Fox’s The Gifted recap: Home isn’t always where the heart is

On the latest episode of Fox’s The Gifted, the Inner Circle manage to get the upper hand against the Mutant Underground, but will ideological differences be the greatest threat to their cause?

Gainesville, Fl. 14 years ago. Young Clarice Fong and her foster sister, Lilly (Given Sharp), try to escape their drunk and violent foster father. Clarice has been practicing her powers and thinks she can portal them outside, but Lilly is worried about their foster siblings, who will face the brunt of their father’s anger. Clarice convinces Lilly to leave and they make it out in the nick of time. This won’t be the first difficult decision Clarice is going to have to make in this episode of Fox’s The Gifted, currently streaming on Hulu.

Present day. Evangeline Whedon (Erinn Ruth) addresses the Mutant Underground. She is going to hold a Mutant Summit, and even Erg (Michael Luwoye) of the Morlocks will be there. Clarice Fong, aka Blink (Jamie Chung), doesn’t think Erg will join but Evangeline says her long history with him will compel Erg to be there.

Kate (Amy Acker) is training and Reed (Stephen Moyer) is impressed by her efforts. Kate has set upon a new plan—she wants to meet her brother Danny (Jeffrey Nordling), whose law firm works with Homeland Security. He helped the Struckers before, maybe he can do so again. Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) will go with her mother to protect her.

That night, Lauren translates the letter she had found from Andreas Von Strucker. As she does so, she falls asleep and shares a dream with her brother, Andy (Percy Hynes White). She rebukes Andy for the path he is on, and the two fight. They’re both stronger than they used to be but Lauren clearly has the upper hand. She hits Andy so hard, he wakes up, bleeding heavily. That’s one powerful punch!

The Stepford Cuckoos (Skyler Samuels) come to check on Andy, who tells them about the shared dreams he has been having with his sister. The Cuckoos suggest that Lauren should be brought into the Circle—they want to use their powers to reach Lauren through Andy’s mind. Though Andy isn’t sure, the Cuckoos are very persuasive. They have an ulterior motive, of course—Lauren will add to their strengths. If she refuses, she will have to die.

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Marcos Diaz (Sean Teale), John Proudstar (Blair Redford), and Clarice pick up Erg, who isn’t happy to be there, while Reed coordinates with the other Summit participants. There aren’t many, sadly, but if the Summit goes well, that could change.

As Reed waits, the music box calls to him. As a child, he had found that music box—it had made him feel powerful, and violent before his father took it away from him. Now, it reactivates Reed’s powers and it will take a lot of the power-dampening serum to stop them from overwhelming him.

Lauren and Kate meet Danny, who is shocked to see Kate—he was told that the Struckers had been killed in Atlanta. After some convincing, he agrees to ask his connections about Benedict Ryan and the Inner Circle.

Clarice thanks Erg for helping them but Erg is here under duress. Evangeline threatened to expose the Morlocks if he refused to join the Summit. Clarice is shocked, but vindicated—she never trusted Evangeline. John still tries to make excuses for the woman who saved him, but Clarice is not convinced.

She remembers the day she escaped with Lilly, and how Lilly had second thoughts about leaving. Lilly wanted to go back inside the house and face their foster father. She believed she could defeat him with her powers. Did she?

As the Inner Circle’s new recruits head out on their secret mission, Lorna gets Max (James Carpinello) to let slip that they’re going to “slay the dragon”. Lorna understands the reference. She calls Marcos immediately—the target is Evangeline.

The Underground renegades hightail it to Evangeline’s location but arrive too late. The entire national leadership of the Underground is now dead, along with Evangeline. What a massive blow. They turn to Erg for help, but he will not bring the Morlocks into this fight. John and Erg end up arguing and the two of them fight. Erg is much stronger than he let on. He absorbs John’s punches and lets out a volley of kinetic energy from his damaged eye. Blink has to step in to stop further violence.

Danny comes to Kate and Lauren bearing information but stops midway to reveal the wire he is wearing. Sentinel Services arrive, but the Struckers aren’t daunted. Lauren attacks the tanks and Kate shoots at them with precision. These Strucker ladies are a force to be reckoned with, and we love it!

Back at the Inner Circle, the Cuckoos check on Andy, who immediately asks if something has happened to Lauren. His heart is beating out of his chest, and he’s perspiring, which he never does. The connection between the siblings is getting strong. The Cuckoos use this as an excuse to convince him to bring Lauren in. They pretend they just want to keep the Struckers safe and Andy falls for it.

John is tired of Erg’s excuses; he thinks Erg is a coward. But Clarice remembers her childhood and tells John about her foster sister Lily, the bravest person she knew. Lily went back to fight their foster father that night and was knocked down and killed, leaving Clarice on her own. “Running into a battle you know you’re going to lose isn’t noble or brave; it’s selfish!” But John can’t walk away from this fight and Clarice can no longer see him get hurt. This is goodbye.

At the Morlocks’ hideout, Erg tells Blink that her decision to join them is a sign of her bravery. With her here, the Morlocks will be safer than they were before. “Welcome home, Blink”. This entire season of The Gifted has been leading up to this moment.

That night, as Andy closes his eyes and folds his hands in readiness for sleep, just as Lauren does the same miles away, three smiling, identical faces stare down at him and ask Andy to think of his sister.

The Gifted: Dawn Of The Mutant Age airs Tuesdays on Fox. Episodes are uploaded to Hulu the following day. For more on The Gifted and everything Hulu related, follow us on the Hulu Watcher Twitter Page @HuluWatcherFS or on the Hulu Watcher Facebook Page.