Russian Roulette

Dec 01, 2016 03:00

Mutant X Episode Synopses

Russian Roulette: Episode #103.

Tag: Adam and his Mutant X team match wits with a Russian duo who are working for Eckhart. [ Transcript]

Cast & Crew: Written by Elizabeth Keyishian; Directed by T.J. Scott
Dylan Bierk.... Sonya Barovsky
Ross Hull.... Daniel Benedict
Alison MacLeod.... Caroline Benedict
Alexander Pervakov.... Yuri Pogrebin
Laura Vandervoort.... Tina Benedict
Peter Van Wart.... Steven Benedict

Official Synopsis: Brennan Mulwray (Victor Webster) and Jesse Kilmartin (Forbes March) come to the aid of Tina (Laura Vandervoort), a teenage mutant being followed by two Russians. While Jesse whisks the girl to safety, Brennan confronts her pursuers, Sonya (Dylan Bierk) and Yuri (Alexander Pervakov), who open fire with the "Pushka H5B7," a gun that neutralizes Brennan's electrical powers, leaving him doubled over in pain. As the Russians flee, Jesse and Tina drive up and rescue Brennan, bringing him to Sanctuary. Brennan immediately begins to receive treatment for his injuries in the lab at Sanctuary. Adam (John Shea) informs the team that the gun used on Brennan is intended to detect, neutralize and eventually control new mutants. In addition to undermining Brennan's powers, the weapon has caused his internal organs to begin disintegrating. Adam is certain that unless they find the weapon soon and utilize its ability to reverse the damage, Brennan will die. With this in mind, Jesse is determined to retrieve the Pushka from the Russians. At Genomex headquarters, Sonya meets with Mason Eckhart (Tom McCamus) who has hired her to round up and capture new mutants. She tells him that although she wasn't able to apprehend Brennan, he has been neutralized. Meanwhile, Shalimar Fox (Victoria Pratt) visits with Tina's family and learns that the girl's father is also a mutant with telekinetic abilities. When asked, her brother Daniel (Ross Hull) insists that he does not share any of the rest of his family's special powers. The next day, the Mutant X team monitors a phone conversation in which Daniel informs Eckhart of the whereabouts of two new mutants, his father and sister Tina. Eckhart has Sonya arrange a meeting with Daniel to find out more about these new mutants. Adam, Emma and Shalimar are shocked that Daniel would turn on his own family and betray them. After eavesdropping on Daniel and Sonya's conversation, the team realizes that Daniel wants to use the Pushka against the new mutants, and Sonya is apparently the woman who controls the weapon. Adam and the team ruin Eckhart and Sonya's plans by abducting Daniel, putting a disguised Jesse in his place. Posing as Daniel, Jesse meets with Sonya and Yuri and accompanies them to their hideout, where they are fine-tuning the Pushka. Jesse's true identity is exposed, however, when the gun's detection system reveals that he is a new mutant. Rather than shoot him and risk losing the opportunity to nab Daniel's father and sister, Sonya implants Jesse with a "subdermal governor," effectively making him her prisoner. Back at Sanctuary where the real Daniel is being held, Emma deLauro (Lauren Lee Smith) and Shalimar are shocked to discover that he is actually a fellow new mutant, but is still in denial about the telekinetic powers he possesses. When Adam arrives, he convinces Daniel that his rebellion against his father, sister and other new mutants is misguided. Jesse leads Sonya and Yuri to Daniel's home where they expect to apprehend Daniel's father and sister. Instead, they find Adam, Shalimar and Emma posing as Daniel's family, and a brutal fight breaks out. As Yuri takes aim, the Mutant X team attacks and overpowers the Russians. While the others rush back to Sanctuary with the Pushka in an attempt to save Brennan, Jesse allows himself to be taken prisoner by Sonya and Yuri in order to return to their hideout, which he plans on destroying. Jesse gets more help than expected when Daniel and the rest of the Mutant X team, including Brennan, show up and Daniel uses his telekinetic abilities to scare off Sonya and Yuri. With his powers now fully restored, Brennan sends an electrical charge into the lab's computers, obliterating them in a massive explosion.

Quotes:
Tina: I've heard weird stories about The Underground.
Brennan: Tina, look at me. Now do I look like someone who'd have anything to do with something...something weird?

Shalimar: Everybody's smiling too much. Nobody's talking.
Adam: So what's the problem?
Shalimar: What do I know about family therapy?
Adam: You've got a family, don't you?
Shalimar: Yeah, but--
Adam: That's all the therapy you need.

Caroline Benedict: Steak tartar?
Shalimar: No thanks. I may be feral, but I do prefer my meat medium well.

Caroline Benedict: Chocolate fondu for five, everybody! Think of it as catching your dessert with a fork.

Mason: I promised you 20 thousand for each new mutant that you could bring me neutralized.
Sonya: The Pushka H5B7 works.
Mason: Oh, well in that case...where are these new mutants that you brought me?
Sonya: We had a glitch in our operation.
Mason: I'm busy.

Mason: Oh yes, of course. The Pushka. Isn't that Russian for "Colossal Error in Judgment"?

Adam: You're going to meet Sonya in Daniel's place.
Jesse: So I get the Pushka. And?
Adam: You find out if it works, how it works, how to reverse the neutralization, and then bring it to me.
Shalimar: What's he doing for the rest of the afternoon?

Daniel Benedict: My father used to scare me into behaving by telling me stories about you.
Mason!Adam: You certainly know how to ingratiate yourself.

Daniel Benedict: New mutants are a virus. A disease. They're marrying, reproducing. I have to stop that from happening.
Mason!Adam: Have you any idea what we do with people like your father?
Daniel: Reprogram them, I guess?
Mason!Adam: It’s a little more complex than reprogram, Mr. Benedict. Your father and foster sister will be placed in a stasis unit for future study.
Daniel: That’s exactly where they belong.
Mason!Adam: A man after my own heart. Wait here for me until I get back...and don’t touch anything.

Daniel: I’m the guy who can blow the whole new mutant underground wide open. You think because I work with my father that I care about new mutants?
Mason!Adam: Don’t you?
Daniel: My father has blinders on to everything but the cause. He doesn’t care about me or his family. All he cares about is rescuing and hiding new mutants from you.

Daniel Benedict: This isn't the GSA!
Shalimar: Nothin' gets by you, huh?

Sonya: How much?
Jesse: Ten thousand dollars.
Sonya: Five.
Jesse: They're worth ten.
Sonya: I'm getting bored, Yuri. Shoot him.
Jesse: Five.

Daniel: You can’t hold me here.
Emma: We seem to be doing okay in that department.

Shalimar: No fun being different, huh, Daniel?
Emma: Keeping secrets from everybody, always afraid of being found out? I was like that when it hit me.
Shalimar: You should have seen this girl when she came on the scene.
Emma: I had a hard time coming to terms with my abilities. It’s all about acceptance.
Daniel: I don’t give a damn.
Shalimar: Well, we don’t give a damn about you. We do, however, give a damn about the people whose lives you wanted destroyed.
Daniel: You know, I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to be one of you.
Shalimar: None of us asked for this. But you play the cards your dealt.
Emma: It’s not mutancy you hate. It’s yourself you despise.
Shalimar: Who you gonna blame for that? Your father? Cause he’ didn’t pay enough attention to you?
Emma: That man works for our cause, but he’d lay down his life for you.
Daniel: Does he know what I did?
Shalimar: Yeah. Adam had to tell him.
Emma: How’s it feel to betray that kind of trust?

Jesse: I’m home.
Adam: Daniel! Glad you could make it.
Jesse: Hi...Dad.
Shalimar: Hi, honey! Oh, I wish you’d told me you were bringing friends. I don’t think we have enough chicken.
Jesse: Mom?
Shalimar: Sweetie, could you go get some?
Emma: Sure, Mom. Hi, Daniel.
Jesse: Tina.
Sonya: We are not his friends! We are his accomplices.
Shalimar: Oh, any accomplice of Daniel's is a friend of ours!

Daniel: You come to beat me up too?
Adam: No. I gather your self-loathing is punishment enough. You were such a quiet little boy.
Daniel: Please. I was terrified in the silence. The minute I learned about my dad, I knew there was someone out there to hunt him down like a freak.
Adam: And you wanted to make it easy for the predators?
Daniel: When Eckhart--when you asked me why I was ratting on my father...
Adam: Yes?
Daniel: I thought it was for his own good. But I guess I never thought things through 'cause I was afraid of where it could lead me.
Adam: Like the fact that you’re more like your father than you ever could’ve imagined. Or ever wanted to be.

Brennan: Fine, guys. Go ahead without me. I'll catch up.

Daniel: Thanks, Adam. For a second chance.
Adam: It’s your father you have to thank.
Daniel: What do I say to him?
Adam: It’s deeds, not words.

Trivia & Nitpicks: 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 “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.

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.

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.) 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, the Marvel 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 the average 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 for a few seconds, no one rushes in to administer CPR. Then when he finally wakes up, they smile 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 speech 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)

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