: I mean, that’s fair, I didn’t even think about that. But yeah, I don’t know. I mean, Bishop, I’m pretty sure interacted with Cable at other times in the OG series so like unless he doesn’t know that’s Nathan, he knows he survives.

Taylor: They hardcore fight each other the first time they meet.

Katie: I thought so, but yeah, I mean, I don’t know, because he just like dropped that. And like I said, that answers a lot of questions for me because I know from the beginning of the series, not really from. Well, yeah, was that Episode Three? So pretty early in the beginning, that was a huge question was like, does Nathan ever actually return to his parents at any point in childhood? Like who raises him? Does Bishop ever tell him who his parents are? How does any of this work? Obviously, Bishop and Cable know each other from the OG series, so they have a past, like, how does this work? Well, it would make sense if Bishop, like, completely loses the baby.

Taylor: Yeah, see, it’s interesting because when I heard that, I just thought they were, like traveling the time stream together and, like, lost each other. I didn’t even think about the fact that they would have been traveling when Nathan was, like, all of two days old.

Katie: Yeah, well, that’s what I mean. He just landed somewhere and someone helped raise him, but like he did, just land somewhere.

Taylor: Poor baby, Cable.

Katie: Yeah, well, that’s what I mean but it does answer a lot of those questions from early on where we were like, what actually happens? Because we know how you end up but like, there’s a lot of time that passes there. What goes on? I guess we got part of an answer.

Taylor: Yeah. I mean, now we can just close the gap on it or close the book on it. 

Katie: Well, and he’s got a mom now, kind of, stepping in. 

Taylor: Yeah and I loved that little moment that we had with the Summers family when they were, you know, driving along in the plane whose name is currently escaping me.

Katie: The Blackbird.

Taylor: Thank you. Sometimes they all name their vehicles and it’s like, so hard to remember.

Katie: Pretty sure it’s always been the Blackbird, but go off.

Taylor: No, but I’m saying like superheroes, they like name their vehicles or they name like different stuff and it’s like, oh, this whatever and Tony has all his 17 different mocks and it’s like, okay, great. Sometimes it’s hard to remember all of these vehicles. But anyway, I loved them. I loved them fighting in the Porsche and driving with Scott and then Jean taking over the wheel and they were like, yeah, Summers family assemble. I loved it, so fun. It was a nice lighthearted family, like the best way that they could be a family moment in what was a lot of chaos and anxiety and like, darkness and I’m glad that they were able to mix it in so it wasn’t quite so intense.

Katie: Yeah, I agree, I liked seeing it. I do wish we could talk a little bit more about it, but to your point, the heaviness of a lot of this episode has taken up a lot of our episode and maybe another, this is another spare episode somewhere further down the road of, like the Summers family in general, the timeline and how everybody turned out.

Taylor: We’ve also got two more episodes of them interacting to add to it so even better.

Katie: Exactly.

Taylor: And on that note, I think we’re in a good place to wrap our reactions to Episode Eight of X-Men ‘97. Please make sure that you are subscribing on your podcast platform of choice as we follow on with Episodes Nine and Ten reactions, which I’m sure are going to be even crazier as we hit what I expect to be, and we both expect to be an insane season finale for this show. You can also check out our website, which is, of course, the home of all things Sisters Assembled, including the blog Katie mentioned a couple of times in this episode. Great thing to check out in between our episodes, because it has a lot of supplemental content and research and theories, and it’s just a good little partner to our actual episodes.

Katie: You guys can also give us a follow on Twitter at SisAssembledPod, Instagram and Threads at Sisters Assembled, and also our YouTube where we do our Sisters Scoop, also at Sisters Assembled. We are nearing the end of X-Men ‘97, which is so sad because it is a ten-week event for us or I guess nine, well no ten we have our predictions episode, but we have two episodes left and it is intense guys. I hope you guys all stick around for it, we will be here covering it as always, and keep up with Marvel and us as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.