"Sins of the Son"
Writer: Marsha F. Griffin
Director: Gary Graham
Original Air Date: September 20, 2003
Introducing: Legion
Synopsis/Review: In Scotland, there’s
a rowdy punk teenage party going on in some castle ruins, and there’s a
guy who seems to be in charge of it all mingling a bit named Lucas. He
leaves the party for a second and goes down into the dungeons of the castle.
He opens up a grate, and talks to an off-camera person named David. He
says that there’s only one way he’s going to get out of here, and they
both know what it is… Lucas holds out a cell phone in the palm of his hand.
Xavier is wakened up
by a phone call in the middle of the night. He answers it, and to his surprise,
someone at the end pleadingly asks for his help, calling him “father”…
In the next scene, it’s
the following morning, and Xavier, Storm, Scott, and Jean are zooming in
the X-Jet over to Scotland. Xavier is on the phone, having a tense conversation
with his ex-wife. Scott and Jean are still a little weirded out that Xavier
actually has a son that they didn’t know about… Storm tells them to… um…
go see how Kitty’s doing. Just, don’t pay attention to the Prof at this
moment, yeah.
Back at the X-Mansion,
Beast is making sure the New Mutants get out the door and off to school.
Beast then gets a call from Jean and Scott- they’re asking how Kitty’s
doing, since apparently, she has the flu. Beast says she’s not any better
yet- but now Kurt’s got it, too…
Kurt is asleep in his room, but when he
sneezes, he teleports to another part of the room. Heheheh. Beast goes
to check on Kitty, and she’s still feeling rotten. He tells her to get
some sleep, but she says she can’t- every time she does, she has these
creepy nightmares about being caught in school with only her pajamas on…
Meanwhile, Xavier gets
off the phone with his wife, and he tells a curious Scott and Jean- in
a rather annoyed tone- that yes, he was married- briefly- to a woman named
Gabrielle Haller a while back, but it wasn’t for very long. They apparently
had a son that she hadn’t even told him anything about until now.
Meanwhile, at the castle
ruins, a desperate David finally manages to get out of his tomb by doing
a jump off the wall to grab onto the cell entrance on the ceiling and pull
himself up. He tries to avoid the other punk rockers at the ruins, but
it's no use- they figure out who he is and corner him.
In Scotland, Xavier
and company meet up with his ex-wife at her Mansion. Xavier doesn’t even
really greet her, and immediately starts asking questions about whether
she has any clue where David might be, etc. She doesn’t know, as they just
moved here a little while. She is actually a bit mad at Xavier for not
finding out about David himself, since he’s a telepath, after all. Of course,
Xavier COULDN’T look for David if he didn’t even know he existed, dummy.
We also learn why they divorced in the first place- Xavier was apparently
too kept up in his research on Mutants, even though Xavier tells her that
that was her excuse for anything he did that she didn’t like. Ooooo. Lucas,
though, is watching them through the window, but is also distracted by
Jean and Scott, who are in a room on the second room, checking out the
place. Lucas smirks.
A little later, Jean
and Scott see a little kid run by out of the corner of their eye. They
run out into the hallway- wondering where the little kid came from- but
they don’t see him anywhere. They yell out for the kid, but instead Gabrielle
answers. They ask her who the little kid was, and she responds that it
was Ian- a rather shy individual that David found and brought in soon after
they moved here. As far as she can tell, Ian can’t talk. Jean wants to
see if she can telepathically talk to Ian, though, since maybe he has some
information about where David might be. She finds Ian on the front lawn,
and runs after him as he disappears into the night. Jean chases after him,
but instead of finding Ian there, she finds Lucas. Suddenly, Lucas erects
a circle of fire around Jean, and does a psychic blast to her brain, knocking
her out…
Back at the X-Mansion,
Kitty’s run out of tissues, so she peaks into Kurt’s room to ask if he
has any. She finds him, oddly enough, sleeping under the bed, and grabs
his tail to pull him out, asking what he’s doing under there… only, Kurt
sneezes just then, and they’re teleported in front of the school. Panicking,
Kitty tries to wake Kurt up before… *SNEEZE* ..And now they’re in front
of a class. In their PJs. Mwahaha. Kitty, frustrated and embarrassed, drags
a still-sleeping Kurt out of the classroom- only to have him sneeze and
teleport them again, this time to a sidewalk downtown- just in time for
a car to splash Kitty with muddy water.
Meanwhile, Jean comes
to in the castle ruins, with Lucas watching over her. She tries to get
out, but Lucas forces her telepathically to stay there- besides, he says,
you don’t want to miss out on your only chance to find David, do you?
Back at Xavier’s ex-wife’s
house, Cyclops has a motorcycle prepped and ready to go and find Jean.
Xavier tells him to be careful and all that, and he leaves. He then tells
his ex-wife and Storm that they’re going to try to find Ian, since Xavier
has a hunch that the boy knows something vital…
Scott arrives at the
castle ruins and makes his way in, purposely avoiding the punk rockers’
eyes. He finds Jean, and she tells him the situation. Scott goes to confront
Lucas, even though Jean tells him not to, Lucas is too strong. Needless
to say, she’s proven right- Lucas mops the floor with Scott, and he and
some of his punk rocker friends chain Scott up with some old castle manacles.
Jean tries to stop them, but Lucas takes care of her, knocks her out, and
drops her in a simliar cell that we saw him talk to David in at the beginning
of the episode. He also lowers this huge stone block on the ceiling gate
so she can’t get out.
Meanwhile, Xavier, his
ex-wife, and Storm are driving down the road in the X-Van when they suddenly
spot Ian in the middle of the road. Storm puts on the brakes and the van
screeches to a halt just in time. They get out, and Xavier’s ex-wife asks
Ian what the heck he was doing- but he just stares ahead emotionlessly.
Xavier tries to probe his mind, but he can’t- almost as if there’s a Mutant
power blocking his way… He gets a brief mental reading of visions of Lucas
and David, but that’s it. Ian then erects a firewall between himself and
the others and retreats towards the castle ruins. Xavier tells Storm and
his ex-wife that they must follow Ian- he’s apparently in league with Lucas
on this…
Meanwhile, Jean, determined
to get out of the cell, manages to break down one of the walls, and finds
David there in an adjacent cell. Jean busts them out of David's cell and
they both make their way out of the basement corridors of the castle, but
while they do, Jean finds out through conversation that David doesn’t really
think Xavier will come to rescue them, since apparently he doesn’t care
about David at all. Jean tells David that that’s not true, Xavier’s a very
caring man- he just wasn’t told about David’s existence at all. David still
isn’t buying it, though. He also reveals that this is all a trap, because
Lucas wants to go toe-to-toe with “the great Charles Xavier” mentally.
Finally, they reach the surface, and find Xavier, Gabrielle, and Storm,
who have just entered and freed Scott. They’re happy to be back together
again, and Xavier’s ex-wife introduces Xavier to his father. They shake
hands, but suddenly, David changes shape… into Ian! Everyone’s completely
surprised, and Jean manages to stutter out that… why is David… Ian? Ian
changes shape again into Lucas, who says that sometimes he’s David, sometimes
he’s Ian. But now he’s Lucas, and that’s the important thing. He makes
a circle of fire around them all and blasts all but Xavier out of it. Storm’s
about to fly back in, but Xavier sends them all a quick telepathic message
telling them to stay out of this- he needs to deal with it. Lucas challenges
Xavier to a mental show-down, and starts showing off his power by crumbling
some of the castle ruins. Suddenly, Lucas convulses and changes into David
again. David tells Xavier hurriedly to get out while he still can- David
can’t control the others! Xavier tells David that the others are just a
small part of him- he can help David get rid of those personalities! Xavier
enters David’s head- and here’s where it gets a bit confusing. It APPEARS
that Xavier somehow creates a bubble around Lucas and Ian’s personalities,
separating them from David, but somehow Lucas and Ian merge and engulf
David. Xavier is shut out of David’s mental realm, and David shudders.
The fire circle has died down by now, and Jean and the others come up,
asking if everything’s okay. David answers them by converting back into
Lucas, who thanks Xavier- he was the only one who had enough power to lock
away both David and Ian, and now Lucas is finally free! Lucas laughs and
takes off into the clouds, flying. Xavier’s ex-wife starts weeping, asking
him what he’s done…
So, the next day Xavier,
Storm, Jean, and Scott sadly fly back to the X-Mansion. Beast greets them,
and asks Xavier if there’s anything he can do… Xavier thanks him, but no.
Jean asks Beast how Kitty is doing, and Beast tells her that he hasn’t
heard a peep out of them all day… they’re sure to be rested up by now.
Heheh. Kurt finally
teleports back into his own room, with a muddy, dirty, frustrated Kitty
holding onto him. Kurt finally wakes up, muttering something about how
he’s feeling better, but he had a bunch of weird dreams. Of course, Kitty
is really mad at him, and pummels a bewildered Kurt with a pillow.
Meanwhile, Storm and
Xavier are out on the front balcony, talking. Xavier is saddened that he
didn’t even get to know his own son before he lost him. Storm reassures
him that someday, David will come around again with Xavier’s help… just
as he’s helped them all to overcome their respective difficulties in life.
End.
Last Words: I thought this episode was very nicely-written, and the Kurt/Kitty parts were hilarious. One of the best humor bits in the entire series, actually. However, I had the same problems with this ep that I had with the previous one, “Target X”- it was a little too confusing if you didn’t already know about Legion’s (David, Lucas, and Ian’s) background. If you didn’t know about it already, the whole schizophrenia thing certainly threw you for a loop, and to actually have Legion change PHYSICALLY into his respective personalities was… a bit odd. Also, I’m still confused as to what exactly happened when Xavier was in Legion’s head, and I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a real Legion-Xavier fight in the end- Legion just happily flew away. But the rest was pretty good, and I especially loved Xavier's characterization- we saw an impatient and bitter side to him, something that we really haven't seen any of until now.
Overall Rating: 8/10 Great