Mutant X Episode Nitpicks (Season 1)
THE NITPICKER'S GUIDE TO MUTANT X
This guide for Mutant X nitpickers was inspired by The Discontinuity Guide: The Unofficial Doctor Who Companion: "To really love something, you have to want to take it apart." Invaluable resources: the official site, Masonesque, Pure MX, MX Phoenix, Television without Pity, TV.com, and many thoughtful Mutant X fans.
Nitpicking Sections: General ~ Season One ~ Season One cont'd. ~ Season Two ~ Season Two, cont'd. ~ Season Three ~ Season Three, cont'd.
SEASON ONE
by tptigger and firstmutant
Beta aid by belle-marie
The Shock of the New
Trivia: The Double Helix is currently in autopilot. Proxy Blue, visual cloaks, Genomex, the GSA, Mason’s sterilizing unit, the EDD, the new mutant database, the mutant underground, and Brennan’s love of fast cars and burglary are introduced.
Shalimar joined Mutant X before Jesse. Prior to joining Mutant X, Emma sold misses and petites at Leverman and Stokes, using her powers any chance she got. Prior to joining Mutant X, Brennan learned that he could throw off sparks as a kid, but never told anyone. Frank Thorne, Mason Eckhart's telekinetic goon in this episode, is supposedly the first person Brennan’s used his electricity against.
Shalimar, like most ferals, is territorial. Shalimar rides a yellow motorcycle.
The GSA has an inside connection to the Proxy Blue hotline.
The bank that Brennan and his gang rob is named the Hickman-Wrightson securities building. Bernie Wrightson and Stephen Hickman are two famous science fiction comic book illustrators. As is Frank Thorne, by the way.
Mason holds Adam responsible for the collapse of his immune system. Further details about what actually happened to him are never given in the series.
Emma's non-telempathic ability #1: Emma demonstrates her ability to cast illusions when she makes Allison see two innocent dock workers as GS agents. She will repeat this trick when pretending to be Nicole Carter in "Blood Ties," Megan in "Presumed Guilty," and Mason Eckhart in "Dancing on the Razor."
You’ve got to love the Darth Vader-like hissing in the pods as Mason’s face is superimposed over the new mutants in stasis.
It’s perhaps telling that Brennan’s first words in the series are, “Wai-wha?”
Nitpicks: Though we’re not sure why they want to kill Emma rather than bring her back alive, the GS agents at the beginning of this episode are definitely carrying guns. They’re also carrying guns in “I Scream the Body Electric,” “Fool for Love,” “The Meaning of Death,” “Lit Fuse,” “Crime of the New Century,” and “Blood Ties.” Remember this information for when we reach “Deadly Desire” and hear Emma's query.
It’s too bad that the GS agents don’t know that Jesse can only stay massed for a certain amount of time. If they just waited a few seconds between rounds, their bullets would be much more effective.
For someone who feels so guilty about the way new mutants were handled by Genomex, Dr. Breedlove shows a surprisingly mild response to learning what Mason's GS agents have been up to, chasing Emma. He doesn't even ask why they were after her.
Brad Carter, although the trio of car thieves he has just hired is standing right beside his shiny black car, apparently thinks nothing is amiss when he discovers on hopping in that his seat needs to be readjusted for the length of his legs. Ahem.
Brennan’s gang are either really good, or really stupid. When they rob the bank, they aren’t wearing masks or gloves, and we know for a fact that Brennan, at least, has been to jail in the past, meaning that he does have fingerprints on file.
Brennan will inform Shalimar in “Into the Moonless Night” that before he joined Mutant X, he only robbed people who probably deserved it. Tell that to the poor woman in the bank whose necklace he steals in this episode.
We learn that Genomex is really a branch of U.S. government intelligence, but the Genetic Security Agency isn't officially formed until this episode, following Dr. Breedlove's untimely demise at the hands of 'genetic terrorists.' Interestingly, Frank Thorne refers to GS agents *before* Eckhart makes his Orwellian announcement. Which makes you wonder how much, if anything, the Genomex Rank & File already know. This issue will come up again in "Into the Moonless Night."
Adam states that there are maybe 1,000 children of Genomex. Pretty impressive for for a bunch of labs that didn't have site directed mutagenesis (c.f. Time Squared). Adam also says that new mutant DNA is in a constant state of mutation ( evolution --hey, writers? Not. Equivalent.). This necessitates the tune ups and is probably as good an explanation as any for the growth spurts in "A Breed Apart." This information is then promptly forgotten about until “A Breed Apart,” and then again until season 3.
It doesn't make much sense that Paul Breedlove isn't aware that Frank Thorne is a new mutant. I mean, Breedlove was the one who created the new mutant database. Twice.
How is it that Shalimar has been with Adam all those years but has never heard of Paul Breedlove before this episode? She certainly knows who Mason Eckhart is.
It’s funny how there’s always just one red car in the parking lot at Genomex.
Ruby’s bookstore is actually a bookstore. Even as Adam is showing Emma how to get into the safehouse, there are actual people browsing through, buying books....any of whom could be undercover GSA, like Kendra MacEvoy. How secure can that be?
Brennan says he's never told anyone about his abilities before Emma. If that were true--which it isn't--Brennan trusts Emma awfully easily just by learning she has powers too, doesn't he? After all, Thorne has powers too. By season three, we'll learn that at least two other people were in the know, Brennan's childhood partner-in-crime Cole Thatcher ("Divided Loyalties"), and his high school counselor, Dr. Victor Palance ("Shadows of Darkness").
Frank Thorne sensibly goes off to capture Brennan wearing a shock-proof vest. Now, why can’t any subsequent GS agents follow suit?
What are they all looking at as the scene fades to black at the end?
Stuff dropped like a hot potato: Jesse using his comlink like a flash camera during the first fight scene. Adam probably got tired of getting out-of-focus images of beat-up unconscious GS agents for the database.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Emma this time) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 2 drinks (Brennan)
I Scream the Body Electric
Trivia: The subdermal governors are introduced.
Before Shalimar joined Mutant X, Adam found her holed up in a fleabag hotel having not eaten for five days.
Brennan runs out of juice after a certain period of time, and needs an hour before swimming he can reform a tesla coil.
Emma first used her abilities at five to find her parents at a rock festival. Her parents left when she was ten; she was raised in a foster home. [Note: In the Mutant Xverse, ten is a bad age for mutants. Emma’s parents ditched her when she was ten, Shalimar’s father placed her in an institution when she was ten, Brennan was boosting cars when he was ten, Gabriel Ashlocke murdered his parents at the age of ten, and Josh Valentine is ten when his father tries to place him in Genomex.]
Brennan's school difficulties began in the 3rd grade.
In Emma’s mind, subdermal governors are represented by chains.
After Brennan’s capture, Adam sets up “a second safehouse.” Apparently, Ruby’s bookstore was the only one before this episode.
"I Scream the Body Electric" is derived from the title of a poem by Walt Whitman, I Sing the Body Electric, from his Leaves of Grass collection. Walt Whitman's poetry will play a larger role for Brennan in "Lit Fuse."
Nitpicks: Most ironic line of the episode has to be Shalimar's "It's not in Adam's nature to dislike anyone." Sure. Shal seems to have forgotten the little tiff Adam's had with Mason for, oh, the past 20 years or so.
The GS agents in this episode are quite considerate of one another. Even as Brennan is escaping, they stop to pick up their fallen comrades before continuing to chase Brennan through the hallways.
Adam is slightly creepy in this episode. Poking at the leads on Shalimar’s mostly naked chest, peering at Shalimar and Emma’s session in the dojo from behind the stairs, telling Emma that she’s *heavy breathing* “the answer to a prayer”...Borderline creepy.
The subdermal governor’s controller sounds an awful lot like a car door opener.
For Brennan, the pain of a subdermal governor hits him in the stomach. For the psionic Thorne, it's a headache. This seems to imply that Brennan’s electrical abilities originate in his gut.
Adam uses a virus to destroy Genomex's copy of the New Mutant Database, but wouldn't a company as large as Genomex have offsite back-ups? Lexa will copy this page from Adam’s playbook in “The Assault,” using a virus to infect The Dominion’s computers and deactivate her subdermal governor. Only she doesn’t need a disk to do it.
At the end of the episode, Emma hugs Shalimar for giving her a Mutant X ring. Jesse presents Brennan with his ring and then says: "What, no hug?" Sorry, dude, not even when you almost get gassed to death in "No Exit."
Okay, Thorne is a telekinetic. Why doesn’t he just pick Brennan up and hurl him over the railing instead of fleeing like a frightened child at the end of the episode?
And finally. Since Brennan had no idea at the time that Jesse could phase and mass--he was busy fighting off GS agents of his own during the final fight of the last episode--did Brennan really throw Jesse a warning look at the safehouse and then lie about it (I don't get the male psyche, nope, nope) or did he really miss and Jesse was, for some reason, seeing what he wanted to see?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Shalimar this time) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 6 Food intake: 0
Russian Roulette
Trivia: Notable guest appearance: Ross Hull of Are You Afraid of the Dark as Daniel Benedict. Benedict Arnold. Get it?
The holographic dojo and force fields are introduced.
When someone calls Genomex from a safehouse, an alarm goes off in Sanctuary.
Jesse is responsible for making the comlink rings and fake Genomex IDs.
Though the Mutant X team eats lots of sushi, Shalimar prefers her meat medium well.
Once Jesse takes off his comlink, it is inactivated and the video feed is immediately lost along with all communication and location fixing capabilities.
Jesse, Brennan, and Adam refer to the ground cars as MV for the first and last time in the series.
Adam says the Pushka is top secret KGB circa 1980's. This is the first hint given that there may have been European new mutants as well. More to come in "Ex Marks the Spot" and “Reality Check.”
Seeing the eagle reflected on Emma’s pupils before she projects it to Brennan is pretty neat. It’s a shame that this is the first and last time it happens.
Sonya meets Daniel at Millenium Park. Though Mutant X is filmed in Canada, the real Millennium Park is in Chicago.
Emma's non-telempathic power #2: As she will (unintentionally) repeat with Jesse in "The Meaning of Death," Emma makes Sonya believe that she is choking. Panic and fear are emotions. Choking is not.
Nitpicks: The underpass they’re in at the beginning of the episode is the same one Brennan and Jesse fight under in “Crime of the New Century,” minus some grass and muddy puddles of water.
Tina’s heard weird stories 'aboot' the underground. She must be a child of the Canadian branch of Genomex.
The Pushka identifies Tina as an amphibian feral, Brennan as an electrical elemental...and Jesse as a "molecular strand 19." I guess "Intangible and impervious molecular" wouldn’t fit on the screen. (By the by, it’d be nice to see what it came up with when faced with Charlotte Cooke from "Altered Ego.") The Pushka clearly identifies Brennan’s mutant type, but Sonya and Yuri keep walking toward him even as they see him begin to charge up. What did they think was going to happen next?
As Brennan’s battling Sonya and Yuri, why does it take so long for Jesse and Tina to come back for him in the MV? It’s only like 20 feet away.
Since Daniel’s been helping his father usher mutants into the underground for a while, shouldn’t he recognize Jesse right away when he showed up at Millennium Park instead of Sonya? It probably would have been wiser for Adam to send someone Daniel wouldn’t know.
Emma’s the first one in the series to perform an EDD scan other than Adam. She places Brennan’s chest leads just as Adam did with Shalimar in “I Scream the Body Electric,” but she’s added two on his forehead. All the leads magically disappear as Brennan’s talking to her.
At the Benedicts’ house, Shalimar calls Sanctuary’s computer instead of just speaking directly to Adam on her comlink, forcing Adam to say “Answer” before he can talk to her. That never happens again in the series.
Possible continuity issue:
Shalimar: What do I know about family therapy? Adam: You have a family don't you? Shalimar: Yeah, but... Adam: That's all the training you need.
It's possible that by 'family,' Adam is referring to Shalimar's adopted Mutant X family, but if he's talking about her real family, that’s a weird thing to say to Shalimar. Does Adam not know about the insane asylum Shalimar’s father put her in? Or did the writers? Then again, maybe her life before that was decent, it's hard to tell.
As Mason explains what the Pushka does to new mutant DNA, Marvel's musical flourish is playing in the background.
According to Shalimar, The GSA doesn't hire Russians; Sonya says that Eckhart has no faith in Russian technology. Perhaps that’s because Sonya can't seem to get his name right. While on the phone to Daniel, she says she's an associate of ‘Marcus’ Eckhart.
The bounty hunter Sonya is smarter than a GS agent in that she immediately makes sure that Jesse is scanned for bugs. When Shalimar is captured in "Dark Star Rising," no one bothers to take away her comlink ring.
Where is this show supposed to take place? The reversal sequence is A-7 Zed-41, then the trigger. Russians using 'zed' makes sense--they probably used British English. But Jesse and Adam? Canadian writers, I guess.
Poor Brennan. When his heart stops, no one rushes in to administer CPR. Then when he finally wakes up, they smile at him for two seconds and immediately run from the room...even though there really isn’t anywhere they have to be just then.
I guess the punishment for betraying all new mutants and giving your father a one-way ticket to a stasis pod is a stern Emma/Shalimar lecture and a few hours in the dojo with dinner but no potty break.
Fashion victim: Emma in shiny black vinyl. Whose idea was that?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 1 (the entire episode) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 2 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse)
Fool for Love
Trivia: Karen Bell and Mason are the only non-mutants podded in the series...that we know of.
Adam mentions the feral sisterhood.
New tool in Sanctuary’s computer: A 3-D profile generator Adam uses to create a picture of Richard from Shalimar’s description.
Emma's non-telempathic powers #3 and #4: Emma can pull out things from memories that people don't know they have, like the license plate number from the bouncer at Donna Morse's club. She also somehow manages to mentally give Jesse a very physical whack upside the head. Telempath, my ass.
Notable guest star: Desmond Campbell, the actor who plays the bouncer in this episode, pops up again as the alien Brak in "Sign from Above."
The episode's title, "Fool for Love," is Shalimar's explanation to Adam for wanting to waltz into Genomex alone. "What can I say? I'm a fool for love."
The name of Jack Mitchell's office is Hartwell Brokerage, located on Mason street. J Mason Hartwell was a short-lived character in the DC comic book New Gods #10: "Earth -- The Doomed Dominion."
Nitpicks: Adam says that the reason Donna’s name kept appearing in Genomex’s scanner was because Richard was treating her. But Richard’s experiments were hidden until Karen turned them up, so why’s her name showing up on the scanner prior to that?
Real life science issues:
1) Research associates are usually sub-PhD level scientists.
2) Someone should tell Saunders that not closing his lab coat is as bad as not wearing it. Big splash zone in the middle.
Why must Emma convince Brennan and Jesse that a psionic might be good to have with you during an interrogation? That should be pretty self-evident.
Shalimar and Richard have sex in Donna’s bed before they know for sure that she won’t be coming back. Ew.
Adam says that the first symptom of illness from Richard’s serum is loss of control over mutant abilities. That happened with Donna, but that never seems to happen to Richard.
Semi-fashion victim: Emma's tight outfit doesn't seem as bad when it's not shiny.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 1 (And Shalimar for good measure) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Kilohertz
Trivia: Other than Proxy Blue, the only other television station of the Mutant Xverse seems to be WXDV, Channel 13. In the second season, it will be replaced by WXTY.
Nitpicks: Emma says that her parents were (hippies?) into organics, macrobiotic foods, and solar power. This makes her a bit of a technophobe. Odd, given her best friend in high school as shown in “Interface.”
Not having learned his lesson after the Karen Bell fiasco in the previous episode, Mason decides to assign the important task of capturing Kilohertz to a kid who not only still has a semester to complete at the academy, but also had a rocky beginning at Genomex.
Jesse says, "I have no time for romance, I'm too busy making the world a safer place to live." This attitude lasts for about, oh, three episodes.
If you look closely as Jesse and Emma are searching the database for Kilohertz, Allison Turner’s mug shot photo (that Shalimar took in “I Scream the Body Electric”) comes up briefly.
As a truck backs up hiding the fleeing Barry from Brennan and Emma, its warning beeps are exactly in time to the music’s beat. Now that's driving in style.
Emma, Brennan, and Adam all find it so weird that the FCC should be looking for Barry that they automatically deduce that it’s the GSA under false credentials. But since the FCC regulates all radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable transmissions in the U.S., why wouldn’t they be after Barry?
Technobabble: Stop gaps for the stock market? Sounds like something the Star Trek tech computer nerd would dream up.
While discussing options for holding Barry, Shalimar says they can’t keep him sedated forever. After 25 years of being podded, Gabriel Ashlocke might be surprised to hear that.
During Kilohertz’s initial raid, the Helix loses power and Sanctuary’s computer is offline, but the comlinks still work, seeming to suggest that the comlink system is independent of Sanctuary’s computer. Yet when Barry’s invaded Sanctuary’s computer, Adam tells Brennan to hit the comlink system to drive Barry out.
Also, at the end of the episode, Renfield says, "I have renewed my vows of commitment to constant vigilance." Does Harry Potter's Mad Eye Moody teach at the GSA academy now?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 9 Food intake: Sushi dinner (the team)
The Meaning of Death
Trivia: Helping new mutants get into the underground is not the exclusive purview of Mutant X--or if it is, Mutant X is bigger than the main characters of the series. It's clear from this episode that Rick was instrumental into getting new mutants into the underground. Presumably, there are many other agents like him. Where'd they go after this season?
Mutant X has a rogues' gallery of GS agents and their informants.
This is the first and only time Adam complains that he doesn’t have enough money to get the job done properly. This episode also introduces Shalimar’s fear of fire and the fact that Jesse can only stay phased for 30 seconds before he dissipates.
Mason and Adam had a partnership 20 years ago.
The book Brennan's reading while stuck in the safehouse might be Howl, a collection of poems by Allen Ginsberg.
Nitpicks: In the scene when they're discussing how they're not sick, really, honest, Jesse and Emma are wearing the exact same outfits as they were when they were discussing hacking things in "Kilohertz".
Funny how Brennan had a book handy for when they were quarantined. Either that or the safehouse has a library. And someone should tell him that's a bad way to shield something from X-ray vision.
Also, the safe house is different from the one we see in later episodes such as “Blood Ties,” “Dancing on the Razor,” and “A Breed Apart.” This one seems to be an abandoned subway station. Tomorrow People complex, anyone?
Shalimar asks if she’s the only one who gets the fashionable hazmat suit. Close enough. Certainly neither of the guys ever wear one, though Jesse's also stuck in Sanctuary with Rick.
Shal kicks Alice's door down. Door Kickage is definitely a first season theme: “The Meaning of Death,” “In the Presence of Mine Enemies,” “Crime of the New Century,” “Dark Star Rising,” “Blood Ties,” and “A Breed Apart.” People kick doors in subsequent seasons as well, but the doors of the second and third seasons are made of sterner stuff...they just burst open instead of completely coming down.
Christopher Charles Marlowe really is charmed. Not only does he touch Mason’s desk without being reprimanded, but he also plays with Mason’s sterilization unit without having washed his hands. Poor Dr. Harrison gets glared at for just touching Mason’s chair, and he's medically responsible for Mason.
While new mutants are dying all around Adam, one of the nurses calls for O-negative blood. Non-mutant blood for a mutant? Why would that be compatible?
Since we learn in “Lazarus Syndrome” that GS agents have tracking devices implanted in them, it’s too bad Mason didn’t just record Charles’s location while he was in Sanctuary.
Mason calls off his guards when Charles holds him at gunpoint. Why doesn’t Mason recall his security units as soon as he realizes Charles is vulnerable?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 1 (Shalimar) Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 (Brennan’s chips)
Lit Fuse
Trivia: Sanctuary's computer has a voice stress analyzer. Remember this for "Altered Ego."
This is the first time the Double Helix is in stealth mode.
Proxy Blue is apparently local as Jesse comments that she must have a generator when the power is out.
The name of The City's electric company is Trans El.
Subdermal governors don’t work on new mutants who are actively mutating.
Brennan reads Walt Whitman to relax.
Nitpicks: Ashley somehow manages to transform Brennan into pure electricity and then absorb him, despite the fact that he merely channels electricity; his DNA is not a constant state of flux between energy and matter as Barry Sterling's was in "Kilohertz." Yet once he's inside of her, some part of him is apparently still intact as Brennan, for Emma is able to connect to his mind to find out where he's gone. Even odder is the fact that once Ashley has absorbed him, she acquires some of his personality traits, such as his disregard for Jesse, his love of Walt Whitman, his ability to create tesla coils, and his knowledge of how to fly the Double Helix. Just bizarre. In spite of the laws of common sense, Brennan re-materializes conveniently on the big X on the floor the Helix once Emma reverses the polarity of...something. Ta-da!
It's amazing that Shalimar manages to find Cross's well-chewed cigar for DNA analysis, conveniently ignoring all the other cigarette butts probably strewn about the lot. Then again, perhaps people don't litter or smoke in the MXverse, and any evidence of one who does both must be indicative of an unstable, nefarious mind.
Ashley Elliot: How did you know I fell in love with this? Brennan: Let's just say I got to know you a little. Ashley: Maybe a little too well. But uh, I'll never tell. Brennan: Neither will I.
This is dropped, and it's hard to tell if it's just the hundreds of things going on in your head you wouldn't want anyone else to know about, or something more sinister. (Brennan's a GSA mole, really a woman, part of the Russian Mafia, constantly chatting up women to cover up his undying love for Jesse...)
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (Although who knows what he was wearing while inside Ashley?) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0 (except for Ashley's electricity binges)
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Trivia: Notable guest star: Mark Lutz as Eric Tanner. (Sometimes known as The Groosalugg on Angel: The Series.)
"In the Presence of Mine Enemies," comes from The Bible, Psalms 23:5 "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over."
Emma's non-telempathic power #5: Emma blinds the Genomex guards, allowing Mutant X to enter uninterrupted. Blindness isn't an emotion, but she'll pull this off again in "Double Vision," and "Interface."
Nitpicks: Fashion Victim: Why is it guys with long hair think too much gel goes with a suit? *shudder*
Adam plays poker with Shal and chess with Emma. At the same time. Apparently this makes him Very Smart.
This is the first time Eckhart explicitly states that they want to keep new mutants' existence invisible to society's radar.
They do too eat at Sanctuary. Look, dishes! Of course, they look like they came from a Japanese restaurant, but still. The Mutant X team is always eating take-out--Japanese, Thai, pizza. Being a member of Mutant X means never having to actually cook anything.
When Kendra's showing Mason the version of Proxy Blue Toni's created, Proxy!Red says: "We've all been left in the lurch at one time or another....the best way to get ahead is by knowing your opponents' weaknesses." This exact clip will be used again as the very last thing Proxy Blue gets to say before Shalimar kills her in "Past as Prologue."
Also, they must have had limited shooting time for this episode. During the second practice Genomex break-in in the dojo, they re-used all of the clips from the first run and just looped the dialogue in afterwards. It's a little eerie, because even though the team is talking to each other, you never actually see them talking until the very end of the simulation.
Then, when Mutant X enters Genomex headquarters for real after their first two practice runs, the director's stuck in two clips directly from "I Scream the Body Electric": the first when Shalimar and Adam run up the Genomex back stairs together, and the second when Jesse's walking down the balcony, dressed as a Genomex guard.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 coffee (Brennan)
The Crime of the New Century
Trivia: This is the first and last time Jesse issues instructions to Brennan which Brennan actually follows.
Jesse says Brennan arranged to meet him at Fawcett Avenue, near Briggs. Austin Briggs was an early comic book illustrator; Fawcett Comics was the comic book publishing house which originated Captain Marvel.
We learn that there are many different clinics and compounds at Genomex; Mutant X finds Joshua in clinic 6 in compound 4.
Adam taught Brennan how to electrically disengage subdermal governors. Shalimar taught Jesse how to hack into the NuJack satellite system.
Emma's non-telempathic power #6: When Emma sends Josh the image of a merry-go-round to persuade him to turn around, she demonstrates yet another non-empathic gift, the ability to cast illlusions through the connection of a telepathic mutant.
Special guest star: Deborah O'Dell, who plays Lisa Valentine in this episode, will return as casino owner Kristen Greg in season 3's "Wages of Sin."
The episode's title, "Crime of the New Century," might be a parallel to the infamous 1932 kidnapping and murder of pilot Charles Lindbergh's infant son, which was dubbed "The Crime of the Century."
Nitpicks: Brennan sparks Jesse in the teaser, probably at about the voltage of a joy buzzer. Not bad for someone who'd never used his power on a person before "The Shock of the New." I find it hard to believe prank boy hadn't done that before.
If you recognize the underpass in the teaser’s fight scene, it’s because you saw it in the teaser for “Russian Roulette.”
How can Josh be an elemental if his mother is a psionic? I think a paternity test is in order.
How did we not notice how easy it was for kidnapper Burke to get through that high-priced security system?
I don't believe Brennan’s favors for friends line, he was totally boosting cars at 10. (I suspect with his background, trouble found him...)
Jesse says Brennan’s labwork’s still a little sloppy. Perhaps this is from lack of practice? The only time I can remember Brennan doing anything remotely resembling labwork is when Adam hands him a mortar and pestle in “Dark Star Rising.”
Adam apparently misses his “Adam Zero” days. When he and Emma go undercover as insurance agents, he calls himself “Zolo” and Emma, “DeNono.” Tee-hee.
Why doesn’t Wendy Stone recognize Adam and Emma? It’s one thing when low-level staff members like Karen Bell or Dr. Richard Saunders don’t recognize Mutant X team members, but Wendy is an honest-to-goodness GSA field agent.
Why on Earth is Brennan bouncing that tennis ball? Argh.
In a leap of logic so amazing that you have to see it for yourselves, Brennan, Shalimar, and Jesse brainstorm until they translate a rain of pennies into an abandoned warehouse at Lincoln Salvage Company. Brennan first suggests that pennies might be Josh’s idea of a lot of money. Obviously, he hasn’t seen the Valentine's mansion.
The MV has Mutant X license plates. Isn't that just a little conspicuous?
Brennan tells Jesse that if he’d electrocuted Berg while he was standing in a metal boat, they’d all be toast. The same logic doesn’t seem to apply when Brennan’s standing on metal catwalks while electrocuting Caleb Mathias in “Lazarus Syndrome,” Morgan’s GS agent in “A Breed Apart,” or Nick Maddox in “Within These Walls.”
Emma's meditating in a darkened Sanctuary, so why is Adam making all that noise, playing on the computers?
Is it just me or is the room where Lisa Valentine wakes up after Corbin slips her the sleeping pill a new set?
Aside from being cool and dramatic, there really isn't a good reason for Brennan to knock the door down when he and Jesse are rescuing Josh. Besides the fact that the commotion would alert even the most inattentive GS agents to their presence, they don't know exactly where Josh is located in the room. Had he been strapped to a chair that was closer to the door, the poor kid would have been smashed flat.
Good Josh, hit the gun, not the person. Someone taught you well.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse), 1 water (Brennan)
Dark Star Rising
Trivia: Angel is the first person in the series to call Brennan "Sparky."
Emma's non-telempathic power #7: Whose thoughts, exactly, is she pulling those images of Bogata from? It doesn't seem to be on Angel and Beau Longstreet's minds at the moment... Though she's never met them before, Emma seems to have long-range access to Beau and Angel's memories.
Mason Eckhart says of Beau Longstreet, "He looks to be the living incarnation of Nietsche's dictum: What doesn't kill you will make you stronger." This is a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer: "Whatever does not destroy me makes me stronger."
Nitpicks: Why is Shalimar out on that roof alone? This must be before the times of Brennan tailing her everywhere she goes.
This is the first episode where it's mentioned that Mason wants to genetically alter humans into new mutants. This really doesn't fit with what we've heard from him so far--he seems to want these anomalies to go away, so why make more? The following quote may shed some light on this:
Mason: We are on the verge of creating new mutants. Dr. Harrison: Obedient and subservient new mutants. Completely at the service of your will. Mason: Enough to conceivably make the Children of Genomex unnecessary in the greater scheme of things.
What greater scheme of things? What is Mason's master plan? Why did Gabriel Ashlocke have to pod him so we wouldn't know?
Shalimar describes Beau’s tattoo, and Brennan recognizes it instantly. I know Brennan’s an army brat, but how would he know about Dark Star if they're more secret than the Navy Seals? Also, for a former army brat whose father was killed behind enemy lines, Brennan doesn't seem too understanding about Beau Longstreet's reluctance to leave Corporal Randall's body behind.
Emma meditates in the darkened Sanctuary two weeks in a row. Seriously, what's wrong with her room?
When Brennan's sitting in the engine plant explaining the concept of new mutants to Angel, is it just me, or does he tell her that the four mutant types are elementals, psionics, freaks, and ferals? Jesse should totally kick his ass for that!
When they get Angel to their lab, Adam draws her blood with what appears to be a plastic transfer pipette. This isn't a very sharp instrument. Why isn't he using a syringe???
We learn that the parents of the Children of Genomex didn't know everything about the experiments being done on the kids. So were their powers an unfortunate side effect of the experiment or the ultimate goal of the project?
The following seems almost like foreshadowing for Adam's untrustworthiness in season 3:
Emma: I promise you if anyone can help her, it's Adam. Beau Longstreet: I believed in my superior officers. Look where that got me. Shalimar: Yeah, but it's not like that with Adam, Beau. Beau: Is he one of you--one of us? Shalimar: You mean a new mutant? Nope. Emma: Adam made it possible for us to survive what had been done to us.
Jesse takes out the guard at Tricorp’s computer station with a single blow to the back of his shoulders...although how that would render someone unconscious is beyond me.
If Jesse can't phase the plant out of the building, how come his clothes go with him?
Unlike Mason’s golden boy Charles Marlowe, Dr. Ken Harrison isn’t allowed to touch Mason’s things....even though he is his doctor.
Why are the boys asking Shalimar where she is? Her comlink is still on; they should already know that she’s inside Genomex.
Come to think of it, why is her comlink still on after the GSA has captured her? Even Sonya knew enough to scan Jesse for bugs in “Russian Roulette.” And if that detention chair is designed to hold new mutants so that they can be fitted with subdermal governors, shouldn’t it be strong enough to hold ferals?
When Beau wakes up in Dr. Harrison’s lab, he doesn’t seem at all worried that Shalimar’s in a surgeon assistant’s uniform. Might it not have occurred to him-even for an instant--that she could be working for Genomex?
It is strongly implied that Dr. Harrison is podded at the end of this episode, however we never actually see him in a pod. In fact, he appears fine and dandy in his next episode.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 0
Whiter Shade of Pale
Trivia: Brennan is a caffeine addict and spends about $50 a week on coffee. If he needs that much, why doesn't he just get a coffee maker for Sanctuary? (Apparently he's so out of it pre-fix that he lets Jesse and Neil do the heavy lifting.)
Notable guest appearances: Christopher Bolton, who played Kirk on My Secret Identity--he played the in-the-dark best friend to the super hero. Now he's an evil Feral--has he moved up in the world? At least in MSI he was a main character.
As Jesse's tracking the genetic sequencer's progress, he says it has come to a stop at the Hotel Infantino on Carmine Street. Carmine Infantino is a famous comic book artist and editor.
The actress who played Danielle Hartman, Guylaine St. Onge, died of cervical cancer March 3rd 2005. She was just 38 years old.
Emma’s non-telempathic ability #8: She makes poor Aldous actually believe he’s on fire. Spontaneous combustion? Not an emotion.
Nitpicks: Adam says that the genetic sequencer is of no use to Mason, only to mutants who are actively mutating. Why not? Since subdermal governors aren’t effective on mutants who are actively mutating (like Ashley Elliot in “Lit Fuse”), even I can see why Mason might be interested in such a device.
Adam's description of Danielle's powers sounds eerily like Lexa's. Is it possible that Lexa and Leo are half siblings to Catherine--and Adam's children? (As good a theory as to their “special relationship” as anything.)
Shalimar gets protective of Adam and wants to check up on Danielle since Adam hasn't seen her in 16 years. This seems a bit much, but is very lucky for Catherine.
Adam and Mason were rivals for Danielle's affections. Catherine is not Adam's child, but her father was "really smart." Oh dear, is that poor girl carrying around half of Mason's DNA?
Also, Catherine's conversation with Emma appears to take place on that observation deck from the first couple of episodes. Go figure.
Danielle gets a much more comfortable bio bed than Brennan did in "Russian Roulette." Sleeping with Adam has its advantages, I suppose.
Emma gets the sequencer back single-handedly, and with style. She rocks, when she wants to. (She also orders an Amaretto Sour, but doesn't drink it. I'm presuming this is an alcoholic drink--just wait for it, for now.)
Danielle moved "upstate" after leaving Genomex. Has anyone heard this term applied to anywhere other than New York State?
During the fight to get Danielle away from the GSA, Brennan accidentally hits massed-out Jesse with an arc. This doesn't seem to phase him in the least, if you'll pardon the pun.
When Catherine disappears and heads off to find her mother in the lab, Brennan says, “Been here before.” What’s he talking about? Has Catherine been at Sanctuary before? Has Brennan seen a stealth mutant before?
Shalimar's feral vision allows her to see the invisible Lexa in "Into the Moonless Night" because she gives off heat even when she's invisible. Catherine presumably gives off heat as well (Aldous is able to see Danielle with infrared goggles), yet Shalimar's unable to see her when she becomes invisible in Sanctuary.
In the tag: Brennan gets Catherine's bag--given the conversation that Adam and Danielle have after they leave the room, my guess is he's thinking little sister. Catherine, however, is clearly thinking something else as she does the cute little fifteen year old flirting with a much older guy thing. (This is cute, and not creepy, because Brennan rather politely makes it clear that nothing's happening.)
If you can figure out what this episode's title has to do with the episode itself, do let us know.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 3 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 (Adam’s wine)
Double Vision
Trivia: Emma gets several scans in this episode, but never has to strip down to that black bra. That luxury will be entirely Shalimar’s from here on out.
In the tag, there's a new, shiny indoor garden in Sanctuary.
Emma's non-telempathic power #9: Badass!Emma makes Dr. Harrison feel he has to go to the bathroom immediately by casting visions of waterfalls into his mind. Bladder fullness? Not an emotion.
This episode earned two Gemini nominations, one for Lauren Lee Smith's acting and another for Lou Natale's musical score.
Nitpicks: Brennan wants a hug from Matty, gets a smooch and then a backstab. Maybe he should stick to hugging members of Mutant X...not that scared!Emma lets him later in the episode.
While gathering up badass!Emma, Matty says something to the effect of having to settle for Brennan's girlfriend. Apparently she's a Brennan/Emma 'shipper. *snerk*
Brennan tells Jesse that he would never hit a woman. Though it's true that neither he nor Jesse actually punches a woman in the series (either Shalimar or Emma is always around to do the honors), chivalry doesn't prevent Brennan from electrocuting Kendra MacEvoy in "In the Presence of Mine Enemies," Valerie in "Past as Prologue," the wheelchair-bound Marika in "Into the Moonless Night," and Emma in "A Breed Apart" and "Deadly Desire."
Brennan’s sure that Matty didn’t have new mutant powers when he last knew her because they’d been in tight situations where she could have used them. That's an odd attitude to have, given the fact that Brennan claims that he never let anyone see him use his abilities back then either, even though he was in those tight situations right along with her.
Why is scared!Emma afraid of the EDD scan? It's not like whole Emma never had them before. (This seemed a bit much). Why does it take so long for Jesse and Shalimar to realize how weirdly Emma's acting? And for that matter, why is scared!Emma out in the real world trying to hunt down Brennan? Other than the plot device.
Wait a second, Mason was gonna pod Dr. Harrison in the last episode. Why's he still there? (And the end of this episode, Mason implies he should be a research subject.)
If the split was some sort of cellular/genetic event, how come Emma’s clothes were copied too?
Adam is shocked that Emma's drinking--what about that Amaretto Sour in “Whiter Shade of Pale”? OK, she didn't exactly wait around for it, but if Emma doesn't drink, how does she know about the more obscure fancy drinks?
How come the lab’s security lockdown isn't Brennan-proof? After all, we learn the dojo is in "Altered Ego,” and Sanctuary itself is in "The Future Revealed."
Complete random weirdness: Shal kissing the bald guy during the brawl scene. WTH? (She and Jesse tag teaming it is a sight to behold, however.)
Where did the flat beds for reintegrating Emma come from?
Why is Matty resorting to baby talk with Brennan? My god. There is one proposition in the series he turns down. ::boggles::
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 1 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 1 drink (Emma B)
Blood Ties
Trivia: Jesse and his dad were in father/son martial arts tournaments every year until his folks split up and his dad went undercover and overseas.
Special guest star: Nicole Carter is played by Chick Reid, Tom McCamus's wife in real life.
Nitpicks: Noah's just a manipulating bastard. How'd Jesse turn out so trusting and innocent?If this were a Whedon show, Jesse would've been referred to as "Schmucky the bait" in the script during the teaser. I just wanted to point that out.
How did Jesse not know that his dad slipped him the disk? That's a pretty odd place to touch your son whom you haven't seen in years.
On a similar note, why is Jesse shouting "Noah!" at his father that he hasn't seen in years? He calls him "Dad" for the majority of the show afterwards, even after his betrayal. I know this makes his "My Dad showed up" more dramatic after Brennan comes on the scene, but geez.
Still trying to figure out what kind of mutant Cole Calvin Porter is...a sonic molecular, maybe?
Noah phones Mason from the safehouse to blackmail him for money. Luckily for Noah, that alarm which alerted Mutant X when Daniel Benedict called Mason from his safehouse in “Russian Roulette” remains completely and mysteriously silent.
Brennan however, turns up that Jesse's Dad was working at Nexxogen. Not a very good father Jesse has. Of course, we learn later that the divorce sounds kinda bitter, so it's possible there's other reasons for him not to have contacted Jesse...except that it's not true, poor guy.
Script stupidity: Why does the device Adam uses for taking Shalimar and Emma's thumbprints hurt?
Also, why does it take so long for the team to tell Jesse their suspicions? And when they do, why aren't they forcing him to sit down and look at the proof instead of just telling him? They didn't think he'd actually believe it otherwise, did they? And they do have that handy dojo trap they used for Daniel Benedict...
In the same vein, note that there's nothing the team can do once Jesse's in the Helix headed toward disaster. It's a shame that Adam didn't take the next logical step to reconfigure the manual override sequence after Ashley Elliot successfully hijacked the Double Helix in "Lit Fuse." He doesn't make that mistake twice, though, since the sequence works just fine when Shalimar takes the Helix in "A Normal Life."
How does Jesse's dad know about Mutant X? And why isn't Jesse suspicious at this point? I mean, sure, his Dad's covert ops, but then wouldn't he have heard something from him before now?
Noah: "If anything happens to my son, the deal's off." OK, so Noah's only 99% manipulating bastard. Of course, Mason just orders Noah's death anyway.
Moving on to the girls break-in to Nexxogen--they're stopped at the door. Why cause a scene by kicking ass right away? Couldn't Emma have done some psionic stuff first?
I also want to point out that Emma takes out four GS agents on her own here, without even needing to use her psionic abilities. Count ‘em, four.
How come the GSA is so good at finding Mutant X safehouses? And shouldn't it be sound proof? I mean, Sanctuary seems to be everyone-who-isn't-a-telecyber proof, wouldn't a few more safehouse precautions be in order?
Why did Brennan change shirts to come after Jesse? Especially since Jesse was in the Helix with a head start, and the ground car *has* to be slower.
Why does Jesse know to grab Cole Calvin Porter's audio filter? (He then masses to protect his dad from the bullets. Go figure.)
Adam is watching Shalimar comforting Jesse at the end. It seems rather creepy. I mean either go down there or give them some privacy. (Seriously, it's a good thing no one was doing the horizontal tango in Sanctuary during seasons one and two.)
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Altered Ego
Trivia: Adam says when Brennan gets wet he becomes physically weak. Remember this for "Power Play."
Emma's non-telempathic ability #10: Though Emma’s never met Charlotte, she connects to her mind and gets images of what she’s seeing (she did something like this in "Crime of the New Century, but that was with Lisa's telepathic aid). This is a skill similar to what psionic Sam "The Reader" Raymond is capable of in "Once Around."
Nitpicks: When the GS agents show up to grab Charlotte and Skeet, they pull Skeet out of the apartment’s front door twice.
How old is Charlotte? Sometimes she acts like she's 20, sometimes she acts like she's 15.
Charlotte touches Jesse first, so why does the effect wear off on Shalimar first? Just because she’s a feral? How come Adam doesn't have the same physical reaction to the toxin that Lynch, Jesse, and Shalimar have?
In the scene in the lab following the Charlotte induced fight between Shalimar and Jesse, Shal has bruises on her left shoulder. She lands against massed Jesse on her hands, then he kicks her in the gut. Why is her shoulder bruised?
Fashion victim: You're Brennan. You're on a windy roof. Wouldn't you button your shirt so it didn't come undone?
Emma takes out her GS agent on the roof and then waits around, tapping her foot, until Brennan finally knocks his out before informing him that the GSA have taken Charlotte. This gives the GS agents plenty of opportunity to get away.
When Charlotte demonstrates her powers on Lynch, he turns violent and evil. Shouldn't it have turned Lynch good too? It seems as though Adam's the only one who changed morality. The mutants all just seemed to become more violent for a minute, and then calm down. Skeet, for example, with the takeout food. He wasn't really evil, he was just physically expressing his anger at always having to eat takeout. Hee.
Also, I wonder who the poor sap that Charlotte tested her powers on before was. (The non-new mutant I mean.)
Charlotte fakes her tears when she calls Sanctuary in order to lure Adam out. Instead of wasting time arguing with Emma about whether she’s lying, why don’t they just use that nifty voice stress analyzer as they did on Eric in “Lit Fuse”? That would resolve the question right then and there.
RE: Adam going alone to see Charlotte. Adam's an idiot. Why does he always go alone? He always gets burned!
When Adam's menacing Emma in the lab, the lines they show in the opening are there. Wild.
The dojo is apparently Mutant X proof. This seems like a bad idea, since someone could break in and contain them. Why would Adam have designed this when he was good?
Emma dated an exchange student from Helsenki in high school. This does not explain why she knows how to say “Computer, deactivate force field”...unless, of course, she and her boyfriend were watching Star Trek reruns in Finnish.
The part where Shal and Jesse decide that Adam doesn't make mistakes like not knowing that Emma speaks Finnish is cute. They so want to believe that he's infallible and fighting being evil. They're so innocent.
Why would Mason tell Charlotte he's responsible for what happened to her father? She already wants out, why make it worse?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Shal again) Adam Kisses: 2 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Lazarus Syndrome In Which Everyone in Mutant X is Very Overprotective of Emma
Trivia: GS agents have tracking devices implanted in them.
Nitpicks: At the very beginning, why doesn't Emma just tell Brennan that the girl he's trying to hit on is there with her boyfriend? Not that that would have stopped him...
Continuity: The good kind. Emma orders a virgin daiquiri. This ties in nicely with Badass!Emma's describing Scared!Emma as The Teatotaler Version in "Double Vision." Now if we could just figure out that Amaretto Sour in "Whiter Shade of Pale"...
Brennan teases her mercilessly about her drink selection, and then Caleb buys her drink. Which, I gotta think is a little odd, given she's talking to Brennan. Unless he's been watching long enough to see Brennan trying to flirt. Now I see no reason Emma shouldn't have gone to dance with him, but really, would the two seconds for an "Excuse us" to Brennan have killed her?
Very annoying plot point: Of course, given he then spent as much time as possible keeping an eye on them a "Buzz off" might've been more appropriate. Unless Brennan's powers include precognition--it was *lucky* he was being a chauvinistic jerk.
And then we discover where Brennan gets this protectiveness from. It's very clear in the first scene in Sanctuary when Adam says, "I don't understand. Where were you when all this was happening?" He sounds like a parent bawling out a teenager for leaving their 10 year old sibling alone. Hello? Emma's a big girl. Given that Brennan's teasing her about not drinking, at least 21 (unless they're in Canada). This trend extends as far as Shalimar acting like a frantic mother having lost a small child when she gets back to find Emma's comlink and no Emma. Then Adam's very condescending when Emma tells him Caleb is alive, but has the boys do some hacking anyway, just on the off-chance that she's right (she always is, by the way). Then once they realize that Caleb goes for beautiful, female new mutants, Adam makes Shalimar go back to Sanctuary. Not that our Intrepid Feral stays there for long. Then after she kills Caleb the first time, she's so busy crying over Emma that Brennan and Jesse have to take out Caleb. (Funny how Shal and Brennan end up killing people every time Emma dies.) And Adam's response, "Get back to Sanctuary now." *strangled scream*
How did Caleb get Emma to ditch her comlink? Did I miss something?
After Caleb has taken some of Emma's "life force" in the form of a pink gas that oddly resembles Lorna's pheromones (“Deadly Desire”), they are mentally joined somehow (similar to the way Shal and Ashlocke will be later on) and her psionic abilities don't work on him. Or so he says. A similar mental link will occur in Season 2's "Inferno" between Emma and another dead man. Apparently, lack of brain function doesn't preclude a mental connection with a psionic...
Pamela Fries (or Freeze, it's pronounced freeze) can lower and raise her body temperature. Oh the pun of it all.
After Jesse knocks Brennan out of the path of Ms. Fries's car, why doesn't he just move himself instead of phasing?
And again Emma is meditating in a darkened Sanctuary. Is she sitting on an X?
Really, what did Emma expect from a GS Agent? (This leads right into "Interface” doesn't it?)
Speaking of GS Agents, someone needs to make them watch Dr. Who. What's up with the freaking high heels? NOT appropriate footwear for that line of work.
My next question is: there's a good three minutes where Caleb is busy with Pamela. Why is Emma not unlocking her cuff and kicking ass? I mean, she doesn't have her psychic blasts yet, but she's not exactly helpless. Plus two against one are better odds.
Why do Jesse and Brennan keep pestering the bartender? I thought Emma was the psychic one.
When Emma's life force comes back, I'm reminded of special effects of the voices from Hush. More proof that Mutant X should've been a Joss Whedon show?
The tag: Everyone overprotects Emma and she tries to fight it, but has to put up with it. And dude, who let Adam out of Sanctuary?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 2 drinks (Brennan, Emma)
This guide for Mutant X nitpickers was inspired by The Discontinuity Guide: The Unofficial Doctor Who Companion: "To really love something, you have to want to take it apart." Invaluable resources: the official site, Masonesque, Pure MX, MX Phoenix, Television without Pity, TV.com, and many thoughtful Mutant X fans.
Nitpicking Sections: General ~ Season One ~ Season One cont'd. ~ Season Two ~ Season Two, cont'd. ~ Season Three ~ Season Three, cont'd.
SEASON ONE
by tptigger and firstmutant
Beta aid by belle-marie
The Shock of the New
Trivia: The Double Helix is currently in autopilot. Proxy Blue, visual cloaks, Genomex, the GSA, Mason’s sterilizing unit, the EDD, the new mutant database, the mutant underground, and Brennan’s love of fast cars and burglary are introduced.
Shalimar joined Mutant X before Jesse. Prior to joining Mutant X, Emma sold misses and petites at Leverman and Stokes, using her powers any chance she got. Prior to joining Mutant X, Brennan learned that he could throw off sparks as a kid, but never told anyone. Frank Thorne, Mason Eckhart's telekinetic goon in this episode, is supposedly the first person Brennan’s used his electricity against.
Shalimar, like most ferals, is territorial. Shalimar rides a yellow motorcycle.
The GSA has an inside connection to the Proxy Blue hotline.
The bank that Brennan and his gang rob is named the Hickman-Wrightson securities building. Bernie Wrightson and Stephen Hickman are two famous science fiction comic book illustrators. As is Frank Thorne, by the way.
Mason holds Adam responsible for the collapse of his immune system. Further details about what actually happened to him are never given in the series.
Emma's non-telempathic ability #1: Emma demonstrates her ability to cast illusions when she makes Allison see two innocent dock workers as GS agents. She will repeat this trick when pretending to be Nicole Carter in "Blood Ties," Megan in "Presumed Guilty," and Mason Eckhart in "Dancing on the Razor."
You’ve got to love the Darth Vader-like hissing in the pods as Mason’s face is superimposed over the new mutants in stasis.
It’s perhaps telling that Brennan’s first words in the series are, “Wai-wha?”
Nitpicks: Though we’re not sure why they want to kill Emma rather than bring her back alive, the GS agents at the beginning of this episode are definitely carrying guns. They’re also carrying guns in “I Scream the Body Electric,” “Fool for Love,” “The Meaning of Death,” “Lit Fuse,” “Crime of the New Century,” and “Blood Ties.” Remember this information for when we reach “Deadly Desire” and hear Emma's query.
It’s too bad that the GS agents don’t know that Jesse can only stay massed for a certain amount of time. If they just waited a few seconds between rounds, their bullets would be much more effective.
For someone who feels so guilty about the way new mutants were handled by Genomex, Dr. Breedlove shows a surprisingly mild response to learning what Mason's GS agents have been up to, chasing Emma. He doesn't even ask why they were after her.
Brad Carter, although the trio of car thieves he has just hired is standing right beside his shiny black car, apparently thinks nothing is amiss when he discovers on hopping in that his seat needs to be readjusted for the length of his legs. Ahem.
Brennan’s gang are either really good, or really stupid. When they rob the bank, they aren’t wearing masks or gloves, and we know for a fact that Brennan, at least, has been to jail in the past, meaning that he does have fingerprints on file.
Brennan will inform Shalimar in “Into the Moonless Night” that before he joined Mutant X, he only robbed people who probably deserved it. Tell that to the poor woman in the bank whose necklace he steals in this episode.
We learn that Genomex is really a branch of U.S. government intelligence, but the Genetic Security Agency isn't officially formed until this episode, following Dr. Breedlove's untimely demise at the hands of 'genetic terrorists.' Interestingly, Frank Thorne refers to GS agents *before* Eckhart makes his Orwellian announcement. Which makes you wonder how much, if anything, the Genomex Rank & File already know. This issue will come up again in "Into the Moonless Night."
Adam states that there are maybe 1,000 children of Genomex. Pretty impressive for for a bunch of labs that didn't have site directed mutagenesis (c.f. Time Squared). Adam also says that new mutant DNA is in a constant state of mutation ( evolution --hey, writers? Not. Equivalent.). This necessitates the tune ups and is probably as good an explanation as any for the growth spurts in "A Breed Apart." This information is then promptly forgotten about until “A Breed Apart,” and then again until season 3.
It doesn't make much sense that Paul Breedlove isn't aware that Frank Thorne is a new mutant. I mean, Breedlove was the one who created the new mutant database. Twice.
How is it that Shalimar has been with Adam all those years but has never heard of Paul Breedlove before this episode? She certainly knows who Mason Eckhart is.
It’s funny how there’s always just one red car in the parking lot at Genomex.
Ruby’s bookstore is actually a bookstore. Even as Adam is showing Emma how to get into the safehouse, there are actual people browsing through, buying books....any of whom could be undercover GSA, like Kendra MacEvoy. How secure can that be?
Brennan says he's never told anyone about his abilities before Emma. If that were true--which it isn't--Brennan trusts Emma awfully easily just by learning she has powers too, doesn't he? After all, Thorne has powers too. By season three, we'll learn that at least two other people were in the know, Brennan's childhood partner-in-crime Cole Thatcher ("Divided Loyalties"), and his high school counselor, Dr. Victor Palance ("Shadows of Darkness").
Frank Thorne sensibly goes off to capture Brennan wearing a shock-proof vest. Now, why can’t any subsequent GS agents follow suit?
What are they all looking at as the scene fades to black at the end?
Stuff dropped like a hot potato: Jesse using his comlink like a flash camera during the first fight scene. Adam probably got tired of getting out-of-focus images of beat-up unconscious GS agents for the database.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Emma this time) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 2 drinks (Brennan)
I Scream the Body Electric
Trivia: The subdermal governors are introduced.
Before Shalimar joined Mutant X, Adam found her holed up in a fleabag hotel having not eaten for five days.
Brennan runs out of juice after a certain period of time, and needs an hour before swimming he can reform a tesla coil.
Emma first used her abilities at five to find her parents at a rock festival. Her parents left when she was ten; she was raised in a foster home. [Note: In the Mutant Xverse, ten is a bad age for mutants. Emma’s parents ditched her when she was ten, Shalimar’s father placed her in an institution when she was ten, Brennan was boosting cars when he was ten, Gabriel Ashlocke murdered his parents at the age of ten, and Josh Valentine is ten when his father tries to place him in Genomex.]
Brennan's school difficulties began in the 3rd grade.
In Emma’s mind, subdermal governors are represented by chains.
After Brennan’s capture, Adam sets up “a second safehouse.” Apparently, Ruby’s bookstore was the only one before this episode.
"I Scream the Body Electric" is derived from the title of a poem by Walt Whitman, I Sing the Body Electric, from his Leaves of Grass collection. Walt Whitman's poetry will play a larger role for Brennan in "Lit Fuse."
Nitpicks: Most ironic line of the episode has to be Shalimar's "It's not in Adam's nature to dislike anyone." Sure. Shal seems to have forgotten the little tiff Adam's had with Mason for, oh, the past 20 years or so.
The GS agents in this episode are quite considerate of one another. Even as Brennan is escaping, they stop to pick up their fallen comrades before continuing to chase Brennan through the hallways.
Adam is slightly creepy in this episode. Poking at the leads on Shalimar’s mostly naked chest, peering at Shalimar and Emma’s session in the dojo from behind the stairs, telling Emma that she’s *heavy breathing* “the answer to a prayer”...Borderline creepy.
The subdermal governor’s controller sounds an awful lot like a car door opener.
For Brennan, the pain of a subdermal governor hits him in the stomach. For the psionic Thorne, it's a headache. This seems to imply that Brennan’s electrical abilities originate in his gut.
Adam uses a virus to destroy Genomex's copy of the New Mutant Database, but wouldn't a company as large as Genomex have offsite back-ups? Lexa will copy this page from Adam’s playbook in “The Assault,” using a virus to infect The Dominion’s computers and deactivate her subdermal governor. Only she doesn’t need a disk to do it.
At the end of the episode, Emma hugs Shalimar for giving her a Mutant X ring. Jesse presents Brennan with his ring and then says: "What, no hug?" Sorry, dude, not even when you almost get gassed to death in "No Exit."
Okay, Thorne is a telekinetic. Why doesn’t he just pick Brennan up and hurl him over the railing instead of fleeing like a frightened child at the end of the episode?
And finally. Since Brennan had no idea at the time that Jesse could phase and mass--he was busy fighting off GS agents of his own during the final fight of the last episode--did Brennan really throw Jesse a warning look at the safehouse and then lie about it (I don't get the male psyche, nope, nope) or did he really miss and Jesse was, for some reason, seeing what he wanted to see?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Shalimar this time) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 6 Food intake: 0
Russian Roulette
Trivia: Notable guest appearance: Ross Hull of Are You Afraid of the Dark as Daniel Benedict. Benedict Arnold. Get it?
The holographic dojo and force fields are introduced.
When someone calls Genomex from a safehouse, an alarm goes off in Sanctuary.
Jesse is responsible for making the comlink rings and fake Genomex IDs.
Though the Mutant X team eats lots of sushi, Shalimar prefers her meat medium well.
Once Jesse takes off his comlink, it is inactivated and the video feed is immediately lost along with all communication and location fixing capabilities.
Jesse, Brennan, and Adam refer to the ground cars as MV for the first and last time in the series.
Adam says the Pushka is top secret KGB circa 1980's. This is the first hint given that there may have been European new mutants as well. More to come in "Ex Marks the Spot" and “Reality Check.”
Seeing the eagle reflected on Emma’s pupils before she projects it to Brennan is pretty neat. It’s a shame that this is the first and last time it happens.
Sonya meets Daniel at Millenium Park. Though Mutant X is filmed in Canada, the real Millennium Park is in Chicago.
Emma's non-telempathic power #2: As she will (unintentionally) repeat with Jesse in "The Meaning of Death," Emma makes Sonya believe that she is choking. Panic and fear are emotions. Choking is not.
Nitpicks: The underpass they’re in at the beginning of the episode is the same one Brennan and Jesse fight under in “Crime of the New Century,” minus some grass and muddy puddles of water.
Tina’s heard weird stories 'aboot' the underground. She must be a child of the Canadian branch of Genomex.
The Pushka identifies Tina as an amphibian feral, Brennan as an electrical elemental...and Jesse as a "molecular strand 19." I guess "Intangible and impervious molecular" wouldn’t fit on the screen. (By the by, it’d be nice to see what it came up with when faced with Charlotte Cooke from "Altered Ego.") The Pushka clearly identifies Brennan’s mutant type, but Sonya and Yuri keep walking toward him even as they see him begin to charge up. What did they think was going to happen next?
As Brennan’s battling Sonya and Yuri, why does it take so long for Jesse and Tina to come back for him in the MV? It’s only like 20 feet away.
Since Daniel’s been helping his father usher mutants into the underground for a while, shouldn’t he recognize Jesse right away when he showed up at Millennium Park instead of Sonya? It probably would have been wiser for Adam to send someone Daniel wouldn’t know.
Emma’s the first one in the series to perform an EDD scan other than Adam. She places Brennan’s chest leads just as Adam did with Shalimar in “I Scream the Body Electric,” but she’s added two on his forehead. All the leads magically disappear as Brennan’s talking to her.
At the Benedicts’ house, Shalimar calls Sanctuary’s computer instead of just speaking directly to Adam on her comlink, forcing Adam to say “Answer” before he can talk to her. That never happens again in the series.
Possible continuity issue:
Shalimar: What do I know about family therapy? Adam: You have a family don't you? Shalimar: Yeah, but... Adam: That's all the training you need.
It's possible that by 'family,' Adam is referring to Shalimar's adopted Mutant X family, but if he's talking about her real family, that’s a weird thing to say to Shalimar. Does Adam not know about the insane asylum Shalimar’s father put her in? Or did the writers? Then again, maybe her life before that was decent, it's hard to tell.
As Mason explains what the Pushka does to new mutant DNA, Marvel's musical flourish is playing in the background.
According to Shalimar, The GSA doesn't hire Russians; Sonya says that Eckhart has no faith in Russian technology. Perhaps that’s because Sonya can't seem to get his name right. While on the phone to Daniel, she says she's an associate of ‘Marcus’ Eckhart.
The bounty hunter Sonya is smarter than a GS agent in that she immediately makes sure that Jesse is scanned for bugs. When Shalimar is captured in "Dark Star Rising," no one bothers to take away her comlink ring.
Where is this show supposed to take place? The reversal sequence is A-7 Zed-41, then the trigger. Russians using 'zed' makes sense--they probably used British English. But Jesse and Adam? Canadian writers, I guess.
Poor Brennan. When his heart stops, no one rushes in to administer CPR. Then when he finally wakes up, they smile at him for two seconds and immediately run from the room...even though there really isn’t anywhere they have to be just then.
I guess the punishment for betraying all new mutants and giving your father a one-way ticket to a stasis pod is a stern Emma/Shalimar lecture and a few hours in the dojo with dinner but no potty break.
Fashion victim: Emma in shiny black vinyl. Whose idea was that?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 1 (the entire episode) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 2 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse)
Fool for Love
Trivia: Karen Bell and Mason are the only non-mutants podded in the series...that we know of.
Adam mentions the feral sisterhood.
New tool in Sanctuary’s computer: A 3-D profile generator Adam uses to create a picture of Richard from Shalimar’s description.
Emma's non-telempathic powers #3 and #4: Emma can pull out things from memories that people don't know they have, like the license plate number from the bouncer at Donna Morse's club. She also somehow manages to mentally give Jesse a very physical whack upside the head. Telempath, my ass.
Notable guest star: Desmond Campbell, the actor who plays the bouncer in this episode, pops up again as the alien Brak in "Sign from Above."
The episode's title, "Fool for Love," is Shalimar's explanation to Adam for wanting to waltz into Genomex alone. "What can I say? I'm a fool for love."
The name of Jack Mitchell's office is Hartwell Brokerage, located on Mason street. J Mason Hartwell was a short-lived character in the DC comic book New Gods #10: "Earth -- The Doomed Dominion."
Nitpicks: Adam says that the reason Donna’s name kept appearing in Genomex’s scanner was because Richard was treating her. But Richard’s experiments were hidden until Karen turned them up, so why’s her name showing up on the scanner prior to that?
Real life science issues:
1) Research associates are usually sub-PhD level scientists.
2) Someone should tell Saunders that not closing his lab coat is as bad as not wearing it. Big splash zone in the middle.
Why must Emma convince Brennan and Jesse that a psionic might be good to have with you during an interrogation? That should be pretty self-evident.
Shalimar and Richard have sex in Donna’s bed before they know for sure that she won’t be coming back. Ew.
Adam says that the first symptom of illness from Richard’s serum is loss of control over mutant abilities. That happened with Donna, but that never seems to happen to Richard.
Semi-fashion victim: Emma's tight outfit doesn't seem as bad when it's not shiny.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 1 (And Shalimar for good measure) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Kilohertz
Trivia: Other than Proxy Blue, the only other television station of the Mutant Xverse seems to be WXDV, Channel 13. In the second season, it will be replaced by WXTY.
Nitpicks: Emma says that her parents were (hippies?) into organics, macrobiotic foods, and solar power. This makes her a bit of a technophobe. Odd, given her best friend in high school as shown in “Interface.”
Not having learned his lesson after the Karen Bell fiasco in the previous episode, Mason decides to assign the important task of capturing Kilohertz to a kid who not only still has a semester to complete at the academy, but also had a rocky beginning at Genomex.
Jesse says, "I have no time for romance, I'm too busy making the world a safer place to live." This attitude lasts for about, oh, three episodes.
If you look closely as Jesse and Emma are searching the database for Kilohertz, Allison Turner’s mug shot photo (that Shalimar took in “I Scream the Body Electric”) comes up briefly.
As a truck backs up hiding the fleeing Barry from Brennan and Emma, its warning beeps are exactly in time to the music’s beat. Now that's driving in style.
Emma, Brennan, and Adam all find it so weird that the FCC should be looking for Barry that they automatically deduce that it’s the GSA under false credentials. But since the FCC regulates all radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable transmissions in the U.S., why wouldn’t they be after Barry?
Technobabble: Stop gaps for the stock market? Sounds like something the Star Trek tech computer nerd would dream up.
While discussing options for holding Barry, Shalimar says they can’t keep him sedated forever. After 25 years of being podded, Gabriel Ashlocke might be surprised to hear that.
During Kilohertz’s initial raid, the Helix loses power and Sanctuary’s computer is offline, but the comlinks still work, seeming to suggest that the comlink system is independent of Sanctuary’s computer. Yet when Barry’s invaded Sanctuary’s computer, Adam tells Brennan to hit the comlink system to drive Barry out.
Also, at the end of the episode, Renfield says, "I have renewed my vows of commitment to constant vigilance." Does Harry Potter's Mad Eye Moody teach at the GSA academy now?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 9 Food intake: Sushi dinner (the team)
The Meaning of Death
Trivia: Helping new mutants get into the underground is not the exclusive purview of Mutant X--or if it is, Mutant X is bigger than the main characters of the series. It's clear from this episode that Rick was instrumental into getting new mutants into the underground. Presumably, there are many other agents like him. Where'd they go after this season?
Mutant X has a rogues' gallery of GS agents and their informants.
This is the first and only time Adam complains that he doesn’t have enough money to get the job done properly. This episode also introduces Shalimar’s fear of fire and the fact that Jesse can only stay phased for 30 seconds before he dissipates.
Mason and Adam had a partnership 20 years ago.
The book Brennan's reading while stuck in the safehouse might be Howl, a collection of poems by Allen Ginsberg.
Nitpicks: In the scene when they're discussing how they're not sick, really, honest, Jesse and Emma are wearing the exact same outfits as they were when they were discussing hacking things in "Kilohertz".
Funny how Brennan had a book handy for when they were quarantined. Either that or the safehouse has a library. And someone should tell him that's a bad way to shield something from X-ray vision.
Also, the safe house is different from the one we see in later episodes such as “Blood Ties,” “Dancing on the Razor,” and “A Breed Apart.” This one seems to be an abandoned subway station. Tomorrow People complex, anyone?
Shalimar asks if she’s the only one who gets the fashionable hazmat suit. Close enough. Certainly neither of the guys ever wear one, though Jesse's also stuck in Sanctuary with Rick.
Shal kicks Alice's door down. Door Kickage is definitely a first season theme: “The Meaning of Death,” “In the Presence of Mine Enemies,” “Crime of the New Century,” “Dark Star Rising,” “Blood Ties,” and “A Breed Apart.” People kick doors in subsequent seasons as well, but the doors of the second and third seasons are made of sterner stuff...they just burst open instead of completely coming down.
Christopher Charles Marlowe really is charmed. Not only does he touch Mason’s desk without being reprimanded, but he also plays with Mason’s sterilization unit without having washed his hands. Poor Dr. Harrison gets glared at for just touching Mason’s chair, and he's medically responsible for Mason.
While new mutants are dying all around Adam, one of the nurses calls for O-negative blood. Non-mutant blood for a mutant? Why would that be compatible?
Since we learn in “Lazarus Syndrome” that GS agents have tracking devices implanted in them, it’s too bad Mason didn’t just record Charles’s location while he was in Sanctuary.
Mason calls off his guards when Charles holds him at gunpoint. Why doesn’t Mason recall his security units as soon as he realizes Charles is vulnerable?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 1 (Shalimar) Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 (Brennan’s chips)
Lit Fuse
Trivia: Sanctuary's computer has a voice stress analyzer. Remember this for "Altered Ego."
This is the first time the Double Helix is in stealth mode.
Proxy Blue is apparently local as Jesse comments that she must have a generator when the power is out.
The name of The City's electric company is Trans El.
Subdermal governors don’t work on new mutants who are actively mutating.
Brennan reads Walt Whitman to relax.
Nitpicks: Ashley somehow manages to transform Brennan into pure electricity and then absorb him, despite the fact that he merely channels electricity; his DNA is not a constant state of flux between energy and matter as Barry Sterling's was in "Kilohertz." Yet once he's inside of her, some part of him is apparently still intact as Brennan, for Emma is able to connect to his mind to find out where he's gone. Even odder is the fact that once Ashley has absorbed him, she acquires some of his personality traits, such as his disregard for Jesse, his love of Walt Whitman, his ability to create tesla coils, and his knowledge of how to fly the Double Helix. Just bizarre. In spite of the laws of common sense, Brennan re-materializes conveniently on the big X on the floor the Helix once Emma reverses the polarity of...something. Ta-da!
It's amazing that Shalimar manages to find Cross's well-chewed cigar for DNA analysis, conveniently ignoring all the other cigarette butts probably strewn about the lot. Then again, perhaps people don't litter or smoke in the MXverse, and any evidence of one who does both must be indicative of an unstable, nefarious mind.
Ashley Elliot: How did you know I fell in love with this? Brennan: Let's just say I got to know you a little. Ashley: Maybe a little too well. But uh, I'll never tell. Brennan: Neither will I.
This is dropped, and it's hard to tell if it's just the hundreds of things going on in your head you wouldn't want anyone else to know about, or something more sinister. (Brennan's a GSA mole, really a woman, part of the Russian Mafia, constantly chatting up women to cover up his undying love for Jesse...)
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (Although who knows what he was wearing while inside Ashley?) Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0 (except for Ashley's electricity binges)
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Trivia: Notable guest star: Mark Lutz as Eric Tanner. (Sometimes known as The Groosalugg on Angel: The Series.)
"In the Presence of Mine Enemies," comes from The Bible, Psalms 23:5 "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over."
Emma's non-telempathic power #5: Emma blinds the Genomex guards, allowing Mutant X to enter uninterrupted. Blindness isn't an emotion, but she'll pull this off again in "Double Vision," and "Interface."
Nitpicks: Fashion Victim: Why is it guys with long hair think too much gel goes with a suit? *shudder*
Adam plays poker with Shal and chess with Emma. At the same time. Apparently this makes him Very Smart.
This is the first time Eckhart explicitly states that they want to keep new mutants' existence invisible to society's radar.
They do too eat at Sanctuary. Look, dishes! Of course, they look like they came from a Japanese restaurant, but still. The Mutant X team is always eating take-out--Japanese, Thai, pizza. Being a member of Mutant X means never having to actually cook anything.
When Kendra's showing Mason the version of Proxy Blue Toni's created, Proxy!Red says: "We've all been left in the lurch at one time or another....the best way to get ahead is by knowing your opponents' weaknesses." This exact clip will be used again as the very last thing Proxy Blue gets to say before Shalimar kills her in "Past as Prologue."
Also, they must have had limited shooting time for this episode. During the second practice Genomex break-in in the dojo, they re-used all of the clips from the first run and just looped the dialogue in afterwards. It's a little eerie, because even though the team is talking to each other, you never actually see them talking until the very end of the simulation.
Then, when Mutant X enters Genomex headquarters for real after their first two practice runs, the director's stuck in two clips directly from "I Scream the Body Electric": the first when Shalimar and Adam run up the Genomex back stairs together, and the second when Jesse's walking down the balcony, dressed as a Genomex guard.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 coffee (Brennan)
The Crime of the New Century
Trivia: This is the first and last time Jesse issues instructions to Brennan which Brennan actually follows.
Jesse says Brennan arranged to meet him at Fawcett Avenue, near Briggs. Austin Briggs was an early comic book illustrator; Fawcett Comics was the comic book publishing house which originated Captain Marvel.
We learn that there are many different clinics and compounds at Genomex; Mutant X finds Joshua in clinic 6 in compound 4.
Adam taught Brennan how to electrically disengage subdermal governors. Shalimar taught Jesse how to hack into the NuJack satellite system.
Emma's non-telempathic power #6: When Emma sends Josh the image of a merry-go-round to persuade him to turn around, she demonstrates yet another non-empathic gift, the ability to cast illlusions through the connection of a telepathic mutant.
Special guest star: Deborah O'Dell, who plays Lisa Valentine in this episode, will return as casino owner Kristen Greg in season 3's "Wages of Sin."
The episode's title, "Crime of the New Century," might be a parallel to the infamous 1932 kidnapping and murder of pilot Charles Lindbergh's infant son, which was dubbed "The Crime of the Century."
Nitpicks: Brennan sparks Jesse in the teaser, probably at about the voltage of a joy buzzer. Not bad for someone who'd never used his power on a person before "The Shock of the New." I find it hard to believe prank boy hadn't done that before.
If you recognize the underpass in the teaser’s fight scene, it’s because you saw it in the teaser for “Russian Roulette.”
How can Josh be an elemental if his mother is a psionic? I think a paternity test is in order.
How did we not notice how easy it was for kidnapper Burke to get through that high-priced security system?
I don't believe Brennan’s favors for friends line, he was totally boosting cars at 10. (I suspect with his background, trouble found him...)
Jesse says Brennan’s labwork’s still a little sloppy. Perhaps this is from lack of practice? The only time I can remember Brennan doing anything remotely resembling labwork is when Adam hands him a mortar and pestle in “Dark Star Rising.”
Adam apparently misses his “Adam Zero” days. When he and Emma go undercover as insurance agents, he calls himself “Zolo” and Emma, “DeNono.” Tee-hee.
Why doesn’t Wendy Stone recognize Adam and Emma? It’s one thing when low-level staff members like Karen Bell or Dr. Richard Saunders don’t recognize Mutant X team members, but Wendy is an honest-to-goodness GSA field agent.
Why on Earth is Brennan bouncing that tennis ball? Argh.
In a leap of logic so amazing that you have to see it for yourselves, Brennan, Shalimar, and Jesse brainstorm until they translate a rain of pennies into an abandoned warehouse at Lincoln Salvage Company. Brennan first suggests that pennies might be Josh’s idea of a lot of money. Obviously, he hasn’t seen the Valentine's mansion.
The MV has Mutant X license plates. Isn't that just a little conspicuous?
Brennan tells Jesse that if he’d electrocuted Berg while he was standing in a metal boat, they’d all be toast. The same logic doesn’t seem to apply when Brennan’s standing on metal catwalks while electrocuting Caleb Mathias in “Lazarus Syndrome,” Morgan’s GS agent in “A Breed Apart,” or Nick Maddox in “Within These Walls.”
Emma's meditating in a darkened Sanctuary, so why is Adam making all that noise, playing on the computers?
Is it just me or is the room where Lisa Valentine wakes up after Corbin slips her the sleeping pill a new set?
Aside from being cool and dramatic, there really isn't a good reason for Brennan to knock the door down when he and Jesse are rescuing Josh. Besides the fact that the commotion would alert even the most inattentive GS agents to their presence, they don't know exactly where Josh is located in the room. Had he been strapped to a chair that was closer to the door, the poor kid would have been smashed flat.
Good Josh, hit the gun, not the person. Someone taught you well.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 4 Food intake: 1 piece of pizza (Jesse), 1 water (Brennan)
Dark Star Rising
Trivia: Angel is the first person in the series to call Brennan "Sparky."
Emma's non-telempathic power #7: Whose thoughts, exactly, is she pulling those images of Bogata from? It doesn't seem to be on Angel and Beau Longstreet's minds at the moment... Though she's never met them before, Emma seems to have long-range access to Beau and Angel's memories.
Mason Eckhart says of Beau Longstreet, "He looks to be the living incarnation of Nietsche's dictum: What doesn't kill you will make you stronger." This is a quote from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer: "Whatever does not destroy me makes me stronger."
Nitpicks: Why is Shalimar out on that roof alone? This must be before the times of Brennan tailing her everywhere she goes.
This is the first episode where it's mentioned that Mason wants to genetically alter humans into new mutants. This really doesn't fit with what we've heard from him so far--he seems to want these anomalies to go away, so why make more? The following quote may shed some light on this:
Mason: We are on the verge of creating new mutants. Dr. Harrison: Obedient and subservient new mutants. Completely at the service of your will. Mason: Enough to conceivably make the Children of Genomex unnecessary in the greater scheme of things.
What greater scheme of things? What is Mason's master plan? Why did Gabriel Ashlocke have to pod him so we wouldn't know?
Shalimar describes Beau’s tattoo, and Brennan recognizes it instantly. I know Brennan’s an army brat, but how would he know about Dark Star if they're more secret than the Navy Seals? Also, for a former army brat whose father was killed behind enemy lines, Brennan doesn't seem too understanding about Beau Longstreet's reluctance to leave Corporal Randall's body behind.
Emma meditates in the darkened Sanctuary two weeks in a row. Seriously, what's wrong with her room?
When Brennan's sitting in the engine plant explaining the concept of new mutants to Angel, is it just me, or does he tell her that the four mutant types are elementals, psionics, freaks, and ferals? Jesse should totally kick his ass for that!
When they get Angel to their lab, Adam draws her blood with what appears to be a plastic transfer pipette. This isn't a very sharp instrument. Why isn't he using a syringe???
We learn that the parents of the Children of Genomex didn't know everything about the experiments being done on the kids. So were their powers an unfortunate side effect of the experiment or the ultimate goal of the project?
The following seems almost like foreshadowing for Adam's untrustworthiness in season 3:
Emma: I promise you if anyone can help her, it's Adam. Beau Longstreet: I believed in my superior officers. Look where that got me. Shalimar: Yeah, but it's not like that with Adam, Beau. Beau: Is he one of you--one of us? Shalimar: You mean a new mutant? Nope. Emma: Adam made it possible for us to survive what had been done to us.
Jesse takes out the guard at Tricorp’s computer station with a single blow to the back of his shoulders...although how that would render someone unconscious is beyond me.
If Jesse can't phase the plant out of the building, how come his clothes go with him?
Unlike Mason’s golden boy Charles Marlowe, Dr. Ken Harrison isn’t allowed to touch Mason’s things....even though he is his doctor.
Why are the boys asking Shalimar where she is? Her comlink is still on; they should already know that she’s inside Genomex.
Come to think of it, why is her comlink still on after the GSA has captured her? Even Sonya knew enough to scan Jesse for bugs in “Russian Roulette.” And if that detention chair is designed to hold new mutants so that they can be fitted with subdermal governors, shouldn’t it be strong enough to hold ferals?
When Beau wakes up in Dr. Harrison’s lab, he doesn’t seem at all worried that Shalimar’s in a surgeon assistant’s uniform. Might it not have occurred to him-even for an instant--that she could be working for Genomex?
It is strongly implied that Dr. Harrison is podded at the end of this episode, however we never actually see him in a pod. In fact, he appears fine and dandy in his next episode.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 0
Whiter Shade of Pale
Trivia: Brennan is a caffeine addict and spends about $50 a week on coffee. If he needs that much, why doesn't he just get a coffee maker for Sanctuary? (Apparently he's so out of it pre-fix that he lets Jesse and Neil do the heavy lifting.)
Notable guest appearances: Christopher Bolton, who played Kirk on My Secret Identity--he played the in-the-dark best friend to the super hero. Now he's an evil Feral--has he moved up in the world? At least in MSI he was a main character.
As Jesse's tracking the genetic sequencer's progress, he says it has come to a stop at the Hotel Infantino on Carmine Street. Carmine Infantino is a famous comic book artist and editor.
The actress who played Danielle Hartman, Guylaine St. Onge, died of cervical cancer March 3rd 2005. She was just 38 years old.
Emma’s non-telempathic ability #8: She makes poor Aldous actually believe he’s on fire. Spontaneous combustion? Not an emotion.
Nitpicks: Adam says that the genetic sequencer is of no use to Mason, only to mutants who are actively mutating. Why not? Since subdermal governors aren’t effective on mutants who are actively mutating (like Ashley Elliot in “Lit Fuse”), even I can see why Mason might be interested in such a device.
Adam's description of Danielle's powers sounds eerily like Lexa's. Is it possible that Lexa and Leo are half siblings to Catherine--and Adam's children? (As good a theory as to their “special relationship” as anything.)
Shalimar gets protective of Adam and wants to check up on Danielle since Adam hasn't seen her in 16 years. This seems a bit much, but is very lucky for Catherine.
Adam and Mason were rivals for Danielle's affections. Catherine is not Adam's child, but her father was "really smart." Oh dear, is that poor girl carrying around half of Mason's DNA?
Also, Catherine's conversation with Emma appears to take place on that observation deck from the first couple of episodes. Go figure.
Danielle gets a much more comfortable bio bed than Brennan did in "Russian Roulette." Sleeping with Adam has its advantages, I suppose.
Emma gets the sequencer back single-handedly, and with style. She rocks, when she wants to. (She also orders an Amaretto Sour, but doesn't drink it. I'm presuming this is an alcoholic drink--just wait for it, for now.)
Danielle moved "upstate" after leaving Genomex. Has anyone heard this term applied to anywhere other than New York State?
During the fight to get Danielle away from the GSA, Brennan accidentally hits massed-out Jesse with an arc. This doesn't seem to phase him in the least, if you'll pardon the pun.
When Catherine disappears and heads off to find her mother in the lab, Brennan says, “Been here before.” What’s he talking about? Has Catherine been at Sanctuary before? Has Brennan seen a stealth mutant before?
Shalimar's feral vision allows her to see the invisible Lexa in "Into the Moonless Night" because she gives off heat even when she's invisible. Catherine presumably gives off heat as well (Aldous is able to see Danielle with infrared goggles), yet Shalimar's unable to see her when she becomes invisible in Sanctuary.
In the tag: Brennan gets Catherine's bag--given the conversation that Adam and Danielle have after they leave the room, my guess is he's thinking little sister. Catherine, however, is clearly thinking something else as she does the cute little fifteen year old flirting with a much older guy thing. (This is cute, and not creepy, because Brennan rather politely makes it clear that nothing's happening.)
If you can figure out what this episode's title has to do with the episode itself, do let us know.
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 3 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 1 (Adam’s wine)
Double Vision
Trivia: Emma gets several scans in this episode, but never has to strip down to that black bra. That luxury will be entirely Shalimar’s from here on out.
In the tag, there's a new, shiny indoor garden in Sanctuary.
Emma's non-telempathic power #9: Badass!Emma makes Dr. Harrison feel he has to go to the bathroom immediately by casting visions of waterfalls into his mind. Bladder fullness? Not an emotion.
This episode earned two Gemini nominations, one for Lauren Lee Smith's acting and another for Lou Natale's musical score.
Nitpicks: Brennan wants a hug from Matty, gets a smooch and then a backstab. Maybe he should stick to hugging members of Mutant X...not that scared!Emma lets him later in the episode.
While gathering up badass!Emma, Matty says something to the effect of having to settle for Brennan's girlfriend. Apparently she's a Brennan/Emma 'shipper. *snerk*
Brennan tells Jesse that he would never hit a woman. Though it's true that neither he nor Jesse actually punches a woman in the series (either Shalimar or Emma is always around to do the honors), chivalry doesn't prevent Brennan from electrocuting Kendra MacEvoy in "In the Presence of Mine Enemies," Valerie in "Past as Prologue," the wheelchair-bound Marika in "Into the Moonless Night," and Emma in "A Breed Apart" and "Deadly Desire."
Brennan’s sure that Matty didn’t have new mutant powers when he last knew her because they’d been in tight situations where she could have used them. That's an odd attitude to have, given the fact that Brennan claims that he never let anyone see him use his abilities back then either, even though he was in those tight situations right along with her.
Why is scared!Emma afraid of the EDD scan? It's not like whole Emma never had them before. (This seemed a bit much). Why does it take so long for Jesse and Shalimar to realize how weirdly Emma's acting? And for that matter, why is scared!Emma out in the real world trying to hunt down Brennan? Other than the plot device.
Wait a second, Mason was gonna pod Dr. Harrison in the last episode. Why's he still there? (And the end of this episode, Mason implies he should be a research subject.)
If the split was some sort of cellular/genetic event, how come Emma’s clothes were copied too?
Adam is shocked that Emma's drinking--what about that Amaretto Sour in “Whiter Shade of Pale”? OK, she didn't exactly wait around for it, but if Emma doesn't drink, how does she know about the more obscure fancy drinks?
How come the lab’s security lockdown isn't Brennan-proof? After all, we learn the dojo is in "Altered Ego,” and Sanctuary itself is in "The Future Revealed."
Complete random weirdness: Shal kissing the bald guy during the brawl scene. WTH? (She and Jesse tag teaming it is a sight to behold, however.)
Where did the flat beds for reintegrating Emma come from?
Why is Matty resorting to baby talk with Brennan? My god. There is one proposition in the series he turns down. ::boggles::
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 1 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 1 drink (Emma B)
Blood Ties
Trivia: Jesse and his dad were in father/son martial arts tournaments every year until his folks split up and his dad went undercover and overseas.
Special guest star: Nicole Carter is played by Chick Reid, Tom McCamus's wife in real life.
Nitpicks: Noah's just a manipulating bastard. How'd Jesse turn out so trusting and innocent?If this were a Whedon show, Jesse would've been referred to as "Schmucky the bait" in the script during the teaser. I just wanted to point that out.
How did Jesse not know that his dad slipped him the disk? That's a pretty odd place to touch your son whom you haven't seen in years.
On a similar note, why is Jesse shouting "Noah!" at his father that he hasn't seen in years? He calls him "Dad" for the majority of the show afterwards, even after his betrayal. I know this makes his "My Dad showed up" more dramatic after Brennan comes on the scene, but geez.
Still trying to figure out what kind of mutant Cole Calvin Porter is...a sonic molecular, maybe?
Noah phones Mason from the safehouse to blackmail him for money. Luckily for Noah, that alarm which alerted Mutant X when Daniel Benedict called Mason from his safehouse in “Russian Roulette” remains completely and mysteriously silent.
Brennan however, turns up that Jesse's Dad was working at Nexxogen. Not a very good father Jesse has. Of course, we learn later that the divorce sounds kinda bitter, so it's possible there's other reasons for him not to have contacted Jesse...except that it's not true, poor guy.
Script stupidity: Why does the device Adam uses for taking Shalimar and Emma's thumbprints hurt?
Also, why does it take so long for the team to tell Jesse their suspicions? And when they do, why aren't they forcing him to sit down and look at the proof instead of just telling him? They didn't think he'd actually believe it otherwise, did they? And they do have that handy dojo trap they used for Daniel Benedict...
In the same vein, note that there's nothing the team can do once Jesse's in the Helix headed toward disaster. It's a shame that Adam didn't take the next logical step to reconfigure the manual override sequence after Ashley Elliot successfully hijacked the Double Helix in "Lit Fuse." He doesn't make that mistake twice, though, since the sequence works just fine when Shalimar takes the Helix in "A Normal Life."
How does Jesse's dad know about Mutant X? And why isn't Jesse suspicious at this point? I mean, sure, his Dad's covert ops, but then wouldn't he have heard something from him before now?
Noah: "If anything happens to my son, the deal's off." OK, so Noah's only 99% manipulating bastard. Of course, Mason just orders Noah's death anyway.
Moving on to the girls break-in to Nexxogen--they're stopped at the door. Why cause a scene by kicking ass right away? Couldn't Emma have done some psionic stuff first?
I also want to point out that Emma takes out four GS agents on her own here, without even needing to use her psionic abilities. Count ‘em, four.
How come the GSA is so good at finding Mutant X safehouses? And shouldn't it be sound proof? I mean, Sanctuary seems to be everyone-who-isn't-a-telecyber proof, wouldn't a few more safehouse precautions be in order?
Why did Brennan change shirts to come after Jesse? Especially since Jesse was in the Helix with a head start, and the ground car *has* to be slower.
Why does Jesse know to grab Cole Calvin Porter's audio filter? (He then masses to protect his dad from the bullets. Go figure.)
Adam is watching Shalimar comforting Jesse at the end. It seems rather creepy. I mean either go down there or give them some privacy. (Seriously, it's a good thing no one was doing the horizontal tango in Sanctuary during seasons one and two.)
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Altered Ego
Trivia: Adam says when Brennan gets wet he becomes physically weak. Remember this for "Power Play."
Emma's non-telempathic ability #10: Though Emma’s never met Charlotte, she connects to her mind and gets images of what she’s seeing (she did something like this in "Crime of the New Century, but that was with Lisa's telepathic aid). This is a skill similar to what psionic Sam "The Reader" Raymond is capable of in "Once Around."
Nitpicks: When the GS agents show up to grab Charlotte and Skeet, they pull Skeet out of the apartment’s front door twice.
How old is Charlotte? Sometimes she acts like she's 20, sometimes she acts like she's 15.
Charlotte touches Jesse first, so why does the effect wear off on Shalimar first? Just because she’s a feral? How come Adam doesn't have the same physical reaction to the toxin that Lynch, Jesse, and Shalimar have?
In the scene in the lab following the Charlotte induced fight between Shalimar and Jesse, Shal has bruises on her left shoulder. She lands against massed Jesse on her hands, then he kicks her in the gut. Why is her shoulder bruised?
Fashion victim: You're Brennan. You're on a windy roof. Wouldn't you button your shirt so it didn't come undone?
Emma takes out her GS agent on the roof and then waits around, tapping her foot, until Brennan finally knocks his out before informing him that the GSA have taken Charlotte. This gives the GS agents plenty of opportunity to get away.
When Charlotte demonstrates her powers on Lynch, he turns violent and evil. Shouldn't it have turned Lynch good too? It seems as though Adam's the only one who changed morality. The mutants all just seemed to become more violent for a minute, and then calm down. Skeet, for example, with the takeout food. He wasn't really evil, he was just physically expressing his anger at always having to eat takeout. Hee.
Also, I wonder who the poor sap that Charlotte tested her powers on before was. (The non-new mutant I mean.)
Charlotte fakes her tears when she calls Sanctuary in order to lure Adam out. Instead of wasting time arguing with Emma about whether she’s lying, why don’t they just use that nifty voice stress analyzer as they did on Eric in “Lit Fuse”? That would resolve the question right then and there.
RE: Adam going alone to see Charlotte. Adam's an idiot. Why does he always go alone? He always gets burned!
When Adam's menacing Emma in the lab, the lines they show in the opening are there. Wild.
The dojo is apparently Mutant X proof. This seems like a bad idea, since someone could break in and contain them. Why would Adam have designed this when he was good?
Emma dated an exchange student from Helsenki in high school. This does not explain why she knows how to say “Computer, deactivate force field”...unless, of course, she and her boyfriend were watching Star Trek reruns in Finnish.
The part where Shal and Jesse decide that Adam doesn't make mistakes like not knowing that Emma speaks Finnish is cute. They so want to believe that he's infallible and fighting being evil. They're so innocent.
Why would Mason tell Charlotte he's responsible for what happened to her father? She already wants out, why make it worse?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 (It’s Shal again) Adam Kisses: 2 Freak mentions: 0 Food intake: 0
Lazarus Syndrome In Which Everyone in Mutant X is Very Overprotective of Emma
Trivia: GS agents have tracking devices implanted in them.
Nitpicks: At the very beginning, why doesn't Emma just tell Brennan that the girl he's trying to hit on is there with her boyfriend? Not that that would have stopped him...
Continuity: The good kind. Emma orders a virgin daiquiri. This ties in nicely with Badass!Emma's describing Scared!Emma as The Teatotaler Version in "Double Vision." Now if we could just figure out that Amaretto Sour in "Whiter Shade of Pale"...
Brennan teases her mercilessly about her drink selection, and then Caleb buys her drink. Which, I gotta think is a little odd, given she's talking to Brennan. Unless he's been watching long enough to see Brennan trying to flirt. Now I see no reason Emma shouldn't have gone to dance with him, but really, would the two seconds for an "Excuse us" to Brennan have killed her?
Very annoying plot point: Of course, given he then spent as much time as possible keeping an eye on them a "Buzz off" might've been more appropriate. Unless Brennan's powers include precognition--it was *lucky* he was being a chauvinistic jerk.
And then we discover where Brennan gets this protectiveness from. It's very clear in the first scene in Sanctuary when Adam says, "I don't understand. Where were you when all this was happening?" He sounds like a parent bawling out a teenager for leaving their 10 year old sibling alone. Hello? Emma's a big girl. Given that Brennan's teasing her about not drinking, at least 21 (unless they're in Canada). This trend extends as far as Shalimar acting like a frantic mother having lost a small child when she gets back to find Emma's comlink and no Emma. Then Adam's very condescending when Emma tells him Caleb is alive, but has the boys do some hacking anyway, just on the off-chance that she's right (she always is, by the way). Then once they realize that Caleb goes for beautiful, female new mutants, Adam makes Shalimar go back to Sanctuary. Not that our Intrepid Feral stays there for long. Then after she kills Caleb the first time, she's so busy crying over Emma that Brennan and Jesse have to take out Caleb. (Funny how Shal and Brennan end up killing people every time Emma dies.) And Adam's response, "Get back to Sanctuary now." *strangled scream*
How did Caleb get Emma to ditch her comlink? Did I miss something?
After Caleb has taken some of Emma's "life force" in the form of a pink gas that oddly resembles Lorna's pheromones (“Deadly Desire”), they are mentally joined somehow (similar to the way Shal and Ashlocke will be later on) and her psionic abilities don't work on him. Or so he says. A similar mental link will occur in Season 2's "Inferno" between Emma and another dead man. Apparently, lack of brain function doesn't preclude a mental connection with a psionic...
Pamela Fries (or Freeze, it's pronounced freeze) can lower and raise her body temperature. Oh the pun of it all.
After Jesse knocks Brennan out of the path of Ms. Fries's car, why doesn't he just move himself instead of phasing?
And again Emma is meditating in a darkened Sanctuary. Is she sitting on an X?
Really, what did Emma expect from a GS Agent? (This leads right into "Interface” doesn't it?)
Speaking of GS Agents, someone needs to make them watch Dr. Who. What's up with the freaking high heels? NOT appropriate footwear for that line of work.
My next question is: there's a good three minutes where Caleb is busy with Pamela. Why is Emma not unlocking her cuff and kicking ass? I mean, she doesn't have her psychic blasts yet, but she's not exactly helpless. Plus two against one are better odds.
Why do Jesse and Brennan keep pestering the bartender? I thought Emma was the psychic one.
When Emma's life force comes back, I'm reminded of special effects of the voices from Hush. More proof that Mutant X should've been a Joss Whedon show?
The tag: Everyone overprotects Emma and she tries to fight it, but has to put up with it. And dude, who let Adam out of Sanctuary?
Ep Tally. Topless Brennan: 0 Adam Kisses: 0 Freak mentions: 1 Food intake: 2 drinks (Brennan, Emma)