Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome to Charlie and Steve watch stuff for today. We are watching X Men 97. My name is Steve Selnick and joining me as always. He just got done trying to convince the killer robot that he should join the team after all. It's my good friend, Charlie Peppers. Charlie, how are you doing today?

We're back,

baby.

back, baby. I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing well, man. I'm so stoked to be back here on, on this virtual forum with you talking about our favorite nerdy stuff. And for our listeners, I just wanted to say a sincere thank you for hanging out for the last couple of weeks while we took a little, little break, a little respite. We both had a lot of stuff going on.

And sometimes you just gotta, gotta take a little break. So thanks for hanging with us and we're back and we've been planning stuff out for the summer. So we're excited to be kicking things back off again with this finale for the just fantastic X Men 97. We can't wait to jump into the finale, but before we jump into the finale, Charlie, I'd like to have you talk about some of the stuff that you've been up to for the [00:01:00] last couple of weeks, because you were in Mexico doing some writing stuff, you were off in New York just, just catch us up on some of the exciting things happening in your life because we got some stuff of yours that I want to plug and shout from the rooftop. So

Oh, you're so excellent friend. the beginning of last month. I was in New York City for the Edgar Allen Poe Awards. My episode of poker face time. The monkey was nominated for best episode. That was really exciting. We lost, but what's really funny is that we lost to another Poker Face episode because Poker Face was

Oh, wow.

three times in the same category, so just, that's unprecedented, even the head of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards Committee was very, very excited to see us breaking ground that way.

Then, I was in Puerto Vallarta for six days as a mentor for a writing retreat through Roadmap Writers. One of my old friends, Joey Tuccio started that company and I was an intern for him back in, I believe 2014, 2015. [00:02:00] So they help writers get their craft together, find a representation, put them in front of TV and film executives so that they can, you know, polish their pitches and really go for it.

Couldn't be more proud of the work that I do With them and alongside them. It's just been a very very Action packed May and I'm ready to dive into pride and do even more work. Thank you so much for asking

Yeah, of course. And I, I also that, first of all, that's amazing. I'm glad that you got to experience all of that. The photos look lovely. We caught up a couple of times and everything that you were doing sounded absolutely amazing and I'm so excited for you. And another thing that I'm very excited to have you talk about.

Is your film that you recently announced is in the next stages of production. It's called stakeout. And I I'd love for you to, again, I'm just going to clear out for you and tell the audience a little bit about stakeout and how they can go forth and support your craft right now. If, if they want to support it at the stage of the production process.

Ooo Okay. So [00:03:00] Stakeout, the hook of the film is that a beauty vlogger who happens to be a Black trans woman enters a bar. She sits across from a male colleague from work and before she realizes it, she begins hearing the thoughts of all of the people in the bar, all the bar patrons. And one of the thoughts rises above the din and a person thinks I'm gonna kill you She looks around, she doesn't know where the thought came from.

Then we do a reverse angle on her male colleague, Jackson. He is out of focus, and he's gonna lean into his extreme close up, very Morpheus from The Matrix, and he's gonna say, You heard someone thinking that, didn't you? What are we gonna do about it? And Maggie's like, what? Someone in the bar thought that they want to kill you.

And they intend on doing it. What are we going to do to stop that from happening? Tonight. So, that's the hook. I [00:04:00] won't tell our listeners anything more. Stakeout is Carrie meets X Men, which is very on topic because we are here to discuss the X Men, goddammit! And we've definitely collected a good crew of people to work on this passion project that I'm doing with my friend Elijah Olachea.

And we have a visual effects person from everything, everywhere, all at once doing our special effects. We have one of the lead actress from Lena Wave's TV show, The Chai. As our lead actress, Maggie. Yeah, it's it's very exciting. And as we start crowdfunding, which is gonna be the week that this pod drops, So we're gonna drop our crowdfunding campaign on June 4th. And I'll have the link to that in the description of our page for Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff. But, can't wait to talk all the things about Stakeout, and thank you for being on this journey with me, friend.

Dude, of course. First of all. [00:05:00] I got full body goosebumps when you did the, the kind of like the pitch of, of the setting of the movie. So the whole, I'm in, first of all, like I didn't, I've actually never heard you say that before and I'm just, I'm in and I don't even, I don't even like scary stuff and I'm

Well, it's, it's not, it's not scary per se,

it, seems like, yeah, you got a little bit more sci fi about it.

It's like a thriller with comedic and sci fi underpinnings.

I love

it. Oh, I'm so in. Well, cool. So as Charlie said, we're going to have the crowdsourcing information for stakeout in the show notes, pretty much moving forward. As we go forward with the podcast, we're just going to be continuing to pitch this project.

So if at any point you have the ability to contribute to the crowd funding of the movie, or if you have the ability to just share it with your friends, people that you know, that would be interested in this stuff. We would be eternally grateful if you could support Charlie's art beyond just what you're supporting right here.

This is art in its own way, [00:06:00] but that's, that's the real deal that, that Charlie's making right here. And I'll tell you what, if it's anything like the rest of the stuff that Charlie has touched, it is absolutely going to be gold. And that is my. 100 percent biased opinion, but it's still very right. So

I'm very excited for you, friend. Thank you, for filling us in.

I appreciate it.

Of course. My last two weeks were far less exciting. I kind of just hung out and waited patiently for Charlie to come home.

So

didn't. You

is home.

you were, you were doing stuff. You

I was doing stuff.

I was doing stuff. June gloom is on its way here in San Francisco, but the last couple of weeks are like that rare period where the sun is out and the temperature gets above 70.

So I went to the big gay beach in Dolores park and hung out without a shirt on for three hours and promptly got sunburned to a crisp. So that's, that's been my experience in the last few weeks. Just trying to To get a little bit less ghastly than I am right now from sitting inside and being under fog 24 7.

Well, let that be a lesson to ya.[00:07:00]

I know I flew, I quite literally pulled an Icarus. I flew too close to the sun. Also, we watched The Holdovers last night. This is a total

sidebar because I just referenced Icarus and he, I loved it. It was amazing. Paul Giamatti is a machine. That's all I got is he was

really, really good. So I was, I'm late to The Holdovers party, but really, really great film.

Yeah, yeah. Would you

Makes me feel smarter than I am.

you think of Divine, who was the best supporting actress winner for that film? Mm hmm.

You know, it's so interesting. I, I realized I forgot that she had won until like 20 minutes into the movie. And so I, I think that when, and maybe this is my perception being skewed in a direction, but I think when I, and I'm not saying she was bad, quite the opposite. She was amazing. She was lovely. She had incredible range, like a hundred percent deserve the award. I think in my mind, and I say that without having watched most of the other films that people were nominated in, but when people get. Selected for Best Actor, [00:08:00] Actress, Supporting, what have you. I always imagined some sort of like, larger than life character that they create. Like, Killian Murphy becoming Oppenheimer.

Becoming like a different person. And in a way Divine did become a different person. And also, her Boston accent was like, chef's kiss. Subtle. really good, had the act, like it wasn't overdone. It was like the departed could have taken some notes from

divine's Boston accent from everyone's Boston accents in that movie, honestly. But I think what I realized about halfway through is that I, I needed to stop expecting something huge. And more just appreciative of how real it was. Because she was, she was just real the whole time. She was a real person going through real things. And sort of covered that range of the emotions that a mother who recently lost her young son to war would feel.

Yeah.

for the holdovers. But I thought she was brilliant in such a subtle way.

yeah, I agree with you. She [00:09:00] was so brilliant in a subtle way. And what made her performance doubly brilliant is that her pain was always beneath the surface, but there was always joy in her performance as well. She really shot the shit with Paul Giamatti's character. She was somewhat of a Den mother for some of the other students that were the titular holdovers in the movie.

she did so much in that role. I'm gonna watch it again. I want to watch it with my boyfriend because I don't think he's seen it.

It's a good one. I guess this has become a holdovers tangent, but I think what was really, really awesome about that movie is it showed three people where the world constantly punched them in the face and how they find each other and move forward through

And I thought it was really beautiful

Mm hmm.

because the world just punches you in the face over and over again.

And it's about who you can find to help you through it.

Ah, that's so beautiful.

Anyway, let's talk about X Men. Lots of pre talk today, but we haven't seen each other in a couple weeks. And that's just how things go [00:10:00] sometimes. But we're here to talk about the finale of season 1 in X Men 97. Titled Tolerance is Extinction Part 3. Released on May 15th, 2024. Written by David K. Bo DeMaio and Anthony Solitti and directed by Chase Conley. And the plot of the episode is the X Men's dream is put to the test as mutant human relations reaches a tipping point. And we're going to start as we always do in the opening credits. Magneto is our previously on voice and so we know that he is going to be the emotional center of this episode and boy is he for the entirety of this 40 minute episode.

It's a 40 minute episode. One thing that I noticed throughout the opening credits that I think we'll get into later in the episode is why do you think they're not including Sunspot in these opening credits yet?

Well, probably saving for the reveal when they're on or near Asteroid M when he says the name Sunspot. I [00:11:00] think that was supposed to be a surprise for the audience. I also don't think that he's earned the right To a title card yet. I don't think If it was suddenly boom sunspot in the credits, it's like he hasn't had a moment of owning who he is I think he can get it in the second season But everybody who jumps out like Ghibli, Cyclops, Storm, they have had The, I think they've pretty much come out to themselves in the world as mutants.

And Roberto hasn't really done that yet. He even joining Magneto was him running away and trying not to face who he is because of the world's over, then he doesn't have to reckon with the fact that his biological family isn't okay with him being a mutant.

Totally, totally agree with that. That's a good call. So maybe season two. We'll be getting those,

those Sunspot cards in there, maybe. Well, it's very this is jumping ahead to the end of the episode, but it's very up in the [00:12:00] air. Whether, who is going to be in those cards in the beginning, let alone anybody.

So, we'll get there. We'll get there. So, a lot of the same cards flying through in this beginning intro. A couple of new things that I noticed. You have the moment of Charles and Bagnino back in the, the original animated X Men series when they had to team up together in the Savage Lands, and they had to To kind of combine the use of their powers to get out of a hairy situation, if you will.

Something that we're going to be maybe hinting towards a little bit more if, if you're an X Men 97 fan, if you've heard the arc or the term onslaught, this is probably going to be another nod towards that onslaught arc that we kind of, we flew close to in this episode. We didn't quite get there yet. I guess that's spoilers for later.

So yeah. And then the other one that I noticed is the moment, again, from that original X Men animated series where Charles tries to read Emma Frost's mind, and she shuts him out and shuts the door because she is also a very strong telepath. We're at this point, Charlie, and I want to see if you agree with this because, again, we don't really get any information.

Emma Frost throughout this episode, where I think, and [00:13:00] because the X Men 97 crew, both Bo DeMaio and the rest of the people who I've heard talk on interviews have already been like, Season 2's done. Season 2's written. We have the vision. We're already getting back early animation for it, which also, that's fucking exciting that

we're already getting back early animatics for Season 2. So I'm thinking that they're starting to set up a little bit more of what's going to come in Season 2 throughout these cards. With the Emma Frost nod. And again, we're going to see Emma Frost's face come up a little bit later in this episode. So I think that at this point, yes, we're getting, I mean, we see the phoenix, which we'll get to eventually.

And they're still giving us stuff from season one, but I want, I want to see if you agree with us. Do you think now they're starting to kind of be like, okay, like get ready for some stuff that's happening soon? Maybe not

today, but maybe in a few months from

know what? Steve? I let's put a pin in this because I I I have Emma Frost thoughts, and I know the moment that you're talking about at the end of the episode with Forge. I really want to dig into it, but if I dig into it, I'm gonna take too much time at the top.[00:14:00]

We'll never finish. Yeah. We'll never be, we'll be here for four hours. You're right. Totally. All right, cool. So let's get into the episode then and we get Charles and Eric having this seminal conversation that Eric has mentioned before, sitting in this old post war bar, and this is the moment in their history where they reveal to each They are mutants, and, and they have this conversation that, you know, pretty much every analysis that I've heard of this conversation, so Charlie, I want you to dive into this, it's very queer coded, it's very much so two men coming out to each other in a world where they feel unsafe. Revealing who they truly are to the world at large and sort of like finding each other and being able to share this like, Oh, I can read minds, probably bend them to my will. Metal bends to my will. How did you, how did you read this as sort of like a, coming out scene?

I don't even know if it's

queer coded. It just feels queer to me. [00:15:00] Like, that look that Charles gives Magneto, you must know what look I'm talking about. The silent look where he takes a bit of his drink and he kind of like raises his brow and looks back at Magnus. It's a very like, yeah, I'm trying to like, build a world of peaceful coexistence with humans and mutants, but I feel like Charles is kind of trying to fuck a little bit in this scene.

It's very It's like Charles is going for this has a lot of You know, there's just an energy that happens when you're into somebody, and it's not just queer, it can also be, hetero, where you're trying to peel back their layers and find similarities with them and just find where you're deeply compatible with each other.

There was an element of Cruising in this, but there was also an element of romance in it, you know? I think that [00:16:00] Charles definitely, at this point, has an infatuation with Eric, but at a certain point, it does grow into a love and also a camaraderie and also, on some level, I would say a brotherhood. It is a very layered, complex relationship that we're gonna dig into this episode

I agree. And that's, this is a great baseline for it, too. I think just kind of showing the beginnings of it and letting us go back to that start is really, really smart. But it turns out that Charles is trying to pull another fast one on Magnus because the bar that they're in is actually inside of Eric's mind.

Charles is trying to essentially like telepathically convince him to. Turn the lights back on in the world and once Eric realizes where he is He's basically like this is low even for you because if you know x men, you know that Charles has pulled some wild shit Points in his life in the names of trying to help his friends and his family But now [00:17:00] we're inside of this bar and there's a giant storm raging outside.

Not Storm the X Men like a giant actual sea storm. And you, you hear Rogue outside calling his name and she's on a boat that's kind of struggling against the surf, if you will. And Charles explains that we're inside of Magnus's mind. This is all of the dark, raging waters that he's been dealing with his entire life from the incredibly difficult and traumatic upbringing that he's had to go through in his life. Charles essentially demands that Magnus. Turns the lights back on, or he's going to be forced to take over his mind and do it for him. And Magneto essentially just goes, Oh, you wanna see what'll happen? Just go back to my childhood and check out what they did in the Holocaust when they dealt with different people by rolling up with tanks. So that's essentially like being like, no, fuck yourself, I'm not doing it. So Charles leaps into action, we get this Honestly, watching it back a second and third time, this was one of the most impressive animated scenes in the entire [00:18:00] series. The way that Charles connects with Magnus mind, and again, it turns very, like, these big moments, they go really hard into, like, the Japanese anime influence, I feel like.

Where it sort of, the tone switches a little bit, and you get this, this huge burst of light, and these huge expressions. And the lights turn back on. Charles is able to take control of Magnus's mind, despite the risk that it could shatter them both mentally. And we see the Pulse go over the world, and we get a ton of cameos.

Again, we get Silver Samurai watching and smirking slightly as the lights turn back on. We have Captain America and fucking Iron Man in his 90s suit with all six of the iron abs just shining out for everybody to see standing in the danger room with President Kelly. Not the danger room, the war room, whatever the hell you call it, the situation room. And Daredevil is on the street fighting looters. We could maybe pick some nits on the fact that, hey, Daredevil, maybe leave the looters

Okay, [00:19:00] yeah, I had

the prime fucking sentinels. Yeah, go ahead.

I was like, Matt Mordock, if you don't sit your ass down. It's just so, I saw this and I was like, really Matt? Really? I mean, he is a lawyer by trade. mostly does pro bono work in the comics, but that being his main focus just Stopping looters from grabbing their TVs.

I'm like, there's no electricity in the world Anyway, let them grab their fucking TVs, you know, what are they watching? You know, it was so I was kind of glad when he got throttled later in the episode because I I was just thinking that's what you get

all those senses, and he couldn't figure out his priorities, I

guess. April 19

of them

No, not at all. April 26, 1992. Calling 187 on a motherfucking daredevil. Anyway. We're, so, we, we get all of this madness, the power's back on, and before we get into the [00:20:00] ramifications of the power going back on, before the ground team was able to take care of Bastion and the Prime Sentinels, we get back down onto Earth, where we see an upgraded Bastion.

He's, he's Speechifying for lack of a better word. Also just a quick pause I want to shout out theo james as the voice of bastion who just did an incredible job chewing the monologues in this episode.

And I think he did an incredible job with the voice of Bastion throughout this entire series. I thought he was Neil McDonough the whole time. Do you know who that is?

I don't, tell me.

So Neil McDonough was, he was in Band of Brothers. He was in he was Damien Dark in that CW Arrow. He was like the main bad guy for a season. He was the main bad guy for a season of Justified. He's one of those people where if I sent you his picture, you've been, you would be like, Oh, I've seen him in a million things. I just didn't realize that this is Neil McDonough. Oh, he's um, in the first Captain America. He's the, he's the short haired blonde dude who's like the [00:21:00] sergeant.

Oh yeah, yes,

Neil McDonough. So, his voice sounds very familiar to Theo James, in my opinion. So I thought when Bastion first came on, I was like, did they get Neil McDonough for this part?

But that's just, it was Theo James crushing it. But anyway, Bastion's monologuing. He's upgraded. Gene is defeated. He's dead. You see her floating down into the water. If you've watched the original animated series, or I guess X3, fuck X3, you would know that something's happening whenever Jean goes into the water. And Storm, Forge, Beast, all of them are captured more from the failed attempt at getting that, that crown on Bastion's head to cut him off from, His prime sentinels, Storm tries to appeal to his humanity, which is hilarious, especially the part where Bastions is like, Did you just try to appeal to my humanity?

Are you fucking crazy? Which was really

good, But also like, of course Storm is gonna try and do

I would also argue that he still has humanity left if he recognized what she was doing.

I [00:22:00] thought that was a very interesting moment, and you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of that moment in X1, the 2000 X Men movie, where they're all in the Statue of Liberty head, and Storm tries to appeal to Magneto's humanity.

By saying, oh yeah, Senator Kelly died, just like all those people are gonna die. And Magneto comes up to her and he's like, are you sure you saw what you saw? So I think that was very in line with her character. In the movie, I think it was accidental. But in this, I think it really does show I'm such a bitch.

But

We can't give Bryan Singer gets no credit

ever.

no credit, but I do X1 and X2 hold a very special place in my heart. We'll, we'll at some point talk about those films. But, yeah dude, I appreciated this moment with Storm.

Bastion [00:23:00] is gonna go full Thanos, he's like, listen, at first I thought I just had to eradicate mutants, and now I can see that just humanity has to go, I'm gonna replace everybody with my Prime Sentinels. Anyone who's not a prime sentinel is going to get wiped, wiped off the face of the planet.

So only my kind is going to be left and that's going to be the future that we live in. And so now sentinels are off to attack everybody. We see the Sentinel, the prime sentinels burst into the president's situation room where Captain America and Iron Man have to suddenly get ready to defend president Kelly.

And you can see that one of his like, Trusted cabinet members right next to him transforms into a prime sentinel. So that's

Oh, I

in Wakanda. Oh, yeah Yeah, there's one like right behind him that shuts down when they spoilers they shut them down But there's one like literally gets who's behind them and they don't notice and it shuts down like right behind them.

So they're everywhere In Wakanda the Black Panther in this iteration King T'Chaka as we established before

and the Dora [00:24:00] Milaje Wakanda, you get Daredevil With his priorities not in order getting hit with a prime sentinel blast because he's too busy Concentrating on people stealing stereos rather than people literally transforming into sentinels trying to kill everybody But luckily for him cloak and dagger come out of absolutely nowhere

And, kind of square up to protect Daredevil, so cloak and dagger appearance, check that one off.

Over in Russia, Omega Red, the Crimson Dynamo, and Dark Star, a super powerful mutant, prepare to defend the Russian president. And the Canadian Alpha Flight Team. Including Psylocke and some other, like, pretty big time mutants are met by Prime Sentinels at the remains of Genosha. A little disappointed we didn't get to see Psylocke do her thing,

we got to see her psychic knife, which is amazing. Steve, do you know what Psylocke's psychic knife can do?

What can Psylocke's psychic

Oh my god, so she's one of my favorite characters. So, Psylocke [00:25:00] is also a telepath, but her telepathy is interesting because she's able to focus the summation of her telepathy and a psychic knife that comes out of her knuckles, pretty much. And if she punches it into the side of somebody's head, it's able to disrupt their neurological patterns and cause them brain damage.

They can fall unconscious. She can cause them to forget things. She can also kill them if she hits them long enough. But I think, She's super slept on and I'm just curious about what would have happened if she used her psychic knife on some prime sentinels because the humanity and the human mind is still in there, but I think she could have done some damage just

Getting in there.

Getting in there getting in

It would have been interesting if they they dug into that and like if they Explored whether or not that Psylocke ability could penetrate Bastion via the connection that he [00:26:00] had to the Prime Sentinels

Ooh, do you think that his connection to the Prime Sentinels was empathic? Like he feels everything they're feeling?

ooh, that's a good question. I just assume because he's literally Neurologically connected to all of them That it has to work in both directions.

Interesting. Hmm.

I mean, we'll get to it. We're about to sever Bastion's connection from the Prime Sentinels, and it takes them all out.

Which, we'll just get to that moment Right. now. So, what we can theo but that's good theorizing. I like that theorizing. More Psylocke. That's basically what we're saying, is more Psylocke. At any point and who knows maybe season two with that with this alpha flight team in in the folds You never know when we're gonna see more of those characters pop up if if this show has taught us anything It's to stay on our toes for when fun appearances are gonna happen. So we we head back to the Galapagos Where Bastion is now interrogating Cable, who's still under Sinister's control. He forces Cable [00:27:00] to tell him how many times he tried to stop Genosha. Turns out it was 200, which is insane. And just as Bastion is about to kill Cable, much to the chagrin of Sinister, who was promised that he got to keep Cable for his own, Gene re emerges from the water. As the Phoenix, because we know that the Phoenix needs to be submerged underwater before she is able to come out.

Storm laughs in joy as her sister flexes her full power, capturing Bastion, reassembling the crown, placing it on his head, and disabling the Prime Sentinels once or for all, and you get this cool scene of seeing all the Prime Sentinels getting deactivated just as they're about to wreak havoc all over the world. Jean then takes sinister. Via the power of the Phoenix and extracts all of the mutant DNA that he's stolen over the years leaving him powerless and an old shell of himself and Cable's control under Sinister is broken and he immediately runs over to Morph and makes him show [00:28:00] him what he looks like and Morph doesn't even hesitate to oblige which I thought was absolutely savage and fantastic especially for Morph to be able to do that after everything that Sinister put Morph through and for him to be able to just kind of be like yeah you got your wig snatched bitch sorry

about it you so Yeah, I like your note.

I love your note.

Oh my god, hashtag petty revenge. Just I thought that was great. Also, also, Steve. I called it, I called it. The last episode that we talked about what would happen in the finale. I was like, I feel like Phoenix is gonna come and

You're right.

a lot of shit. And what I like is that

Plot fixer! Phoenix!

Check!

fixer, Phoenix.

You know what? But she didn't fix anything. They foreshadowed it enough throughout the season, probably ad nauseum. It's like, oh, remember when she was the Phoenix? Remember when she was the Phoenix? Remember when she was the Phoenix? So that

I don't remember which one of us was the Phoenix. Well, that and the fact that we got it in the [00:29:00] intro cards over and over. It was like, come on, like, tell us without telling us.

Yeah, and I like that Certain things were fixed. I think the big problem was fixed, which was the prime sentinels. And the fact that Jean through the Phoenix was able to just get all of the prime Sentinel programming out of the people all around the world. I think that was good. And she was able to take the DNA from sinister.

I think her rocking sinister shit was the most satisfying because nobody, Has been victimized more by Sinister, possibly Morph, but I think Gene was trapped. Gene was trapped for years

Yeah.

cloned and it just like, oh my god, she should have killed him. I'm surprised she didn't. You know, that was just, he did the most.

You know, the X Men showed a lot of mercy today

in this episode. Kind of across the board, showed a lot of, if you will, humanity [00:30:00] in their actions.

did. And one thing I want to put a pin in and talk about later I get annoyed at how much Bastion was whooping their ass through this episode. I don't think that he should have given them that much trouble. That was a bit overplayed in my opinion and I think in Ian Carlos Crawford's Podcast one of his guests said at this point the x men should have just jumped his ass and I agree They should have jumped him.

Why were they attacking him one at a time? It makes No sense. I mean storm alone storm alone Could have just Beat the shit out of him

Yeah, it does seem like they kind of took a beat because they thought it was done. They're like, we did the Sentinels now, like, great, good job by us. Like, we, we, we fucked his shit up. He's not gonna get more, like, we got him. It's all good. Gene's, Gene's just laying there being like, the Phoenix is God now.

It's, it's burned away. How convenient.

[00:31:00] Tell me how you feel without telling me Wait, we gotta pause. We gotta pause. We gotta pause. Oh my

Here's the thing, I didn't mind it, I didn't mind it at all. I just think like, you know, it's just simple. It's, just to turn that on its head, tell me it's a plot device without telling me it's a plot

device. Like, you're gonna have this, this cosmic entity, That you've been teasing this whole time, come in, appear for ten seconds, fix almost everything that's majorly ha Like, you clear off almost everything except for the final villain, and then it's just like, it's gone now. We're good.

It's even the way she said it. I love Jennifer Hale, like, FemShep, FemShep forever. I don't know if we've talked about this. Are you aware of Jennifer Hale and

I am.

she's the goat of video game characters straight

up. Her and fuck I'm forgetting his name, Troy Baker, him, her and Troy Baker are kind of like the two goats of the, of like video game character voices. And I'm like, Jen, Jen, maybe a little too, a little too like, wide eyed on that [00:32:00] one with Bastion standing right there. And so Bastion takes the opportunity to snatch Cable's arm off,

And

his ass silly with it,

him they let him

him do it!

they did Expected to shit and I think gene probably held him back a little bit. It's like he still killed me It's like let him Just just wait a second. I want to see something real quick gene did cable while cable was getting beat

Just like she did ball of her trask when rogue dropped

Yeah, suddenly.

She's like y'all gonna like this part. You're gonna like this part Oh,

is where it's like, Yeah, that's not my real son. That's just my stepson. I don't know, that's not, that's not my real boy. Well, Bastion uses Cable's arm to kind of upgrade himself into his

which makes no sense whatsoever.

I thought

See, that was,

very Final [00:33:00] Fantasy to

me, where the boss fight is like seven forms.

hate that shit. It was just, again, I was so done with Bastion at this point. I thought he overstayed his welcome, but I do enjoy what we get when he goes to Asteroid M. It's just this stuff that I'm, like, Storm's there, Jean's there, Cable is an immensely powerful telekinetic, but he ain't doing shit.

It's just, I was annoyed. I was very annoyed when this happened.

I do hope we get to dig into Cable's power set a little bit more in season two, especially with the whole time traveling of it all. I want to see more Cable. Honestly, I didn't think I was going to be saying that at the end of the season. Cable's not an X Men that I've typically been super into. I mean, Deadpool 2 is fine.

Josh Brolin's amazing. I actually think this is one of the better. Cable representations, period.

Cause it's rooted in family, it's rooted in the family dynamics, which we never got too much [00:34:00] of in live action. Usually Cable is solo to a fault, and he just usually irks me. He seems like a character Made in a think tank of all straight dudes who are like, Ah, what's cool?

Yeah, a guy from the future. He's got gray hair. He's got a metal

He's got a huge

He's got guns. He uses guns.

He's got grenades that are electronic!

It's just, Cable's character just reeks of people who say, Murica, fuck yeah. You know, it's just so Like, dude, why do you have guns? This is the X Men. If you don't move something with your mind, you fucker.

I just, sorry, I just,

Damn. B Bishop taking strays

here.

Bishop's cool. Bishop can hang. Bishop actually, Bishop reminds me of like, Old school, blaxploitation characters that I have a soft spot for, like Shaft, like him being like, Get ready for an exorcism, punks! Like, he's [00:35:00] fun. Cable doesn't have a personality aside from angst.

No, I get it. I get it. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna transition back into the mind of Magnus. In the aftermath of Charles turning the lights back on, Magnus awakes with something that Charles and Magnus sort of warned would happen, is that he awakes with no Memories. They're in the darkest pain in Eric's mind, a pain that threatens to overwhelm them.

That's represented by the levels of this raging water starting to come into the bar and fill, the water's filling them up and if the water gets too high, that's sort of the representation of they're going to go under psychically. And this is, if you know the comics and you know the Onslaught arc, this is where people, depending on how you feel about the Onslaught arc, started maybe getting a little nervous that this is where we were going.

Are you familiar with the Onslaught arc?

Oh, that was my flight reading when I went to Puerto Vallarta. I got

Oh, wow.

quarter of the Onslaught book. I have very mixed thoughts. Go ahead.

No, it seems to be, and I don't, [00:36:00] I haven't read Onslaught. I, I just, I've gotten caught up on the arc throughout just sort of the discourse that's happened with this episode. I've heard in interviews that we shouldn't put away the Onslaught storyline just yet. So potentially they're setting up for more Onslaught stuff in the future, but here we're starting to get the first kind of, you know, hints of it where they're in their mind together. Charles needs to try and help Eric restore his memories. you know, that they're stuck in this until they can get out of it. Charles also manages to get into the psyche of Jean Grey and Cyclops as they're communicating that Bastion's on his way. So apparently he's also powerful enough to communicate outside of Magneto's psyche. But, we've kind of got the finale lined up where the, Charles needs to help Jean Grey. Magneto get his mind back before it takes them both over and also Bastion is on the way to Asteroid M to just [00:37:00] toss the asteroid into the world because he just wants to kill humanity by throwing an asteroid into the planet and creating an extinction level event. So we're getting into this finale. Bastion flies up into Asteroid M as the X Men prepare to meet him. The ones that are on earth are trying to figure out how to get up into Asteroid M to help them out. And you get A scene that we have been waiting for since episode 5, remember it. Where Bastion is about to walk up to the gravity core and Rogue comes flying out

Beats the shit out of him. Beats the shit out of him.

Beats the shit out of him, sends him to the blue side of the moon, where if you didn't know, blue side of the moon is where the Watcher resides. It also was a scroll encampment where the atmosphere is breathable.

Which is why you can see Rogue and Sunspot breathing in that area of the moon, and Rogue just fuckin lays the wood on him right here, that, that giant, she turns his face [00:38:00] to him just so she can hit him with the, the giant thunderclap, it literally dislodges his mechanical jaw. And after all of that He just gets up and he starts, he starts rising up into out of the atmosphere with Rogue and his clutches and just as it seems like he's going to kill her, Sunspot appears in his full Sunspot top to bottom and finally does the name Sunspot.

It's definitely got more flair and uses his powers to free Rogue from Bastion's clutches and I think this is the moment that you were talking about where we finally get Sunspot's official coming out as a full fledged X Men. He's not feeling One half in and one half out anymore. He's not on team Magnus.

He's here to defend the planet with the X Men because he's now officially a part of them. Did you like this moment?

I want to back up a little bit. Because I like that Rogue is just re accepted into the fold of the X Men, no questions asked. I I listened to a couple of podcasts and watched [00:39:00] some YouTube videos when people were like Oh my god, there was no tension with the other X Men when Rogue just rejoined the side.

It's like, no, this is family. Family gets into squabbles and disagreements. Also, Rogue has been with the X Men for so long and I find it understandable that she would be drawn to Magneto's side, given what she saw, given Gambit dying, given Genosha, and given how Professor X really fucked up. So, I like that it was just them accepting her back into the fold really quickly because of everything that had happened.

But, but, wise, this could be a moment that comes up in Season 2. Where a character maybe still has feelings about her doing that. And it comes up at a moment of like but are you gonna flip sides again? Can we really trust you with this? I think that that would be an interesting consequence.

That's more [00:40:00] relational, and I think Kurt is all about forgiveness, but in that relationship, it could be very interesting to have them dig into a more intentional conversation with each other about the ramifications about that. That could be really cool.

Yeah. That would be super interesting. I, and also just to support your take there, it was very clear that none of them were trying to really hurt each other during that fight

Oh, Kid Gloves! Kid Gloves!

with the exception of Wolverine, who Rogue tried to immediately be like, hey, like, that's not what we're doing here. And then Wolverine is the one who gets hurt and they're all like, okay, We got too real. We need to, like, kind of get it back together here. And then they are able to kind of, like, refocus their attention at the actual threat, which is Bastion. On Earth, as this fight is going down, President Kelly decides to activate the Magneto Protocol, which is essentially just, let's launch nukes at Asteroid M. Terrible. Also, can we talk about how he has the nuclear launch codes on a fucking post it note, [00:41:00] like, pinned inside of the top secret document? The launch codes are on a post it note, Charlie. Get this guy out of office. This is

Well this

I don't care that it's the 90s. I don't care that it's the

know what? You know what? Yeah, fuck him. That was gonna be my excuse. It's like, it's not like somebody could Take a picture with their phone and there were the

Post it note!

it was that's kind of funny.

Back at the bar after they decide to launch the Magneto protocol, much to Captain America and King T'Chaka's protests. So let's just Steve Rogers, King T'Chaka on the right side of history. Of course, we're back at the bar. Charles is explaining to a, an amnesiac Magnus that we all carry pain and only by connecting with others and letting this pain and this, this flood, let us flow to others who are also fighting their own currents are the ways that we find ways to float and survive and move forward and on this boat here, which is the theoretical, like the people that you try and survive for. We see Rogue, obviously, we know that Eric still has deep feelings [00:42:00] for Rogue, and I think that goes both ways in some way or another, even though we know that Rogue's true love was Gambit. We see Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, who are

The son and daughter of Magneto. And also, this one's a little bit more shaded, but another Child of Magneto is Polaris. And I think if you look hard enough at that, you can kind of tell that that's Polaris over on the right side of the boat. So just this show crushes. The cameos in the Easter eggs. I just, I can't remember.

And I don't even do this with Marvel stuff. I can't remember the last time I've like paused and scrubbed through stuff to catch things. So this show is just, it's really, it's really humming. It's really, really humming. And so as. Magneto starts to get some of his memories back. He recognizes Charles. He's like, no, wait, but you've hurt me. And you say that we're brothers, but you've hurt me multiple times. You're a charlatan. You've, you've told me lies. And Charles is [00:43:00] like, no, we've heard each other over and over again. And the point is, is that we're family. We're brothers. We keep coming back to each other. We may hurt each other, but at the end of the day, like we've got our backs, we want the best for each other. And it's this moment where Eric starts to visualize his parents and Realizes that he can't and starts to really go under. the tide is getting higher and higher and, and Charles holds him close. I'm going to have you. All the way to the bitter end as they start to go under. And this is, this is the, they'll resurface together is something that he says, which is where people's alarms for onslaught are starting to, to really, really go off. But before we can get the resolution of that. We're back on the asteroid, we've got Bastion, who has now bested Rogan is back on the asteroid. Nightcrawler's doing his bamfing thing. He bamfs him away from the gravity core into a more central area. He's hitting him with his teleportations. Bastion is able to [00:44:00] predict his movement. Seems like he's gonna kill Nightcrawler, but Jubilee and Cyclops are able to save him. Cyclops and Bastion fight, Cyclops again proving that he is just an agile, skilled motherfucker, but again, Bastion gets the best of him. And we get Jubilee with her motendo fuckin firework ringcutter thing cutting off Bastion's wings. Bastion kind of sasses him before and asks if she's gonna slay him with the 4th of July. And Jubilee's like, that's a new one, and then proceeds to fucking stuff his goddamn face with some fireworks and sends him off into a

wall. Which is essentially like,

it was so good.

double click on this for a second. and you know what's so funny? I love My favorite fight of the entire season is this moment in this Asteroid M fight because it's so classic X Men. It reeks of just like, Chris Claremont's run in the 70s. It also reminds me of my favorite video game of all time, [00:45:00] X Men Legends on the PlayStation 2.

If I We're playing X Men Legends, and you're able to have a team of up to four X Men, and I was down to Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Jubilee. I would be panicking, panicking, because Cyclops is a heavy hitter. Nightcrawler Like, unless he has swords, you know, and he can like actually chop away at people, Nightcrawler isn't somebody that I would want to be at the forefront of a fight.

And Jubilee doesn't do much more than like throw fireworks, but the fact that she's standing toe to toe with Cyclops and Nightcrawler just shows that these characters are so brave. They are a family, they're a united front, and Just the level of respect that Cyclops also has for Jubilee as a team member was so beautiful to see, even if it wasn't verbally acknowledged, because this was, I believe, she was 13 or 15 years old [00:46:00] when Knight of the Sentinels came out in 1992.

So, the fact that she's come such a long way and has role models like Cyclops and Jean and Storm and Rogue and Wolverine, really, I'm so impressed with the work that they've done with her character. That's my girl.

No, I love it. The more that I think about it, the more that I like the fact that it was Jubilee that really kind of like, put the last shot on Bastion. To like, really put him down, cause he's not done yet, per se, but when he, he starts to get up, his face is all fucked, he's got like that acid dripping out of him, like, she really did probably the most physical damage to him out of all the X Men, which is really impressive, and I think that moment of Jubilee having that, no, I'm a grown up now, I'm a grown up, I'm an X Men, and I can hang with the rest of them, in fact, I can, I can put it.

that big blow on somebody when you think it's gonna be someone like a storm or a rogue or a cyclops. It's like, no, I can, I can hit heavy

too. So I think That was a

that worked to her advantage, because he wasn't expecting it.

Totally [00:47:00] underestimated her. And she literally fucked his face with fireworks.

She slayed him with the Fourth of

It was awesome. Quite literally. not done yet. Bastion gets up, he's looking like the Terminator at this point. Thinking that his Prime Sentinels are coming back, or his Sentinels are coming back. And, and that it's over for them. It's, it's over, he's still gonna win. They can't keep fighting the future, like, it's coming for them. And you see a sentinel burst through the ceiling, and he's like, See what I told you?

My sentinels are here, we're gonna fuck your shit up. And the sentinel just stomps right on Bastion's head. And it's actually Beast Trojan Horsing, another sentinel, and getting Storm and Forge and the rest of the team down on the ground. The Galapagos Island up into the asteroid to take out Bastion once or for all.

Beast literally has Bastion under his foot. It seems like they're going to defeat him. Everyone's powering up to take Bastion down once and for all. And Scott stops them right there. And he goes, we need to stop trying to fight the future and we need to try and embrace the future. And he tries to, again, [00:48:00] appeal to Bastion's humanity, I guess.

He's just. Sort of being like, your mother lied to you. We tried to help you back when you were a kid. It's not too late for you. Like we can, we can make this right. Now before we get to the finale of the episode, Bastion committed mutant genocide and killed millions, millions of mutants. Why do you think Scott would do

Hmm, well, one, he's hard to defeat, so you might as well try talking him down. I, I, if you can't beat him, not join him, but just Appeal to his humanity or talk him down. I think that this was pretty

I feel two ways about it. From a narrative standpoint, I think it's beautiful. Because we're showing why the X Men are heroes. This was a very heroic moment. We're gonna show you what we've learned from the Professor and why the dream never dies. Also, doubling back to Professor X, he really won back my respect because in episode 9, [00:49:00] I was just thinking, this dude's so fucking naive, I can't with Charles right now, but in having that psychic mind walk with Eric, I see why Professor X has the sway over the X Men that he does.

And in seeing that Cyclops still has enough belief in the dream to you know, be who he has purported to be this entire series. I thought that was powerful, particularly because it has been alluded to and foreshadowed that he would turn to the dark side. So I really, really appreciated this coming from him, of all people.

And I love that him and Storm shared a look with each other and nodded because Storm is second in command and typically she's the one. Who is more about the ethics and the morals of what they're doing because she, I think Storm is a better face for the X Men than Cyclops is, and she is the one who kind of tried this tactic a bit earlier in the [00:50:00] episode.

But,

It's true.

on the other side of the coin, if we're not thinking story, I think it's pretty stupid. They could have just squashed him Like just because it it's beautiful doesn't mean that like if this were a real world situation Not only do I have my wife who just invoked the Phoenix. I got storm. I got beast who can hack Sentinels, we got a teleporter.

We got Jubilee back in the house. Roberto's here. Rogue's here. Oh my god He was about to It was finished. All they had to do

It was over.

him at once with all their abilities. I think they should have rocked his shit. I'm not saying they should have killed him, but if he were to slip like Bolivar Trask, oops

Oops.

what you get.

That's what you get for killing my crush Gambit with his fine ass.

That's damn right. That's damn right. Well, before either decision can get made, Bastion says that there's one little problem is that humanity would rather [00:51:00] watch them all die than coexist with them. As the nuclear missiles fly towards asteroid M. Scott immediately recognizes this as the Magneto Protocol, so they're aware of the Magneto Protocol as being a thing. Which is crazy. That's crazy that they know about it. They know that they just like constantly have nukes pointed at their faces, just in case one of them goes off too hard on the deep end. I guess Magneto.

the most likely candidate to go off the deep end.

yeah, that's fair. That's very, very fair. I think if you look at the, this is calling back to when he was looking at the folder. But they do a really cool thing, if you stop and look at it, where they show Magneto's stats, much like they would in, like, the video game. And his danger to society bar is off of the chart.

it's like beyond the full. It's, it's really funny. But anyway, the asteroid is destroyed, the gravity core gets hit by these nukes, the asteroid starts descending towards the planet, Gene creates a telepathic shield bubble around the rest of the X Men, Scott again tries to appeal to [00:52:00] Bastion one more time, tells him to come and get inside of the bubble and he'll be safe, and he was like, nah, I'd actually rather die than join you fuckers, and he floats into the gravity core, Bastion's destroyed, no more Bastion. RIP Bastion, I guess you were a genocidal maniac. Morph hits a Mr. Fantastic transformation, which is pretty awesome. Also, let's sidebar about Morph real quick, because I just listened to an interview of one of the directors of X Men 97, John Castorena, and he was on the Midnight Boys, shout out to the Midnight Boys on The Ringer, and he was, they asked him about Morph's powers, and he actually gave a very direct answer to it. Morph has the ability to transform into anyone, to morph into anyone, but he can only inhabit their physical powers.

That

So he can't do anything. He can't do anything telepathic. He can't, like, shoot particle beams. He [00:53:00] can't do anything like that. But, like, if he turns into Archangel, he can fly. If he turns into the Juggernaut, he has the ability to run without being stopped. Stuff like that. So when he turns into Mr. Fantastic, he gets the ability to go elastic. If he was turning into, say, like,

Human torch.

fucking, like, if, yeah, if he turned, well, I don't know, would you call Human Torch a physical ability? I think that's a physical

ability, is that not?

think it's a physical ability, because it's,

Because I almost said Human Torch, and then I was like, I don't know if that's

physical or

no, no, that, that, he can turn into the thing. That's a physical ability.

into the thing, he could turn into, so it also explains why he could turn into Colossus. And, and take on the metal skin, because that's a

physical ability. And it's just like, exactly. So I think it, it definitely helps level set his powers a little bit, in terms of what he can do and what he can't do.

And it also helps us answer, is Morph the most powerful X Men? I think that means no, [00:54:00] because he can't do like, telekinetic powers. He can only, he can only match physical powers. Again, explaining why he could go Quicksilver and run so fast, but I don't think he could turn into Scarlet Witch and suddenly start throwing hexes at let's take it to the end of this episode. What do you say? Sunspot saves a falling Jubilee who is sucked out of the gravity from the asteroid. We're not going to talk about how they're able to breathe. Don't worry about it. Sunspot saves Jubilee.

That's all you need to know. They head down to the earth. The rest of the team is still on the asteroid. Scott wants to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the team and Storm is actually like, no, we're a team. We gotta, the only way we're gonna do this is by doing it all together, and if we all perish because of it, then at least we all went out together doing it as a team. And Beast and all the others are in agreement, Cable, Scott, and Gene have a little telepathic phone call Gene and Scott are essentially like, hey, we're gonna die. Like this we're trying to save this asteroid like this is the last time we're ever gonna get to talk to you It's not

but we want to do this thing because Scott The [00:55:00] only regret that Scott really had was not saying goodbye to his son in the first episode if you remember back in the first Episode he gets really upset He storms out saying that he doesn't want to do what his father did But it turns out he did do what his father did by not saying goodbye to his son and the giving the chance to say That he loves him and that he's he's always wanted to be the good father to him And so they get to have their closure Gene uses his powers, just like she did in X3, to take the optic blast out of Cyclops eyes, so Nathan and Scott can see that they have the same eyes, which I thought was really, really special. Scott and Gene tell Cable that they love him, and they go off to try and save humanity from this descending asteroid. And in one of, One of the most subtly great scenes in the entire show, you still see tears in Scott's eyes as he hits the first optic blast to start destroying the asteroid and get it to, to save humanity. And as the asteroid is descending towards earth, they announced that, unfortunately, the nukes didn't [00:56:00] do their job and the asteroids come in. And if you live anywhere towards the East coast of the United States, specifically in this one place called New York city, you should probably get your shit and get the fuck out of there. The cameos keep on coming. And Charlie, this is a huge one. If you remember the Spider Man animated series. Because not only do we get Peter Parker out of costume, and we get Flash Thompson standing in the background with his suitcase, we see one Mary Jane Watson. And if you remember from the Spider Man animated series Spider Man and Madame Web went off to go and try and find Mary Jane Watson, who was lost at that time. So it means that Peter found her, and was able to bring her back into the current reality. So, if anyone who has a memory from that Spider Man animated series, I hope you're going, They better fuckin do this. Spider Man 98 confirmed. Like, let's

go. Please give us a Spider Man animated series right now. Talk about a, just a money printer. I feel like they would just, it would be [00:57:00] one of the most popular shows on television right away. All of us, all of us sad millennials with no other hope to hold on to would just eat up a Spider Man animated series.

Or at least I'm, maybe I'm projecting. What do you think about that?

I'd watch the fuck out of it, but they're doing

I would watch the fuck out of

the fuck out of it, but they're already doing Spider Man Freshman Year. Which is a new which I am just

I don't need MCU Spider Man. I don't need

MCU,

Spider Man. I want

it's not MCU Spider

Oh, are they Are they putting it separate? Because it's animated too,

It's animated. It's going to be within the banner

I thought it was supposed to be Tom Holland.

No, no, it's not that I thought, honestly, I thought that would have been the more interesting choice to have it be the canonical Tom Holland, Spider Man before he gets recruited by Iron Man in civil war.

But they're not going that route, which I'm kind of like, eh, You kind of, you should have done that because that would have been more interesting and you would have been able to have more world building in the [00:58:00] MCU and you could have even gotten some cool cameos. Maybe Robert Downing Jr. just wants a quick paycheck and he pops in for a cameo or something like that and it's just a voice acting.

That guy's not hurting for work right now, unfortunately.

Also, he's so expensive that he'd be like a cartoon. Show me your millions.

I'm gonna look straight Disney, look at me. Look at me. Spider Man 98. Do it. Do it. Okay, let's finish this episode. Asteroids falling from the sky. And Magneto's mind, Him and Charles finally connect, and he remembers himself, and Magneto realizing himself being able to take himself out of this mind jail. His realization of himself and his powers is the final push that the team needs to keep the asteroid from destroying Earth. You see the, the magneto powers come back up. You see the, the, the asteroid float back up in the sky. And from the ground, you see Forge, Jubilee, Sunspot, and I [00:59:00] lost my mind at this. Why is Val Cooper standing with them?

Oh my god.

I, I get why, like.

Sunspot and Rogue are cool all of a sudden? Why? Why is Val Cooper there? Just because she felt guilty and she like, it's like, okay, I'm a good guy now. I'd be like, bitch, you are responsible for millions being dead. Millions.

How is she cool?

still in her bastion look. Like he gave her a whole outfit. A whole outfit. She's still.

not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. This, this actually affected my score.

It di HAHAHAHAHA No.

I was like, why the fuck is Val Cooper? Like, how are they not like, get out. Get out. Go get

away before we kill you

Earth. They don't have time. They don't have time, boo boo. Would you have time?

it drove me insane. I just I don't know man I guess like everybody is like, [01:00:00] I don't know. I don't know. I just I the entire time I was like, why is she

there? Why is she there? Why is she there?

And we don't, and we don't really get any explanation for that. And, and they're just gone. And Forge, and Jubilee, and Sunspot, and I guess Val, look up in horror as the world is saved, but the asteroid's gone.

And everybody is gone.

And the world is saved. Everyone's alive. We get six months later. We're looking at a decrepit X mansion with an X shaped chain holding the fence together. And there's a bunch of, like, thank you X Men pictures, memorial flowers, all of that stuff.

And we see Forge listening to a radio broadcast discussing the Fallout while standing in front of a whole bunch of spoilers for Season 2. And I'm just gonna go through all of these. We have Missing slash Presumed Dead. Pretty much everybody that was on Asteroid M. Cyclops, Gene, Storm, Beast, [01:01:00] Magneto, Nightcrawler, Xavier, Morph, Rogue, Wolverine. Interestingly, Archangel is also on this list as missing presumed

Well, he was

Now we know that

though.

but why is he on this

I don't know.

Cause that's what I was gonna say, he wasn't involved in any of this. The last and only time we saw him was at the party on Genosha before everything went down, but we never saw him again. I guess they never found a body, and so they're not, they're just assuming that he's maybe not dead yet. But I, I think that this is potential for we're seeing Archangel next season.

Because I don't, everyone else here is either a part of the X Men team that disappeared, or someone that we know is still out there in some capacity.

yeah. Also, could we, could we hone in on the fact that they pulled out dust? A huge Deep cut character in the X Men comic books, Dust, she is from [01:02:00] Afghanistan, deeply religious, and what cool thing about her is that her power is literally to turn into sand, and to travel that way, and she can also form her body into, I think, weapons.

I might be misremembering, but I'd be very happy to

That'd be cool.

come in, especially with the genocide allegories and how that could tie into just her faith and where she's from. I think we could talk about a lot of interesting stuff with that character next season.

I totally agree. I'm excited. So let's get yeah, let's just transition into who's available So Forge has a bunch of faces and names that are listed as available there and this is all potential X team for next season Colossus, Dust as you just mentioned, Magic, your favorite Iceman, Havoc, Exodus, Who we confirm is alive in the, the aftermath of Genosha.

Shadowcat, which I was fucking stoked about. Give me Shadowcat right now. And of course, Emma [01:03:00] Frost, who I think we're gonna be seeing coming in and taking a, it's more of a leadership role in the X Men moving forward, as I, I think you predicted.

And it's something that has hap, happened in

She'll force her way into a leadership position. They never ask, Emma. She's like, all right, so we need to do this, this, this. Who are you? I'm the white queen. So you're doing this, you're doing this.

Fuck yeah and of course a couple other really important ones, we have Absent Without Leave, Jubilee, Sunspot, and Cable. So obviously they are going off to figure out their shit in the aftermath of this traumatic event six months later. And then two characters that are listed as off world. Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, a. k. a. two of Magneto's kids. So, next season, give me the Scarlet Witch,

baby!

this was confirmed. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are off world dealing with the Shi'ar Empire because of all of the turmoil, the turmoil happening there. So they're with the Avengers because in the comic books they [01:04:00] are members of the Avengers.

I would love more Avengers X Men crossovers,

too, getting I mean, any of these characters into the fray? Sign me up. Honestly. Like, this was probably the most exciting part of the episode, just because you could go through the list of everyone that's on there and be like, Oh, season two's about to be fuckin lit.

Oh, for

Season two finna be lit, baby! Anyway, as Forge is looking over this Bishop decides to show back up after, like, six episodes. And Forge doesn't know Bishop, but Bishop's like, you're gonna. We know each other, bro. Trust me. he lets Forge know that the X Men are not dead, but they have traveled through time, and it's not about where they are, but it's about when they

Ooh.

so we cut, we cut into our final little setups. We've got Scott and Gene in the distant future, where they meet Mother Ascani, leader of Clan Ascani, and a young Nathan.

[01:05:00] they do get to see their long lost son in some capacity again. And then in the ancient past, we're talking like ancient Egypt, B.

C. Rogue, Nightcrawler, Magneto, Charles, and Beast. Stop a village from being attacked. Assisting someone called En Sabanur. A. K. A. A. young apocalypse where they look over the great periods of Egypt and Beast lets out an iconic, oh dear. And we head into the end of season one. But before season one concludes, we get our first post credits scene in X Men 97, something that the MCU made wildly famous. The present day apocalypse scoops up one of Gambit's cards, Smiling and saying something to the extent of so much death which teases the return of Gambit as one of Apocalypse's four horsemen, Death. And that is the end of both Season 1 of X Men [01:06:00] 97 and Tolerance is Extinction Part 3. Charlie, we did

it. We made it all the way through this first season of X Men

97 and I gotta tell you man,

finished. Yes.

I gotta tell you. I haven't enjoyed a season of television this much in a long, long time. This was

brilliant from

I told you this was going to be great. I thought it was amazing. And I'll talk a bit more about it when we do our season 1 retrospective, but I think all the pieces came together in a really, really eloquent way. So I couldn't be more pleased with what we got, all the table setting, and I think the Age of Apocalypse stuff that we're going to see in season 2 is just going to be.

Chef's kiss. Immaculate.

Can't wait. Can't wait. Well, let's, let's dive into our, our final Sentinel ratings is going to be, well, I guess we'll do a Sentinel rating for the full season as well when we come back and do our full season ratings. But for this episode, Tolerance is Extinction Part 3, Charlie, what is your Sentinel rating for the season finale?

gonna give it [01:07:00] 4 sentinel heads out of 5. I I think we really It loses a sentinel head because there was so much going on. And I don't think that it It had quite the emotional impact of episode 9. I think episode 9 was brilliant, particularly with Rogue crossing over and Roberto crossing over and Wolverine getting the medal pulled from his damn body.

This had a lot of stuff to do, which I don't envy them for but yeah, it was, it was good. I think. They did what they had to do, and it wasn't bad, but it was great, but not, like, banger status.

I realized now, as you say that we didn't talk about Wolverine once in this episode.

I mean, honestly, the Fox movies talk about Wolverine so damn much. It'll be fine. But I will say that it was so interesting when Cyclops looked at Wolverine and said, Oh, don't break her heart.

her heart. I know that was the only moment I want to talk [01:08:00] about

That was interesting. It could be interpreted two ways, though I feel that it is confirmed that he was talking about Jean Grey.

At first I thought he was talking about Jubilee, who was on the other side of the bed. But him being man enough to admit that was really cool. Though when Morph morphed into Jean Grey and was like, Stay with me, Logan. I'm here for Morph having a thing for Wolverine, cause who wouldn't? But Also, Logan, if you don't leave that woman alone, like, my feelings about that, just, situation.

It's like, oh, I want to hear from Jean one last time. It's like, she's married, bruh. Oh my god, just go find somebody else. Storm was right there until she got with Forge. I'm just, I'm so annoyed that our last character moment with Logan was him again, just all over Jean. It's just, it's so annoying. Like, I don't know what it is about this woman that he just can't get over.

I mean, I [01:09:00] would understand on her side, but

It's always been you red

it's always been you, Red. It's like, go away. there was a whole ass clone you could have just followed to Genosha. That was your chance, buddy.

I think that was a true feeling of their feelings by morphing into gene and saying that less so then they understood that Wolverine would need Jean more in that moment, just for his motivation, but the point of Morph doing it is that they're expressing their feelings, I feel like, which is, I think, special.

And hopefully we'll dig into that a little bit more. But anyway, I'm gonna get into my sentinel ratings. And Charlie, for the first time this season, I have a different sentinel rating than

You're gonna go lower,

I'm actually, I'm actually gonna go higher. I, the Val Cooper shit bumped me out of a 5. I thought that this was a 5 Sentinel episode until I got so pissed off that Valkyrie was standing there the whole time. And I do think the episode wasn't quite as good [01:10:00] as the last one, which we both rated a 5, but I loved it. I've watched it 3 times. I was so entertained the whole time. The cameos are incredible. The show has done so much. I feel like the show has single handedly restarted and animated. Marvel universe that we can all be really excited about. And I, I think this season finale really sets up a lot of hype for season two. So I'm going to go slightly higher than you this time, and I'm going to give it four and a half Sentinels out of five.

fair, very fair.

It only took 10 episodes.

It only took ten episodes. I almost said it only took ten sentinels.

To 10 Sentinels.

ha ha ha ha, so funny.

I love it. Well, that's it, man. We did it. We, we covered Tolerance's Extinction Part 3, that's gonna almost do it for our coverage of X Men 97. As promised, we are gonna come back with a Season 1 retrospective. We're gonna get a couple of friends to join us on that to, to kinda just cover the season as a whole.

Talk about what we love, talk about what we didn't love as much, talk about things that we wanna see. In season two and moving forward with this [01:11:00] Marvel animated universe that they're starting back up again. Charlie, is there anything you want to say about this show or about this episode in general, before we, we head out for, for this one?

I had a damn good time. I'm gonna rewatch this season many many times. It was very well done. I don't not have any notes, but my notes are very minimal.

Awesome. Yeah, I totally agree. This was such a fun time. I'm so glad that we. Switched gears to cover this. It was, we had a lot of energy around it. I had a lot of fun doing it with you. yeah, we're off to, we're off to continue to watch stuff and come back here and talk about it. That's going to do it for this episode of Charlie and Steve Watchduff. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcast. Toss us that five star review if you're on Spotify or Apple podcast or anywhere else you get it. Don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube as well.

These are all getting released as videos, so you can find us Charlie and Steve Watchduff on YouTube. And give us a follow on Instagram we always post our Sentinel ratings. You can always join the discussion there or anywhere else. So [01:12:00] that's going to do it for our coverage of tolerance is extinction.

Part three for myself, Steve Selnick and my good friend, Charlie peppers. We will look forward to seeing you on the next one. Bye friends.