The Gifted recap: 'outfoX' 

Well that certainly didn’t go according to plan, did it? On this week’s

The Gifted, our mutants got a little too desperate and a little too high on their own supply, and several of them paid the price.

The Struckers, of course, are still reeling from the blockbuster revelations of their now deceased patriarch, Otto. Reed can’t believe that he was a mutant, and then he was cured, and that his father kept it all secret. Obviously that’d be a lot for anyone to take in. Caitlin, however, is determined to make sure this same pain never happens to their family like it did to Reed and his parents. She declares “no more secrets,” and insists that Reed tell Andy and Lauren the truth about their Fenris great-grandparents: that they were not just inconceivably powerful, but also terrorists who sowed destruction and death across the world (apparently they were associated with the Hellfire Club, which is a fun little continuity reference for all you X-Men fans out there).

That Andy and Lauren might gain extra power by holding hands is not exactly news to them. At a picnic months before this all started blowing up, Andy and Lauren ended up accidentally holding hands after an attempted skateboarding lesson went sideways. They suddenly started glowing and even started to perceive the world around them differently. This happened even before Andy knew he was a mutant, and he credits it with influencing his behavior ever since: He just wanted to recapture that feeling again.

Now it’s here. In order to get a sense of what’s going on, Andy and Lauren practice holding hands, under their parents’ supervision in the Mutant Underground base. At first nothing happens, but soon the two siblings start glowing. Everything around them does too; to hear them tell it, they can feel everything around them, and they know all they have to do is push. Luckily Reed pulls them apart, because if they’d gone on like that any longer they might’ve brought the whole building down on top of everyone. It’s a truly dangerous power they’ve got there. If only they had some use for it!

Esme certainly has an idea. Having seen inside the mind of the Sentinels’ “Hounds,” the blond telepath is now desperate to break into the Trask lab to free her other family members trapped inside (other family members…does that include sisters? Are we going to get more Stepford Cuckoos in this show?). Polaris warns Esme not to go barking orders when she’s still a newbie, but her emotional appeal has an effect on John. He just watched his best friend Pulse die, having first been turned into a monster because John left him for dead. He’s determined not to let that happen to anyone else. So even though the mutants are desperate, barely informed, and outgunned, he decides to greenlight a break-in of the Trask lab. Here we go.