"Joyride"
Writers: Cydne Clark and Steve Granat
Director: Steven E. Gordon
Original Air Date: December 1, 2001
Synopsis/Review: This episode begins
at night, outside the X-Mansion. Suddenly, the entrance gates come crashing
down, and who else walks through the front entrance than Avalanche. As
he works on taking out the various defense systems, the internal alarms
in the Mansion sound, and Wolverine and the main teenage X-Men suit up
and head out the front doors, where they come face to face with the Brotherhood
member. Wolverine unsheathes his metal claws and angrily asks what this
is all about, and Lance says... that he wants to join the X-Men...
...At first, all of
the X-Men, are, understandably, speechless. Then they figure that Lance
is joking, but Lance insists that he's serious. Xavier comes out the front
door, inviting Lance into his office.
A few minutes later,
after all of the X-Men and Lance are in Xavier's office, Xavier then politely
asks Lance why he wants to join the X-Men. Lance just vaguely answers that
he just wants a change, the Brotherhood isn't doing much for him anymore.
Xavier says that he's willing to give it a try, and he and Lance shake
on it. Kitty leaves to go show Lance his room, and the rest of the X-Men
also leave their rooms to go back to bed- except for Cyclops, who mentions
to the Prof that this is NOT a good idea. Scott knows Lance, and the guy
wouldn't want in on the X-Men unless he wanted something. Xavier agrees,
much to Scott's surprise- Xavier acknowledges that what Lance wants is
to be near Kitty. And, since he feels that Lance's feelings for her are
real, he's willing to see how things go from there. Cyclops is still against
this, however.
In another part of the
Mansion, Kitty shows Lance to his room. Lance just dumps his backpack into
one of the dresser drawers- voila, he's unpacked. Kitty informs Lance when
breakfast is, and is about to leave for bed, when she decides she still
needs to tell Lance something. The training sessions they go through are
NO easy task, and although Kitty appreciates what Lance is doing, he needs
to realize it's going to be rough for a while. Lance just shrugs it off-
how hard can it be?
Lance gets his answer
the next morning, as he and some of the other New Mutants sit in during
one of Iceman's Blackbird-flying training simulations, Scott being the
instructor. Iceman puts at least a little effort into it, but they eventually
"crash" in the end, after a wild ride. The simulator opens up, and Iceman
runs out, happily proclaiming to a waiting Logan that it took him TWICE
as long to crash this time! Logan growls and reprimands Bobby for his not
taking the simulation seriously as the other recruits file out. Lance is
looking particularly queasy, and Kitty comes over and asks him if he's
doing alright. Lance immediately perks up, insisting everything's fine-
but as soon as she leaves, he runs to the bathroom...
And we see Kurt washing
the Danger Room floor- poor guy's still on probation after the events of
"Badda Bing, Badda Boom"- still has another
week left.
We then go to another
training session, in which various New Mutants take turns hitting spinning
blade projectiles that spin out of some outdoor shooters. (Again, isn't
Xavier ever worried that his students might get seriously hurt!?) Magma
fails, Iceman shows off and almost gets himself killed in the process.
Lance then steps up and proceeds to take out the shooters themselves before
they even fire. The New Mutants congratulate Lance on a job well done,
while Kitty giggles and Scott keeps looking stern.
We then go to a Danger
Room session. Cannonball's taking out the autoguns, while Jubilee, Berzerker,
and Multiple make their way through an obstacle course. Lance's having
mucho trouble, though, and barely manages to make it. Relieved, he celebrates
when he finally makes it. Back up in the Danger Room Control Room, though,
Scott shows an unusually mean side of himself (along with Kurt's approval)
and activates a metal beam to come and whap the celebrate Lance on the
back and onto the ground. Kitty sees this, and frowns. Well, okay, I'll
give her this one...
Then, to another practice
session. Spyke, Nightcrawler, Rogue, and Kitty are wading in the deep end
of the pool. It's Lance, Iceman, Wolfsbane, and Cannonball's job to "rescue"
them. Iceman and Wolfsbane quickly accomplish their goals, while Cannonball
dives into the water and Lance gets a life saver and throws it at the person
he's supposed to rescue, Rogue- hitting her in the head. Lance happily
dives into the water and pushes Cannonball hard enough to activate Cannonball's
"super flying" mode, which Cannonball seemingly cannot control. Sam shoots
out of the water, while Lance goes over and rescues Kitty, amidst her giggles.
As Lance carries Kitty out of the pool, Scott, helping Rogue out, reprimands
Lance for rescuing the wrong victim. Lance just says, "But look who I rescued!",
right before Rogue shoves him and Kitty back into the water. YES! Go Rogue!
Later, as Lance, Jubilee,
Cannonball, and Iceman pile into Lance's jeep, Lance makes a snide comment
about Scott's "nice car". An entering Scott and Kurt turn to look at Scott's
car, which is caked in mud and in bad shape. Scott yells after Lance, but
he just laughs and takes off with the others.
Later at school, Lance
waves by to his other three new buddies and heads off to a class, only
to get pushed into a locker by Blob, the other Brotherhood members right
behind him. Pietro gets in Lance's face for dropping out of the Brotherhood,
and Todd and Fred are extremely dissapointed in Lance's betrayal- they
used to look up to him. Lance just insists that Mystique isn't coming back,
and the Brotherhood is over with- they just haven't accepted it yet. He
leaves the angry group behind, while Tabitha yells to a retreating Lance
that he won't last long with the X-Men- there's no way they're going to
accept someone like him.
Later that night, Lance
is walking down the hallway to his room, getting ready to go to bed, when
he noticed Jubilee, Cannonball, Iceman, and Multiple sneaking down the
other side of the hallway. Curious, Lance follows them.
In the kitchen, Kitty's
getting herself a late night snack. Whenever she has her back turned, one
of the four New Mutants sneaking through the halls quickly runs by the
doorway to avoid her noticing. She bends down to pick up something she
dropped, but she hears one of them go by and phases her head through the
table, an apple in her mouth. Lance walks by and glances in at Kitty- who
looks like her head's on a plate, with an apple in her mouth! Mwahaha.
Lance faints.
We then see the four
New Mutants firing up the X-Van and heading out for a little late night
joyride. They're all having a ball- although Multiple's being an "annoying
little brother" type with his "Let me try! Pleeeeeease?". Iceman and the
others try several different buttons, but they all do things (such as fire
a missile backwards, or fire flame throwers out the rear end) that the
New Mutants don't seem to notice. Not noticing the wake of destruction
they leave behind them (heheh), they are convinced that the X-Van is boring,
and take it back to the Mansion.
The four go back to
bed, but Iceman barely manages to hit the bed before he gets a mental message
from Xavier that all the new recruits are to report to the Blackbird hangar
for a special early morning session. *Groan*
Wolverine and Cyclops
shows all of the New Mutants + Lance the Blackbird and explains its features
(whilst Nightcrawler pops around the X-Jet, washing it, the darn probation).
Bobby eagerly asks if they get to ride it, but Logan just chuckles and
says that they'll try something smaller first...
...He takes them to
the garage to show them the X-Van, but- big surprise- it's falling apart
from last night's Joyride. Scott immediately knows who to blame- Lance.
Late that night, Jubilee,
Cannonball, and Iceman decide to sneak out again for another joyride- they
leave Multiple behind, though, because of his general annoyingness (to
them, at least- I think he's funny). They wake up Lance before they go,
though, asking him if he wants to go with them. Jubilee just mentions that
he's gonna get in trouble anyway, so... (Gosh, it's times like this you
just wanna THROTTLE those kids...) Lance just says that they've already
got him in enough trouble, leave him alone. They leave, but Bobby just
hints to Lance that they're gonna be taking something much bigger and faster
this time...
Bobby, Sam, and Jubilee
enter the Blackbird hangar- yep, they're taking the Blackbird. Sam has
second thoughts, but Bobby and Jubilee convince him to go.
Meanwhile, Bobby's earlier
words finally click in Lance's head- they're taking the X-Jet! Lance rushes
and wakes up a confused Kitty, hurrying her into the hangar. Seeing the
Blackbird already going down the runway (below them, as they're on a high
walkway in the hangar), Lance quickly tells a still-befuddled Kitty to
phase them into the Blackbird, as they both jump off and into the Blackbird's
cargo hold as it goes down the indoor runway...
Bobby manages to shakily
get the thing out of the hangar and into the air. The three have a blast
flying the thing through the city- although with every speed-up or turn
they make, it knocks Lance and Kitty to and fro in the cargo hold. Finally,
the Bobby (who's piloting the jet) levels it out, and Jubilee opens the
ceiling hatch to shoot some of her fireworks up into the sky. Lance and
Kitty finally manage to phase through into the front room at that time,
and startle the three- especially Jubilee, who accidentally sends one of
her little fireworks into the main console, shorting it out. Wonderful...
The thing starts picking up speed, and Lance manages to find a seat- oh
yeah, he HATES flying... Leaving the task of reprimanding the three New
Mutants for later, Kitty quickly tries to contact the X-Mansion via the
radio, but it's fried. And, just to make things worse, three jet fighters
pull up behind the Blackbird. One of them informs the "unidentified aircraft"
that it's in restricted air space, and they need authorization to let them
pass. Lance immediately takes over- no way he's letting Bobby get them
further into this mess. He tries to figure out which button is the com
system, and presses one- only to have the Blackbird fire two missiles at
the fighters! The fighters narrowly dodge them, but this is definitely
shows hostile intent (at least in their POV), so they fire some responding
missiles at the Blackbird- they're heat-seeking! Jubilee manages to pop
off some fireworks to distract the buggers, while Sam rummages through
the console's internal wires to try to fix the fried ones. And then the
propulsion turns off. Whee. The Blackbird begins to plummet, but Iceman
manages to create a ramp out of ice to temporarily get them into the air
again. Sam manages to get the engines working again, and they take off,
the fighters stil tailing them. Avalanche creates a small rockside (they're
in between canyon walls now) to stave off the fighters temporarily, but
it doesn't work for long. The jets fire anothe salvo of heat-seeking missiles,
and Iceman can't lose them this time. Kitty has an idea, and tells Iceman
to head straight into a nearby mountain. Iceman complies reluctantly, and
Kitty manages to phase the entire Blackbird through the mountain just in
time. The fighter pilots see this, and, freaked out, they quickly leave,
convined that the Blackbird is a UFO or something. Kitty collapses into
Lance's arms, exhausted at phasing something that big. Bobby, Sam, and
Jubilee have had enough, and head back home.
The next morning, Scott,
Xavier and Logan stare dumbfounded at the banged-up, filthy Blackbird in
the hangar. Scott accuses Lance, and Lance takes the blame, even though
he didn't do it. Iceman and the other two new recruits admit that they
were the ones that took the joyride- Lance and Kitty had tried to stop
them, in fact. Just then, Kurt comes in- all he's got to do is wax the
Blackbird and he's off his proba- ....doh. Xavier responds that it's okay,
Kurt's officially done with his probation. As for the three troublemakers,
theirs is just beginning. Now get in there and clean out the Blackbird,
you!
Scott apologizes to
Lance, but he just shrugs it off. Lance says that he's leaving this place-
it's waaay too high maintenance, the Brotherhood's a piece of cake compared
to them. Xavier and Kitty want Lance to stay (Logan and Scott are oddly
silent during all this...), but Lance refuses. Kitty gives Lance a quick
peck on the cheek before he leaves, though. Awwww.
Last Words: This was a pretty good (and, in many parts, hilarious) ep, but it had a couple of flaws that kept it from being perfect. For one, the episode centered around Lance and Kitty's relationship, which I've always thought made no sense, as the two are too different to logically be interested in each other. But they're not COMPLETE opposites, so that "opposites attract" schtick doesn't really apply here, either. And Lance had tried to kill Kitty or her friends HOW many times, now? Meh. And a few of the lines were rather corny, too- especially the lines concerning the Blackbird. For being high schoolers, Jubilee, Avalanche, and Cannonball know RIDICULOUSLY little about aircraft. "The propulsion's cut!" "Alright!" "That's a BAD thing, right?" C'mon, give me a break. They'd KNOW that. However, this episode DOES give us a much-needed first peek into the personalities of Jubilee, Cannonball, Iceman, and Multiple. They're all trouble makers, with Iceman sort of being the unofficial "leader" of them all, and Multiple the "little brother". And for the former two, Jubilee and Cannonball, this is pretty much the only episode where they really get any characterization at all (as of this writing, in 12/02). It also has an unusually large amount of appearance by the other New Mutants as well, and demonstrates that the "older" teenage X-Men are almost as much their instructors as the adult X-Men. Also, although I don't usually factor in the animation, it was pretty sub-par for the series- more liney or jagged sometimes than I'd like, and sometimes Kitty didn't look "right".
Overall Rating: 8/10 Great
(NOTE: This episode was aired as the eighth episode of Season 2, even though, in actuality, it is the ninth.)