"Retreat"
Writer: Michael Merton
Director: Frank Paur
Original Air Date: February 16, 2002
Synopsis/Review: This episode begins
at night in downtown Bayville. A gorilla-like figure is running around
in the shadows- yes, it's Beast- and he's just walking around, grunting
a little. He manages to hide from a passing police car, and runs over to
the school grounds (which, of course, are deserted this late at night).
He goes over to the window of his old classroom and looks in, obviously
mourning over his lost job of teaching. He gets really mad at the way things
are, and splits a tree in half. The police car comes around the corner,
and he runs away, but the police see his form out of the corner of their
eye and follow him into an alleyway, where they manage to corner him. Beast
quickly scampers up the side of a building and lands on the car, scaring
the heck out of the policemen inside before he takes off. Needless to say,
they don't follow...
The next morning, at
the Mansion, Beast is apologizing to Xavier for the "experience" he had
had last night in the town. Xavier responds that it's not really that big
of a deal- it's a natural human reaction to want to "get out of the house"
and do something. Of which Beast can't, of course, due to his appearance.
Outside in the hallway,
Shadowcat and Iceman are talkin'. Kitty complains that she was up doing
an Earth science report all night, and asks Bobby if he knows anything
if he knows anything about redwoods, to which he smart-alecky replies,
"They make great hot tubs". He leaves a frustrated Shadowcat behind, who
happens to hear the conversation between Beast and Xavier going on in the
neighboring room. Curious, she peaks in and eavesdrops.
Xavier is talking to
Beast that every Mutant has a unique journey that they must go through,
to find out why, exactly they are the way they are. Beast responds with
"Journey!? Where can you go if you can't be seen by the public?"
Shadowcat bites her
lip in regret/sorrow at Hank's pain, then comes up to Xavier and mentally
tells him that maybe Hank could take them all to the National Redwood Forest,
just to get away from it all. Xavier agrees that it's a great idea, and
tells Hank about it. But Hank refuses, at first, until Xavier manages to
bait Hank with "dozens of miles away from the nearest civilization... untouched
by man..", and he accepts.
So, at breakfast, Beast
tells the Mutant kids about the trip, for those students who are having
trouble with their Geology class- namely, Wolfsbane, Sunspot, Iceman, and
Spyke (the latter two of which DEFINITELY don't want to go). Beast forces
them to anyway, heheh. (I guess Shadowcat just comes along because she
wants to. I dunno.)
Much later, we're in
the Redwood Forest. Sunspot's piling way too many tree branches on the
landed Blackbird to camoflauge it, and Wolfsbane tells him so- thus, we
learn that he's a bit of perfectionist. Sunspot manages to catch up with
the others, and the complaining Spyke. Sunspot loves it out here, though.
Spyke continues complaining to Beast, but Beast brushes it off with a "send
me an e-mail about it". Heheh.
So we then go through
a series of scenes in which the small group of Mutant pitch their tents
(Spyke helping Kitty with hers via his powers, heh), Beast showing/lecturing
to the kids about the various plants and such in the forest, Spyke getting
poison ivy (mwahaha), and all the Mutants having a rollicking good time
swimmming in the streams and ponds nearby.
Later, when Beast sees
everyone else relaxing on the pond shore after their swim (where we see
that Sunspot and Wolfsbane are obviously attracted to each other...), he
goes off by himself, obviously in a bit of a sorrowful mood. Kitty notices
this, and catches up with him, asking him what's wrong. Beast responds
that out here in nature, he has an "urge" just to go off in the wild, like
he belongs here. But he knows that that's not him. Kitty tells Beast that
they are the way they are for a reason... hopefully Beast will find out
his reason soon enough. Beast thanks Kitty, and tells her to go round up
the others, while he goes off for a romp down the stream for a little bit.
Later, Beast finds a
"beached" fish in a particularly shallow part of the stream, flopping around.
Beast sorrowfully picks the fish up, asking it, "You can't go back either,
huh?" before placing it back into the deeper water. Beast hears a rustle
in the bushes behind him, though (we see it as a guy holding a video cam),
and looks around to see if anyone's there, but the guy manages to sneak
back out quick enough for Beast not to catch him. Beast just shrugs his
shoulders and heads back to the kids.
Later that night, we
go to a campsite in the Redwoods, but it's not the X-Kids'. It's a group
of hunters looking for the nefarious Bigfoot. They're showing some of the
stuff they've found to the group's Professor- footprints, hairs, etc.-
but the Professor admits that it's hardly proof that Bigfoot exists. However,
one guy comes in with "undeniable proof" that Bigfoot exists, and shows
him the footage he shot of Beast earlier. The campers immediately crowd
around the small television set... "Hey, isn't he wearing trunks?" "Must
have got them off some campsite..." "He clearly likes fish, but lacks the
manual dexterity to hold onto them." (ROTFL!) Then, two hunters, step in,
guns cocked, and tell the other guys that they've got themselves a Bigfoot
to catch...
...The next day, Beast
tells his kids that they have an assignment, much to their dismay. They're
to collect different soil samples- it'll take them an hour, he says, so
take about three hours. In other words, have fun, but still do your work.
Gotta love Hank! Meanwhile, he's gonna go off and just have some fun, swinging
among trees and the like. The kids take off, about halfway between excited
and dissapointed (if that makes any sense...), Sunspot brags to Wolfsbane,
and Beast goes a swingin'.
He eventually finds
some Bigfoot hunters, using "Bigfoot mating call" whistles and whatnot.
Teehee. Beast thinks it's funny too, and manages to sneak behind a bush,
make a bunch of growling noises, then push a big log some distance away
from the hunters- who, of course, go after it. Beast smiles and sneaks
out of there. However, the Professor and the two "main" hunters shown earlier
have been keeping tabs on Beast for a little bit, and the Professor expresses
his extreme interest in capturing the seemingly rather intelligent creature.
So, the hunters start shooting Hank full of tranquilizer darts. Awww. It
doesn't work very well, though, and Hank roars and runs after the two hunters,
who promptly run away... leading Hank right into cage that suddenly springs
up from the ground. They've now got Beast, and when he tries to grip the
bars to pry them open, they electrocute him, and he falls to the ground
of the cage, unconscious.
Later, Beast wakes up
in the cage, and finds he's now in the hunter's camp. The Professor is
doing something or another near the cage, and Beast grunts and gets his
attention. The Professor starts saying something like "Can...you... speak?"
and stuff like that. And then Beast complements the Professor on his ingenious
design of the cage. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-*Ahem*. Anyway, the Professor is
completely astounded by this, but eventually he gets over it, and Beast
wants the Professor to let him out of the cage- there's others he's brought
here, and he needs to get back to them. The Professor, astounded, asks
Beast that there's MORE like him? And Beast responds "not exactly- we're
all..special... in a different way". Anyway, the Professor decides to let
Beast out of the cage, but as he gets the keys out, the two head hunters
come up, asking the Professor what the heck he's doing. The Professor says
that's the most amazing thing- see, he can- however, at this point, he
sees Beast make a "ssssh" gesture, and the Professor immediately goes on
about the creature being able to respond to sound or something inconsequential
like that. The hunters just raise their eyebrows and tell the Professor
to pack his stuff up- they're leaving, as there's a rainstorm coming. The
Professor nods an affirmative, but as the hunters leave, the Professor
promises Hank that he'll get the Mutant out of this ASAP.... somehow.
Meanwhile, the X-Kids
have finally finished their assignment, and have met back at their assigned
place- but of course, Beast's not there. So they call around the woods
for a bit, searching for him, but to no avail. Finally, Kitty gets an idea,
and tells Rahne (Wolfsbane) to see if she can sniff Hank out in her wolf
form. Rahne complies, and off they go. Iceman says that they'd better hurry,
though, as it's getting ready to rain soon...
...And rain it does.
We then skip to a while later- it's raining quite a bit, and Rahne finally
stops and transforms back to her human form, telling the other X-Kids that
Hank should be just over this next ridge. They run over there... only to
find an abandoned campsite. Well, that blows that. The X-Kids frustratingly
tuck their coats in as the rain increases and carry on.
Back with Hank, he's
sitting in the back of a convoy of trucks heading down the side of a cliff
road, in a cage in the bed of the truck, soaking wet and definitely not
very happy. Back in the truck's front area, the Professor is insisting
that the hunters should stop driving- it's dangerous on cliff sides under
such dangerous conditions as these. The hunters shrug it off- until a huge
mudslide suddenly occurs right in front of them on the road. The trucks
all swerve to avoid the sudden mudslide, and rumble down into a shallow
riverbed below the road. The hunter mumbles that that was close- but the
Professor notices that they're not out of trouble yet, a huge wave of water
comes rushing down the river towards them!
The wave of water slams
into the trucks, and although the vehicles manage to slam into a small
wooden dam a little ways down the river, the impact severs the chain holding
Beast's cage to the truck, and it hurls over the dam and into the rushing
waters, sinking into the river.
Luckily, the X-Kids
have emerged out next to the river by this time (probably because of more
of Wolfsbane's scent-searching), and they spot Beast's cage submerging
in the water. As they race after it, Iceman dams up the river (via his
ice, of course), lessening the flow of the water, and creates a bridge
into the water. Sunspot manages to catch a little break in the clouds (the
rain has lessened a little by now) and gets enough sun energy to "power-up",
then jumps into the river, pulls the bars off Beast's sunken cage, and
pulls Beast up onto the bridge.
As Beast sputters out
water, Kitty urgently asks Beast if he's already. Beast says yeah... thanks
to them. But there's more people up the river, go and help them out, and
the X-Kids hurry off, with Hank not far behind.
Once they reach the
area where the hunters are desperately climbing out of their half-sunken
trucks, Beast uproots a nearby tree and slams it into the water, leaving
just enough of it on land to anchor it. The X-Kids edge out on the tree
and help the hunters and the Professor up and onto the tree- but the two
main hunters see Beast a bit back and chase after him. *sigh* The Professor
yells for the hunters to stop, but they don't listen and continue on.
The hunters chase after
Beast, and one of them draws a bead on the Mutant with his gun, and is
about to fire when a familiar-looking wolf suddenly jumps out of the woods
and grabs the hunter's gun from his hands with its mouth. The hunter's
freaked out by this, and edges away from the wolf.
Meanwhile, the other
hunter is in a similar situation with Beast, when Iceman (in "ice mode")
snatches the gun out of the hunter's hand, freezes it, then breaks it with
his hands. Nuh-uh, he says. Not a good idea. Spyke, Sunspot, and Shadowcat
all manage to freak out the hunters even more with displaying their powers.
Finally, all five manage
to corner the hunters, and Wolfsbane does the final straw by transforming
into her werewolf stage, and now the hunters are practically having a heart
attack, they're so scared. Suddenly, they see a very angry Beast clinging
to the tree trunk above them. Iceman rubs his hands together and asks Beast
what he wants to DO with the hunters, and Beast replies evily that he's
THINKING...
Kitty says that the
hunters do NOT want to mess with "Bigfoot", and she tells him they better
get out of here, now. And they do, very quickly. The kids change back to
normal and celebrate their "victory" of sorts of chasing the hunters off
from Beast- and the Professor has been watching all this. He is delighted/astounded
at what he's seen, and wants to know more about this "amazing group". Beast
responds that he will... "someday". The Professor just smirks in response.
Back with the hunters,
the two head hunters are explaining what had happened to them, but the
other hunters understandably don't believe them. The Professor comes along,
and the hunters desperately ask the Professor to back them up- and he responds
that "it's all very interesting, yes... but it's hardly proof..."
Later, the Blackbird
takes off from the camping grounds, Beast and the crew in it as they head
back to Bayville. Iceman, obviously hinting at something, tells Beast what
a disaster that flood would have been if Hank wasn't there. Beast says
that "as a wise girl once said... we are who we're meant to be". And the
Blackbird heads off into the sunset. Fin.
Last Words: This was an excellent episode. It could have been very easily done the wrong way and made rather boring like "Adrift"- as it had no traditional "fighting" in it, merely scare tactics or chasing- but it pulled it off beautifully. It's an episode with a nice message to it- there's a reason we're the way we are- and it delivers it wonderfully. There's also some pretty funny/cool moments, ESPECIALLY that conversation between the caged Beast and the Professor and the final confrontation scene. Wolfsbane's powers ROCK, that's all I'm saying there. A shame that this is the only episode she and Sunspot really even talk in, as I'd like to see more of them (although Wolfsbane sounds like an 8-year old, not a [presumably] 8th grader). Beast and Shadowcat are also at their absolute best in this episode, with wonderful dialogue and excellent characterization. For me, this is a 10/10 subjectively (words cannot express how much I like Shadowcat and Beast in this ep), but I had to take off a point from a neutral standpoint, as there was some pretty corny dialogue exchanged between Sunspot and Wolfsbane a couple times, and the hunters were rather cliche. Still, great episode. Definitely worth watching.
Overall Rating: 9/10 Excellent
(NOTE: This episode was aired as the twelfth episode of Season 2, even though, in actuality, it is the fourteenth.)