Transcript

Taylor: Hello, listeners. We’re glad you’re here back with us at Sisters Assembled very deeply within our X-Men ‘97 era. In fact, crazy enough to say it, but we are at the second to last episode, and man, did it feel like a second-to-last episode because those last few minutes, my jaw on the floor, my mouth covered. I didn’t even know what my life was. We’re going to talk about those moments and all the moments that led up to it in today’s episode. As always, I’m going to let Katie kick it off and guide us through because I don’t even know where to begin.

Katie: This was a crazy episode, and to your point, we are leading up to the finale. We have, what, 12 hours left before Earth falls apart? Everybody is in somewhere or another, the teams are getting picked, and time is running out. I mean, it’s crazy. I’m stressed. I’m like so stressed but also I keep in the back of my mind thinking this is only season one.

Taylor: There are so many shenanigans happening.

Katie: Yeah, so much is going on and I’m thinking, how in the world do you think you’re going to top this with a season two, a season three that’s already been confirmed. I mean, Marvel keeps talking about how they just want to keep making them which I am on that train, take me with, I’m happy with that.

Taylor: If the quality stays at this level, oh yeah, all day, every day.

Katie: Well, exactly but I have to say, how do you top this season already? This, I mean, and I understand Apocalypse is still out there. We still have some really big storylines. Trust me, we’re not running dry but this was already such an insane season and obviously it’s not quite over yet but still, I’ve been gobsmacked so many times. These freakin odd number episodes have left me floored almost every single time. Like Three, Five, Seven, and Nine, literally I’m on the floor gasping for breath.

Taylor: I sent Katelyn a Snapchat because we don’t watch them together so when there are really intense episodes, aka, Three, Five, Seven, and Nine, we send each other Snapchats of kind of our in-the-moment reactions because we’re typically not able to record right after we finish watching. There’s usually like a mellowing out period for the both of us, so the reactions aren’t quite so heightened and I just sent her all I said was, well, there’s a lot of silence as I was processing, but also I’m wondering if there’s going to be an episode where they don’t make my jaw drop, where I am not so shook to the very core that I like, don’t even know how to process my emotions because I – especially those last few minutes, which Katie texted me so I knew to be prepared for that ending. Not that specific ending, but that the ending was something I needed to emotionally prepare for. Wow, just the character-on-character violence.

Katie: I had sent you a snap initially and to your point, mine was just me open mouth at the camera and I think there are a few like Taylor, Taylor and that’s really all that happened for like a solid 30 seconds and then that’s when I texted T and I was like, stay off of Twitter, whatever you do. Because my mistake was I went on Twitter to post something for the podcast, and then I was starting to see stuff and not enough that I was seeing it, seeing it, but I was like, crap, crap, crap. I kept trying to scroll past it and then when I finally finished the episode, I was like, oh, go on Twitter now. And I was on it and I obviously was reposting stuff on the podcast account. I was like, whatever you do, stay off of it. X-Men ‘97 is literally trending, stay off of it right now or you stand no chance, because people were posting full clips of especially those last few minutes and I didn’t want to ruin it for her, but I was like, stay off of everything. Just like blind yourself from everything horse blinders on and just stare straight ahead until you watch this episode.

Taylor: Yeah, which I very effectively did. I didn’t get a single hint of anything so go me for being completely off that side of the internet today. So anyway, that was good. I got to not have any spoilers despite watching in the evening, and I was so mad at myself too, because I typically try to start it before I go to work. I mixed up my schedule a little bit today and didn’t do that, and so I was sitting there in the office and I was like, you know what, the one day, the literal one day that I don’t do this and I find out that I’m about to have my mind blown. On the other hand, it meant that I wasn’t gape-mouthed on the subway, which is not what you want to be on the New York subway by the way, mask or no mask, there’s a lot of smells. So that I was happy about to at least be on my couch for that portion but man, oh man.

Katie: I was shocked I didn’t have a text and then that’s when it dawned on me you hadn’t watched it yet. I had to remind myself, don’t say anything but warn her, because this is crazy. And it was and I’m going to be honest, guys, I want to skip everything and go right to those last few minutes because those last few minutes, I think really are going to set the tone for not just Episode Ten, but whatever happens then in season two, and I’m actually going to work from the very last second, the very last image that we see because I think it’s the most uncomfortable, shocking, terrifying, grotesque, but also and I’m only going to say this and then explain it, beautiful because it is straight out of an X-Men comic. That exact image of Magneto taking out Wolverine’s entire skeleton of adamantium, and that is straight out of a comic if you don’t believe me, literally right now, go on Twitter. People have been sharing it constantly. I think I shared it on our page. I was going to say uncanny, but I actually think it’s out of an Uncanny X-Men. It’s amazing that they not only did that but just what it actually means for the show itself. I could not believe and okay, they were fighting, they were fighting, they were fighting and I was already a little shocked when he stabbed Magneto. I was like, whoa! But again, it’s Logan, so I’m not entirely surprised he doesn’t pull his punches and then Magneto turned around and was like, you want to play? Because I’ve been holding this one back the entire time I’ve known you.

Taylor: Yeah, I have so many things to say to that. I think one, the fact that this fight showed that everybody had been pulling their punches up until this point. Think about how many times we’ve seen the team or portions of the team at any given time go up against Magneto. Nobody was going for the kill shot. Today, everybody was going for the kill shot, right? We saw Magneto put the helmet on Charles. There was a part of me that wondered if he was going to just crush the helmet and crush his skull.

Katie: Listen, I kind of wished he had and down to his iconic shut up. You know what, Magneto? You got a good point.

Taylor: Sass master. There’s so much there but I also think that’s the other thing. Not only did Wolverine go for the kill shot, Magneto went for the kill shot, but Charles invaded his mind. And there’s so much to talk about in that as well, because I think there’s the whole Scott of it all, that I think Scott’s got some issues that he needs to resolve, which we all know but I think there’s new issues that are coming to light. So we’ll talk about that in a second but I think to go back to my original point, everybody was pulling their punches before. Nobody was invading minds. Nobody was going for the kill shot. But I also think the other thing that those last few minutes really highlighted was the sheer power of Magneto. He overpowered Charles, who was already in his mind. He ripped Wolverine’s skeleton out of his body and it also shows that all this time he was just playing with them.

Katie: I was just going to say that he has clearly been pulling his punches as well this entire time and especially that’s kind of when I said he’s been holding back the ability to rip out Wolverine’s skeleton forever. I’m not going to lie, it did cross my mind at one point because I was like, are his claws not able to be affected by magnets? But then I was like, I don’t know, adamantium that well, maybe it’s not, maybe it has different properties that allow it not to be so I’m just not following. But then this happened and I was like, oh no Magneto actually has been trying not to do that kind of stuff. He’s actively been just kind of playing at 20% and has already been bodying them half the time and now he’s like, no, you irk me and you’ve stabbed me so I’m over this and also that guy just went into my head, I am over all of you. Then he proved that he was over all of them.

Taylor: So in case you hadn’t picked up on the vibes, this show is now a Magneto stan show.

Katie: 100%. If you don’t believe Magneto is right, you can leave because we are Team Magneto is right.

Taylor: 100%. As much as we believe in Team Cap, we now believe in Team Magneto, and there’s a lot to talk about there because the other side of the coin is Charles Xavier. I want to dive into Charles next because there’s the violence that we saw, but there’s also the violation that we saw, which is Charles going into Xavier’s mind and basically torturing him from the inside out, kind of basically trying to get him to protect his powers and stop the blackout is, I think, what the intention was. Clearly, it was an incredibly painful experience for Magneto to do that, probably because Charles doesn’t have the finesse or the practice to use the powers the way has Magneto honed his.

Katie: He’s also probably out of practice because this goes back to what Episode Six I believe is when we first see Xavier again and it’s revealed that he hasn’t really been using his powers almost at all while he’s been on Shi’ar, and so he probably also is extending himself further than what he’s used to, because he hasn’t really been using his abilities, let alone to do something like this.

Taylor: Yeah, exactly and so it’s a big step for him to go into someone’s mind and force them to do his bidding. I think that we need to take a minute to just understand the gravity of that because it has a few implications. One, there is a level of trust that has always existed between the two of them, despite the fact that they’re on the opposite side. We mentioned this in a past episode, but Magneto literally says, I think Jean and maybe Scott were there too when Charles was dying in the original series, he says, like he’s going to miss that constant presence in his mind. He trusted him enough to be like in his head a little bit all the time. Now, he violated that trust and his autonomy, basically by invading his mind and forcing him to do something that he didn’t want to do, and also causing him immense amounts of pain. I think this is a good segue into Charles as a whole in this episode, because he has a lot of the blame on his shoulders. I don’t think it’s misplaced.

Katie: I don’t think it is either. Going back to the OG series, obviously the ending was rushed and so everything that happened with Xavier was very just ‘we’re ending the show, get everything in some sort of order’, and I don’t think they ever imagined 30 years later to reboot it or to continue it more specifically. So I think, unfortunately, Xavier faces as a character the brunt of that. Everybody else kind of was able to just pick up where they left off and then Xavier was a character banished away, essentially. That was supposed to be a permanent ending and now, obviously, as we said from the get go, when were you going to bring him back because we all knew you were never going to have an entire X-Men show for however many seasons and never have Xavier return, it just was never going to happen. So from the character perspective, he’s struggling. Unfortunately, he’s just the brunt of a bad circumstance of what happened with the original show. But, and T and I were talking about this right before we were recording, he has kind of always had that, I’m right, we can co-exist, we can do this and the thing about it is, time and time again, humanity has shown it’s not going to work. And yes, you have those good people and I think we saw a lot of great examples of that in the OG series, where you would see people who were definitely anti mutants, and then the mutants would help them do whatever, and then suddenly they were like, you’re not that bad and actually, I’m sorry for treating you this way and whatever. There were a lot of those types of episodes. However, there’s also a lot that shows humanity is not ever willing to fully accept them. Charles cannot see past that message and I think that’s why we see Magneto as being right, not just because Episode Eight also explicitly said Magneto was right, but because he has been always saying they don’t accept us. That’s why he had the original Asteroid M from the OG series, and that’s why he’s building it again. That is why he’s doing everything he does and then Genosha happened and I think Rogue – and not to go too far away – but Rogue made a good point with that too, when she said you guys weren’t there. You guys can say it was devastating and everything else, and it was, but you weren’t there for that attack. You didn’t have to face it the way we did and they have, I’m sure, some survivor’s guilt, but they also are angry and they should be. So I definitely think Charles is such an interesting character now in this new reboot of the series because I feel like you’re really starting to see more and more of his flaws.

Taylor: Yeah, it’s interesting because up until I started watching the original series, I think you always think of Charles as this, like very sage, very wise, peaceful man and it’s not that he’s not that, it’s that he’s self-righteous in that. I know that can be some people’s, you know, complaints about Cap too is that, you know it’s Cap’s way or the highway. I happen to think that Cap is usually right but whatever. 

Katie: Agreed.

Taylor: Obviously, but I think with Charles that self-righteousness leans more on the idea of idealism, whereas Cap’s is a little more realistic and that’s why I can kind of like let that slide a little bit more, because it’s like, oh, you see the world how it is, you have your morals about it and that’s fine, cool but you still understand the reality of what is happening and that the world is changing.

Katie: For sure. 

Taylor: Charles, on the other hand, refuses to acknowledge the actual lived reality of the world, and he believes that this utopia is possible and honestly, after what are we at now 80-something episodes, including the original series? I think that it’s not. I think we’ve seen too many examples of both small-scale and large-scale hatred, separation, division, discrimination, all of those awful things on so many levels and it’s like, how can you continue to ignore that and keep thinking that after all these years just show them that we’re good, we’re just like them, whatever he’s trying to show us his message. It’s like, Charles, you’ve been doing this for how many years? These kids who you taught are full-grown adults having their own kids now. It’s been an entire generation, and you’ve done not much to make a difference other than and then is going to sound truly terrible and callous, but the biggest thing he did to move the message was, quote-unquote, die and that’s not nice to say, but it’s the reality. Even in the original series, it would grate on me how much he believed in this utopia, that I think the series, both old and new, has shown us is just not possible.

Katie: Well, what’s the definition of insanity, right? It’s doing something again and again, expecting a different result. I feel that’s where we’re at with Xavier. I also think this new series has delved deeper into Magneto and his complex character traits. I think the OG series was a lot easier to sit there and see Magneto as mutants are better, mutants are going to take over the world eventually, nobody is going to be human eventually, we are the better race, or we are the better part of the race and everything. I think the OG series definitely painted him more from that perspective. So even though Xavier definitely had that self-righteousness, you still were rooting 100% for him and the X-Men because you were like, yeah, they should be able to coexist and Magneto is it right, though, by saying mutants are going to take over. I mean, scientifically, yes. The series actually even confirmed that Bastion says it, but it wasn’t the right perspective to say, we are better than you, we are better, and we are going to essentially supersede you. That was not the right perspective and so you could still say, no, you’re wrong. You’re not on the right path. What this series has done, and we talked about a little bit in Episode Eight especially, is they’ve told, I want to say, 70% of this for Magneto’s point of view, even when it wasn’t about Magneto. I’m thinking even when it was the Goblin Queen, he was probably in that episode for three minutes, that was really it, yet he was impacting what was happening there. He has made an impact on that team regardless, and we’ll get to some of his other impacts that have been made and I kind of talked about it a little bit with Rogue, but I think this series has done such a great job of showing it from his perspective and making him a complex character. It isn’t about the mutants being better, it’s about honestly, he wants, in a weird way, kind of the same as Xavier. He wants everything to just be peaceful, but he doesn’t have that blind spot thinking it’s going to happen. He can acknowledge that they do not like us, they do not want us here, and they are going to continue to hurt us, hunt us, and kill us because they don’t want us. They don’t like us. He is able to sit there and say, okay, fine, bet, you want to do what you did, Genosha – and I’m sorry when he was talking about Leech, I wanted to actually turn the episode off. Not for any poor reason, but I was breaking my own heart listening to him because that is the type of Magneto inner level of emotion and things that we never got to see in the OG series I feel, and now we’ve explored so much of that that I really sit there and I’m like, I couldn’t imagine not agreeing with this man.

Taylor: Yeah, I think y’all remember when we did the Genosha episode, Episode Five, right? It was Five, wasn’t it?

Katie: Oh, trust me, it was Five. I remember my heart being literally ripped to shreds. 

Taylor: Yeah, that’s what I thought. I remember saying, like, I felt so sick when I realized Leech was still out there because he’s so adorable, and then for him to die and then for Magneto to bring it up, I was like, sir, I have not healed yet. I don’t need to know that you watched his eyeballs vaporize inside his head, like horrifying and also like, I thought that little dude was so cute and it is awful. But I love what you were saying about really going deeper into Magneto’s character and I think it also allows you to go deeper into his message and what he was saying. Because if you think about it, on the surface, Charles’s message of like unity and we can all coexist and all be together of course, that is the ideal situation, right? We would all love mutants and humans to coexist. People of all kinds to just get along and accept one another. That is the ideal utopia at face value, that should be the goal. But what this show this series has really allowed us to delve into is okay the reality is that’s not possible, so what’s plan B? I think focusing on that and Magneto and his understanding that we’re never going to get the perfect society, the humans won’t allow that to happen so we need to find a way to fend for ourselves and I think fleshing that out more has made him a really, to your point, complex character. It’s also added a lot more nuance to the relationship between Charles and Xavier because of the way that they are now opposing one another. It’s not good versus evil. It’s literally one choice versus another choice and they’re of equal merit, like one is definitely a little more violent than the other but they both are reactions to the same perception. It’s just one is a little closer to reality than the other.

Katie: In my opinion, I think the tides have completely changed. I think we always were forced to look at Magneto as the villain, and I honestly am now starting to look at Professor X and I’m like, I don’t think you’re the good guy. Maybe that’s a little bit of a bold statement, and that could just be me out here putting my opinion out there but this series has caused me to really see Magneto’s point of view and also remember that this man tried. This man tried to walk in Xavier’s shoes, he even tells Xavier that. I tried to do you pretty much is what he told him and then Genosha happened and then he was kidnapped and held hostage and so then he had a breaking point. After Genosha and all of that, he had a breaking point because, again, he was proven correct. I think the way Xavier has come in, trying to go right back to where they were, which, dude, you’ve been gone for a year, nobody is ready for you to just come back like this. Maybe people like Logan are, but that’s because, in the best ways, Logan only has like three settings on him. He’s not a very he is a complex character, but not an emotionally complex character, at least that we’ve seen him written so far. So he has like three settings and one of them is anger, and he kind of sits there at like 90% of the time. But most of the X-Men, while I’m sure slightly relieved we’re not ready for him to come back and be like, oh, I’m in charge of everything, let me fix it all, this is all fine, blah, blah, blah. We saw it with Scott. Scott had anger towards him for why he hadn’t left the X-Men to begin with, and why Professor X made that decision for them. I just think I feel that anger as well, because I really grew to almost as if I was an X-Men, but I really grew to like Magneto with them. I think he was showing a different perspective for them and while they were still doing Xavier’s messaging and they were still fighting the good fight, I think Magneto really helped them think differently. I think you want to talk about Scott, I think as we’re seeing the team really start to take sides, I’m actually not going to be too shocked if I see Scott join Magneto’s side.

Taylor: No, I would not be either and there’s one moment I mean, obviously he had his anger about not being left the team. We all talked about that at the beginning of the series and everything like that, but there was a moment in today’s episode where I was like, oh, oh, and it’s two parts. One, Scott’s watching his son attack the woman he loves and potentially kill her. We don’t actually know if Jean is still alive.

Katie: There are quite a few characters that we aren’t really sure are alive right now.

Taylor: I have so many thoughts, but two, he watches Xavier violate Magneto’s mind, his autonomy, in a way that it’s a boundary that Xavier has never crossed at least that we’ve seen. I mean, maybe he’s done it in the past and he’s never let his students see it. I don’t know, I like to think not, although he seemed to know how to do it pretty well, which is a little scary. So there is that portion where Scott just looks at him like, oh, we’re crossing lines now too, because I think as much as we want to talk about how Scott is his kind of lapdog, at the end of the day, what drives Scott to follow Xavier is the fact that he thinks Xavier’s right. He thinks that Xavier is walking the path of, for lack of a better term, morality, or at least the path that’s going to hurt the least amount of people, right? That’s going to do the most good, I should say, is probably the best way to put that. And that, I think, is what really, at its core, drives him following Xavier and now he’s watching Xavier cross lines that they would put someone else in a cell for, and they’re no better than the people that they have fought over all of these years. Now it’s like, oh, the facade to what you were saying earlier is cracking, he’s not perfect. This man who practically raised me is now blurring lines that I was taught we should never cross.

Katie: And it’s also, I’m sure, difficult because at least from my perspective, and this is truly not just because I think Magneto is right in the situation, but everything Magneto does by the end of this episode is retaliation. He is invaded by Xavier, Wolverine stabs him. He does what he does to Wolverine because of these two moments. I think that is also very telling to sit there because I don’t blame him for that. That is self-defense at this point and I do think as far from Scott’s perspective, that is, again, as you were saying, a father figure who crossed a very uncomfortable line. Then he had a teammate who crossed a line for him, a teammate, by the way, that he 90% of the time doesn’t get along with for various reasons, including the fact that he’s in love with his wife.

Taylor: Well, he’s technically not married to Jean.

Katie: His girlfriend, long term. I forgot I can’t keep up. The fact Goblin Queen was this season has me absolutely all over the place.

Taylor: Talk about an F plot that we thought was going to be an A.

Katie: No, actually. I was like so sure and then everything else happened and in the rest of the season. But yeah, I mean he definitely doesn’t have that much love for Logan so to see kind of both of them step over a line and Logan doesn’t like a lot of people, but he likes Professor X and he will follow him and he will always follow that man. I think that is also a big thing for Scott to see these two people who one of them I’m not saying he’s fully influenced, Logan still makes his own decisions, but he watched Professor X make the decision he made to go into Magneto’s mind, and then he was like, cool, so I’m going to stab him now because it seems like that’s the direction we’re going. And Scott was like, oh, so we’re just going to start doing like, we don’t care anymore? That’s what I’m getting from this is nobody seems to care and we all saw the battle come to a very quick pause between the two sides of the X-Men who were fighting, and to what we were saying earlier, everybody pulled those punches until that moment. I think for Scott, this is hitting a different nerve and then also there’s the whole Jean perspective. If he loses Jean, especially, I think he ends up on Magneto’s side. I think Magneto is not wrong and also his son, there are levels to that. I think he honestly abandons Xavier here. I think this is a turning point for him.

Taylor: I don’t disagree, I think something else that’s important to point out here is, and you were touching on this when you talked about Magneto’s leadership of the X-Men, but his leadership style was not my way or the highway, the way that Xavier’s always was. He always gave them a choice. He said, this is what I’m doing and this is what I want you to do, but it’s your choice if you follow me, it’s your choice if you come with me.

Katie: Or stay here. 

Taylor: Yeah and honestly, nine times out of ten, Scott followed. Not because he was just following the leader, but because he had his opportunity to evaluate the situation and agreed with Magneto. I think with Xavier coming back especially, it highlights for him oh, there’s a different way to go about this. I blindly followed you my entire life because you have led and guided my life since I was a child.

Katie: Well, he blindly followed him just to get what? And I think that’s what’s important too from the beginning of the episode when Scott has that interaction and Jean’s there but honestly, Jean actually doesn’t play much of a part in what is important to the conversation. Scott and Xavier are having the whole conversation, and Scott is like, why did you not give me the X-Men? Why would you have given us away to Magneto? Was I not good enough for you? Was everything I did, was my devotion, was my loyalty, was my straight-A personality not good enough to lead this team? And you see that conversation taking place and you see how angry Scott is because it’s not even about the fact that the team even ended up with Magneto. It is that that the team didn’t end up with him, that Xavier didn’t think the team should have gone with him because Xavier thought that he and Jean needed to be done and Scott makes the amazing point where he’s like, we would have been involved anyway. You don’t get to make those choices anymore. 

Taylor: Right. It’s like, well, and I think Xavier does make the point well, you’re not kids anymore, you’ve grown up like you need to step away and Scott’s like, well, if I’m not a kid, maybe I should be making the decisions about my own life with my own wife, about our child. You don’t just decide.

Katie: Girlfriend.

Taylor: Well, at the time, though, Xavier was making it about Scott’s wife because they were already married. So that’s a whole other thing if you think about it in the past.

Katie: Yeah, because that time frame is still not confirmed.

Taylor: Well, yeah, this Jean, he was not married to, but he was married to Madelyne when Xavier left. So as far as Xavier was making the decision at the time, he thought he was leaving Scott with his pregnant wife. So that’s kind of what I meant by that.

Katie: Yeah, but she wasn’t pregnant at the time, was she? 

Taylor: No, he knew Nathan was coming because he references Nathan, so she might have been early on, but they never mentioned it, so anyway.

Katie: Not important, sorry. 

Taylor: He says so like basically the whole argument is you made this decision about me and my family about what’s right, it’s my family. You are telling me that I am an adult and I need to step away from you, yet you are still treating me like the child I was when you brought me in. A whole level of this relationship is that father-son dynamic and even this kind of ties into that Rogue conversation she has with him where she says to Xavier, well, maybe if you viewed us less as students and more as people, we wouldn’t be in this situation. He keeps viewing them as people that he needs to guide, not as individuals who are capable of making their own choices. And that’s why I mean, for so many reasons but among that, that’s why it was not shocking at all when Rogue was like peace, I’m going to go with Magneto not only because we have a relationship, but because of Genosha, but also he actually gives me a choice, and he treats me like an adult who’s able to make these decisions on her own and doesn’t need to be in my head telling me and imposing his belief system on me at all times. 

Katie: He gave them a choice to join him. He didn’t go there and ask a single one of them, or tell a single one of them to get on with him to go to his little asteroid. He literally was like, if you want to come with me, you come with me and if you don’t, you don’t, cool. And we clearly see Rogue and we’ll get to Sunspot, Roberto as well in that conversation. But I think Rogue is clearly the bigger aspect of all of this because of, well, one, she’s already fully an X-Men, but she also has the depth of a different type of character because she’s been kind of fleshed out a little bit more for us, but I yes, all of that and then too, let me backtrack. So the first thing I want to say is at one point Magneto says, my X-Men. And I thought, yes, because, you know, by the end of this you’re going to have more of them on your side. There’s a lot of this that is loyalty to Xavier and especially if the Boy Scout turns, the Boy Scout himself turns to Magneto’s side. That’s why I said, I think Jean and whatever happens with her is going to definitely be a factor as well because obviously, we lost Jean already during the whole Phoenix debacle. Pretty sure there were a lot of strong feelings Scott had towards Xavier about some decisions that were made there, as well. If I’m remembering correctly, there were definitely some heated conversations going down. I think you have Scott turn, you’re going to start to see some others definitely making that choice. As for Rogue, first off, writers, how dare you? How dare you? Sitting there, having her wearing Remy’s jacket. I wanted to hurt someone. I was like, who? Who, who? The owl is back like what was happening and when she comes back or leaves, I guess to go with Magneto and drapes it over Xavier’s shoulder, symbolically saying his death is on your hands. I was like, oh, you go, girl, you go because you’re right. All of this ended up because of Xavier if we think about it, none of this had to happen. Especially because too, they didn’t need to be on Genosha but you know why they were? Because they wanted Magneto to lead it, you know why they wanted Magneto to lead it? Because he was besties with Xavier and he was now forwarding Xavier’s messaging and all of that and so everybody wanted Magneto because he was an extension of Xavier at that point. That is why they were even there. I mean, the tragedy was bad itself, but that’s why that group was there. I live for Rogue. I’m still waiting for her to go on a full villain arc at this point. I do think I know when Gambit’s coming back. It’s not this season, but I definitely think I have an idea of how he’ll be coming back but until then, her anger is justified and I’m not shocked she went with Magneto putting aside even their relationship, he has always shown her more value in my opinion, than Xavier ever has. Also to all the points you’ve been making, she’s always been allowed to make her own choices. Even when she shot him down, my guy was not even blinking about it. He was like, okay, and then of course, you know, Genosha happened so like there were a lot of levels. But that was her choice and he allowed that.

Taylor: Well, not only did he allow it, but he respected her enough then to not allow her to try to save him. He was physically not only using his power to protect him in the Morlocks to the best of his ability but also to keep her back so she would not get stuck in the beam as well. It’s that level of respect that I think we’re missing with Charles. He does not respect them as individuals, he still views them as people that he must lead and there’s a different way to lead and that’s what I think they’re all starting to see. There’s the leader who will allow you to make your own choices and there’s the leader who will tell you what the choices are, and you must go follow.

Katie: Yeah. Well, and I think too, there is something and I kind of hinted at this a little bit earlier when I was talking about the survivor’s guilt feelings as well, there’s something to going through, something like that with someone that definitely bonds you. Any traumatic experience that you share with somebody else tends to bond you, whether that stays forever or not, that is what that is. At least initially, it definitely creates a connection that people don’t understand. And that was part of what I think Rogue was also saying was, again, back to the point you weren’t there, he was. And not only was he there, he was trying to save everybody he could and you don’t understand the pain that we went through. You weren’t here, you were with your bird lady as Magneto says. So you know, I get her. I have to say, I was a little shocked at Roberto, only because of Jubilee because even Jubilee says I’m here, why would you leave? She didn’t say the second part, but she pretty much is like, why would you leave me? I understand on a personal level and if he didn’t have any relationship with Jubilee, I think I wouldn’t think twice about it as much but I definitely was a little shocked at how willing he was to just be like, you know what? Screw the humans. They’ve done nothing for me, clearly look, my own mother put me up essentially to get, I don’t know, killed possibly. I’m going with this guy, he’s got the right idea.

Taylor: Yeah, you’re totally in my head when it comes to Roberto because I was both surprised and I wasn’t. I was like, wow, that’s a big step and that’s a bold choice for someone who’s like, been on this team for all of five minutes.

Katie: Literally Xavier doesn’t even know who he is.

Taylor: I know, I know, and then he’s like, has the suit for the first time, you’re like, oh, he’s on the team now but then you think about it and you’re like, but he’s also only been on the team for five minutes. He doesn’t have the loyalty to this man who he just met who arrived in a spaceship. He’s like, what the heck, who are you? You’re this, like, mythical guy they all talk about, so there’s that aspect. And then you’re right, it is the fact that his mother sold him out. His own family does not truly accept him for who he is. Why would he think that strangers would ever do that? He’s like, I’ve seen the reality. My own family is on the wrong side of it, yeah, okay, I’m just going to believe you that we can all get along when my own mother can’t even look at me with respect? Sure, all right Mr. Mythical man who arrived in a spaceship, yeah, you go back to space and your spacey little ideas, that’s okay, I’m going to go here with the guy who has his feet on the ground, metaphorically, because he was flying, his feet on the ground, and also lived through this experience and has been here the whole time. Didn’t abandon these people like done. I do want to say one thing I thought was weird, and this is just a quick little side note for Roberto and Jubilee, we see them get captured, but we never actually see them break out.

Katie: No, I thought that was so weird too, because I was like, how did we get here with them?

Taylor: Yeah, I literally went back to the end of the last episode because I was like, did I miss something? So I watched the end of the episode and I was like, no walking out the doors, okay, cool. And then I rewatched the beginning of the episode because I was like, getting on the subway.

Katie: I guess you just have to assume, because when Magneto did everything he did, he took out all the Prime Sentinels, and you have to assume they just escaped. But no it was weird, I was a little thrown off.

Taylor: Yeah, it definitely like I said, it made me go back and be like, did I forget? Because I remember talking at the end of last or during the last episode saying like, oh, we’ll have to see, like what happens with Jubilee being captured. And then this whole episode, I was watching it and I was like, they’re free and then I was like, did we have an entire, like, talking point in the last episode that we forgot that they escape? I was like, there’s no way that both of us completely forgot they escaped in the episode.

Katie: No, they just like, don’t address that and then just start this episode with them, like on the run and being chased and it was a choice. I don’t like when shows do things, especially these types of shows it really irks me when they like, fill in the blanks off-screen because I’m like, I should not have to think about how things happened. I should understand why we got where we got.

Taylor: It goes back to the whole Storm and Forge relationship, which by the way, formed entirely off-screen.

Katie: Literally. Well, that’s what I mean and also because you don’t have a sense of time passing as much in the show, that also makes it very difficult to be like, oh, this happened here. Oh, it’s been three months. I don’t know how much time has passed. I have no clue how much time has passed since when we started the show to now. It has been pure chaos, but I have no idea how much time is genuinely passed. Moving into some of the other things that have happened in this episode. I think the biggest other point I want to say – there’s a lot of like tiny stuff – but the biggest, other point is something we’ve kind of been alluding to and that’s Jean and Nathan. So, you know, I don’t know where to start here. Clearly, Jean’s been trying to be a surrogate mother. She’s also been saying, like, she feels a lot of what Madelyne was feeling. She has memories that were Madelyne’s, which is a little strange, but Madelyne’s dead to our knowledge so I guess maybe there’s something in that. But Jean fights Sinister, bodies him, by the way, love her out here throwing whole bowling balls at this man.

Taylor: I was dying, Jean Grey, absolutely killer.

Katie: I love her, and I also love that when Mr. Sinisters out there, like I can tell you exactly when you were switched, because my mind’s like, yeah, please do, just for clarification, I really want to know. And Jean’s like, I don’t care and I’m like, I do, I do, but like, good for you, but I do. What really got me then was, of course, Mr. Nathan, who seemed to be fine with his surrogate mother at the time, turning obviously, he’s under Sinister’s control, but I want to clarify something. I don’t know if you know the answer or if this is just, I was just missing something or what? Has he always been under Sinister’s control because Madeline had that inside of her when she gave birth? Or has that happened since he’s been around the future and whatnot?

Taylor: That’s a really good question and we can speculate, but I know for 99% fact they’ve not addressed that. I think that was intentional because I think they want us to wonder how long he has been-.

Katie: Essentially a sleeper cell.

Taylor: Yeah, really. I mean, okay, look, on one hand, I feel like it has to be since he’s been in the past meaning like our present because he tried to save Madelyne. He’s tried to stop Bastion. If I’m Sinister, that’s not exactly what my sleeper cell is doing.

Katie: Yeah, but he wanted him to take down Jean and that’s what’s interesting to me, is he wanted Jean out of the picture. But why? Because a sleeper cell, I understand your point, but the whole point of a sleeper cell is they have one purpose, right? They’re meant to do whatever and obviously, in this case, there might have been programming involved, but there isn’t always programming depending on the context of what you’re using sleeper cell in but they have one purpose essentially. So if Cable’s out here trying to save Madelyne and he’s out here fighting Bastion and stuff, if that’s not Sinister’s point with him, he’s not going to activate him. Notice how Madelyne was a sleeper cell for we don’t know how long until he activated her after giving birth to Nathan. So I have to think his purpose was to take down Jean but I am not fully sure why.

Taylor: Yeah, it is interesting because Sinister makes a very clear point when he says to Jean, I know your genes and he makes a little joke to himself and I also know all of your weaknesses. I don’t understand why his purpose has changed. His purpose has always been the perfect offspring between Jean and Scott, he had Jean and created her clone, so we don’t need to rehash that whole story. We still don’t really understand how that was going to help his experience but you know what? Whatever. I have given up trying to understand the delusions of a madman. What is important, though, is that goal meant Jean had to be alive. He kept her alive in that laboratory, that’s how she escaped. So what has changed between now and then that she is now no longer useful to him? Or is it that she’s more useful to him dead? Or does he have more clones? And he’s like, I don’t need the original, who cares? Or is he going to find a way to bring back Madelyne, who was under his control? Does he try to reactivate that because she is maybe predisposed to being under his control because she was created by him? I don’t know, but it’s definitely interesting because I feel like what he’s doing now has gone against everything that he’s been trying to do for six seasons, or however many seasons of television were the original series.

Katie: Yeah, it was very unclear to me what the message or the point was with having Cable activate and try and take her down and possibly be successful. I don’t know if it was then maybe on the flip side to break Scott because he knew Jean would reach out to Scott in possibly her last moments. I don’t know, it’s definitely weird, and like the Summers family has definitely been a good B slash maybe C plot of this entire season, but I need them to have an episode where they’re the plot. I definitely think I’m struggling a little bit with filling in some of these holes on how we’re getting, where we’re getting with Cable, and where we’re getting now like, Jean has all of Madelyne’s memories and I don’t really understand how that came about. So I think I definitely need and that’s not going to happen because we have one episode left, it’s obviously the season finale, but I do hope and I don’t know, Jean might be dead, but I do hope at some point or another we get some sort of information here about what is going down because I didn’t expect Cable to be under Sinister’s control. While you were talking, though, you did make me think, I would have to think somewhere after he was born, he was probably put under control. I’d be pretty impressed if somehow it was like a gene passed on from Jean to Nathan because that was artificially given to her. 

Taylor: Madelyne, not Jean.

Katie: I’m sorry. Yes, Madelyne.

Taylor: Yeah, I do agree. I almost wonder because nothing is ever said for no reason, right? Everything has a purpose and I wonder if his sharing about how he and Bishop got separated in the timestream is less about, oh, I didn’t grow up the way that you wanted me to, because the guardian that you sent along with me like he didn’t get to make sure that I made it safe. I wonder if that was not an accident if something happened to Bishop at the hands of Sinister to get Nathan in a different way without his parents even knowing.

Katie: Yeah, actually, while you were saying that and this is not fully off of your point, but I’m thinking, because you were kind of throwing that out as a theory, I’m going to throw out something that we’re all going to hate. I keep thinking about the OG series Cable, and there’s one time and one time only where he alludes to who his parents are and if you listen or you put clues together or you think hard enough about it and you do some research, you’re like, oh, if you didn’t know, you’re like, oh, crap interesting. Then I’m thinking about this season and how there are a lot of strong feelings coming from Cable regarding even Scott, his actual biological father, and then Jean, and also he has a very strong emotional connection to his true mother, Madelyne, even though he never really met her or properly obviously, he meets her in the last few moments for her death. I think again, back to the OG Cable, who I don’t really feel we have any sort of that emotion towards, and so I wonder if there’s a change somewhere or and this is the part you’re not going to like they’re not the same Cable.

Taylor: Go away.

Katie: Well, think about it this way, actually there are two ways we could go with this. They could be different universes, a lot has been messed around with, or think about time. Cables constantly come back and forth, same with Bishop, to change different futures because their future keeps getting screwed up with one thing in the past, so they keep coming back to try and change the future. I wonder if one Cable’s future changes him into one way versus another Cables changes him into another version of him. So the one we saw in the OG series might not have had the feelings he had, because maybe he didn’t have whatever childhood this one had.

Taylor: So like as an example, just to make sure I’m tracking maybe the OG series Cable was safely delivered by Bishop and raised however that would have played out. Whereas this version, regardless of whether or not Sinister himself, interfered, the fact that he was not taken to his destination by Bishop altered his perceptions, altered his feelings because he now potentially knows, for whatever reason, more about his parents and was able to form those opinions whereas before it’s just like, oh well, these are the people who, for lack of a better term, created me, brought me to life essentially, nothing more. He really did, to your point, he’s like, oh, I know about that.

Katie: Yeah and he worked with them constantly and they never seem to have an issue and that’s exactly what I mean. What you just said, that’s exactly what I’m saying, maybe in one future he made it safely somewhere but now this one that we’re seeing, he didn’t and it definitely altered how he views his past and maybe it was Sinister meddling. Sinister meddled with him, found him, did something and this is also how he has his little shiny piece of red thing. He’s going very Vision over here with the red stone in his forehead and that’s where all this goes because I just I’d be shocked if they were to tell me that the OG Cable was a sleeper cell this whole time for Sinister. Also, like I said, his personality towards Scott and towards Jean are very different between the two series.

Taylor: Yeah, it went from like completely objective to big feelings, he has a lot of big feelings.

Katie: Yeah, well, and like I said, even towards Scott, like we see him in a few of the episodes and he’s like, I don’t need your input, dad, like he has hostile feelings there. So I do wonder if there is a part that Sinister played in this and this kind of brings about why he ends up where he does. The other question is, does he kill Jean? Looked pretty permanent to me what just happened. She got, like, obliterated.

Taylor: Yeah. I mean, how about that reveal about how much he got about Madelyne’s powers or got of Madelyne’s powers?

Katie: Yeah. Which are literally Jean’s, which is, like, so strange.

Taylor: But that line where he says and power like that doesn’t tend to skip a generation, literal show stopper. Like you want to talk about a line that stopped me in my tracks, if my jaw could open anymore, it would dislocate. I was like, oh my God.

Katie: Well and they always talk about that’s what Sinister wanted. He wanted their offspring and they always talked about it and they always talked about it and I was like, no offense, but every time Cable would show up in the OG series, he was not that impressive. He time traveled cool, but like he really wasn’t doing much. I was like, is this supposed to be some powerful mutant, this is what Sinister wanted. He wanted the next generation of mutants? Where? And they finally reveal it, which I also think is pretty cool.

Taylor: I mean, it paid off 80 some episodes of television, so love to see it.

Katie: Yeah, but that was definitely a big moment. We’ve got Jean possibly dead. We’ve got Wolverine possibly dead. Storm’s in the water somewhere. Forge is crashing a plane.

Taylor: Magneto’s bleeding out.

Katie: Magneto’s bleeding out. Who else? Is anybody else standing?

Taylor: Xavier’s got a helmet wrapped around his head and does he still have the metal on his mouth so he might not even be breathing?

Katie: I’m trying to think of the ground team. Who else was on the ground team?

Taylor: Beast is being held by Bastion.

Katie: Beast and Morph are screwed. We’re not in a good place right now solidly saying. I just want to point out one little Easter egg that I live for. In the 90s, there was another soft reboot of the X-Men, and it’s considered the Blue and Gold era, and the teams are split. Storm is, I believe, I want to say blue and Cyclops is gold or I switched those, but either way, those are the teams that they split down during this episode. They even say the teams, they say the blue and the gold team and I think that was an amazing little callback to that era of the comics. That was really cool to do and if you don’t have any like, background in that, you’re not going to necessarily pick up on it, you’re just kind of like, okay, let’s split teams. But yeah, I thought that was a cool little Easter egg they shoved in there.

Taylor: I didn’t know that so love and can attest that it’s very cool. I think this show has done a really good job of calling back to the comics, in both big and small ways, to show how faithful it’s being, but while also being a really good, like modern take on them, even though it’s in the 90s. So they’re walking an incredibly difficult line, but they’re doing it in heels and looking like a ballerina and I’m like, so impressed. I hope that they find other works for these writers to work on in the MCU because this is the best writers’ room we’ve had, period, full stop. And they need to work on more projects together or be infused in other writing rooms for both movies and series, but especially TV because that is where we’ve been weakest since we came back. I mean, not every movie has hit it straight out of the park, we’ve talked about this, but there have been some winners, right? The TV shows, there are probably more losers than winners and I think the movies are the opposite. So especially because they can’t figure out the pacing of the movie or the TV shows, that’s been the biggest gripe we’ve had this whole time. So with that being said, I hope they either take this writing team and put them on other shows, or find room for each individual on other shows because they have done a masterpiece. We are going to look back at this for the next few years and say, this is top peak Marvel-like Endgame level for the TV shows like this is it.

Katie: I 100% agree with that statement. This writer’s room has been amazing. I am obviously aware that I believe their top writer was fired prior to the show. He did do season two, we will have to see what happens, I think for season three more so, that’s never been really told why he’s been fired. So to this day, it’s still a big question mark but yeah, it is just amazing. And the Easter eggs are just some of the things that I think really show homework’s been done and I think that some of the problem with some of the other shows as well is like even WandaVision, I think about and I’m like, you were killing it and then I remember and I be like, that ending was very underwhelming for everything you set up. I think it’s because they didn’t fully understand the character all the way through the arc they were trying to give her, and so they struggled. I think there are a lot of times where that happened, they struggled with endings for that exact reason. I would love to see them come in and do more stuff because they’ve done so well with this, and because they’re either really big fans or they’re willing to do their homework and I appreciate anyone willing to do their homework.

Taylor: Yeah, there’s definitely no lack of deep understanding for the characters in this writer’s room.

Katie: Correct. Do your research, that’s all we’re asking. But speaking of Easter eggs, I have one more tiny one that’s not really tiny, it was right in front of our face. Hulk confirmed in this universe, Morph turned into Hulk, and did a Morph smash instead of a Hulk smash. Pretty cool, I have to just say but yeah, I mean, we are collecting some of our Avenger characters or other MCU characters. We’re collecting them like we are out here, they’re like Pokemon. We are getting them all in these different episodes, and that was pretty cool to see him. So just wanted to throw that little Easter egg in there. I’m sure it wasn’t missed, but in case you happened to, there was a nice little Hulk moment in this episode. 

Taylor: Yeah and with that little summary of some of the Easter eggs that we saw in this episode, we’re going to call it because Episode Nine was intense, but it has done a lot to set up Episode Ten. So we are very excited to see how the series ends in just a few days. Make sure that you are following on your podcast platform of choice so that you can stay up with us while we wrap up the series. Also, make sure that you’re checking out our website, which is the home of all things Sisters Assembled, and the blog that Katie does in companion to our reaction episodes, which just has some extra info and a little bit of deeper dive so we don’t always get a chance to do before we hit record. So definitely make sure that you’re checking that out in between episodes as well.

Katie: You can also give us a follow on Twitter at SisAssembledPod, Instagram, and Threads at Sisters Assembled, and on YouTube, you can subscribe to our Sisters Scoop weekly news segments as well also at Sisters Assembled. And next week we finish X-Men ‘97 with the season finale Episode Number Ten. Can’t believe ten weeks have already gone by. It’s been crazy and we are so excited to see what’s going to come next, what next week brings, and we hope you guys are along to finish this ride with us. So get ready as Marvel just blew your mind so let’s talk about it.