Greetings, Earthlings! Guess what? This episode of Inhumans wasn’t…terrible. It was a C, maybe a C+ if I’m feeling generous and watching Maximus pine for his powers while Auran pines for him. It does make my shipper heart beat faster.
It’s a classic love triangle after all- 2nd in command > leader > ambition & power &/or saving the world. It’s one of Marvel’s favorites, though we’re usually supposed to pretend that those gay couples are just best friends. Peggy’s looking at you, Bucky and Steve. You’re setting a bad example for the kids. Stop denying your true emotions.
Maximus isn’t ready to settle down with the only warrior who truly loves and understands him yet, either. He’s gotten the caste system and the mines under control for the moment, and is satisfied with Auran’s progress with her (inhu)manhunt, so he has a little time for self-improvement this week. Specifically, he wants to go through terrigenesis again and see if it’ll come out differently.
He’s been funding Dr Declan’s inhuman research in order to figure out the details of how inhuman genetics work in Earth and Moon inhumans. Dr Declan has made some progress with earth DNA, but, based on his reaction to Black Bolt, I get the feeling that he hasn’t seen pure Moon inhuman stock yet.
He’s very excited about how different it is from human DNA and can’t wait to let Maximus, his benefactor, know. Maximus finds the change in DNA interesting, in a ho hum, yes, I know, they’re all extraordinary, yada, yada , yada, way. He just wants the science, d*mn it! Then he wants Black Bolt disposed of. But Dr. Declan refuses to kill Declan, since Black Bolt’s dna may be too fragile to survive death. Maximus concedes, but he tells Auran to be ready.
In the meantime, Maximus consults with Tibor, his ex-bestfriend and head of the genetic council, about changing the terrigenesis rules. Tibor doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but changes his mind after Maximus has the rest of the council executed. Tibor betrayed Maximus when he turned human the first time he went through terrigenesis. Maximus feels a bit betrayed again, which makes Tibor nervous. Tibor asks if Maximus can forgive him. Maximus says forgiveness is over rated. That’s not ominous at all, or the answer Tibor was hoping for.
Black Bolt and his prison friend, have agreed to go to Dr Declan’s facility, where he does their genetic tests and tells them what he can. Black Bolt doesn’t want anything further from Dr Declan than the tests and their results though. Declan agrees to help him find Medusa, but Medusa shows up at the facility on her own before long.
Medusa and Louise have been following the helicopter in the car. They get off to a rocky start, but eventually become friends. Medusa, who so far has known nothing about Earth, somehow now knows how to aim and shoot a gun well enough to get rid of police cars. Maybe she did some target practice before she left that mansion last week.
They stop for burgers and to triangulate the vectors on the satellite flux capacitors so that Louise can find the proper reentry angles for the vintage Cadillac convertible that they’re now driving. With that figured out, Medusa steals Louise’s laptop and walks away, because she doesn’t understand that the reentry angles will only work for the convertible and mission control approved pilot, not bald queens.
Louise quickly finds her again, and gets her to understand that Thelma and Louise were a team. They are under contract to do this together, or they won’t get paid. Or they’ll be forced to drive off a cliff * into one of Hawaii’s volcanoes.
It’s a good thing she listened, because they find Black Bolt in the middle of being captured by Auran and her gang. It’s the car that saves the day, nobly sacrificing a door to take out Mordis before he can remove his mask and stare at Black Bolt. Mordis let’s enough of his laser power loose to set off an explosion that knocks out him and his companions, but didn’t look like it killed anyone.
Black Bolt and Medusa grab one of the knocked out female inhumans, an echolocater, figuring she can help them find the rest of their family on Earth. They stuff her in the trunk, hop in the Caddy, and Louise drives the getaway car out of there.
Oh, and Medusa and Black Bolt made out for a few minutes in the middle of everything when they saw each other again. They can’t use words, okay? Sign body language is all they’ve got.
Crystal yells at Dave, the cute guy who ran over Lockjaw, for a few minutes, until he tells her that he knows Audrey, a vet tech who could look at Lockjaw. They somehow move hundreds of pounds of dog to his barn. Audrey says that Lockjaw isn’t seriously injured, and leaves him to sleep it off.
Gorgon wanders through the woods with his merry band of surfer soldiers, until he decides that he can no longer let them risk their lives for him. He drops the dead body he’s been carrying all day, and stomps off to find the fight. The surfers watch him go, confused about what just happened. Yeah, he’s kind of too impulsive and non-sensical to be in charge of the military.
Karnak gets the best deal in the short term this week. As predicted, he and Jen are enjoying each other’s company more and more, and he’s improving the efficiency of the farm. They go for a swim together and then sleep in her tent. Karnak seems like he could have been a virgin. He’s awfully confused about her very obvious moves.
But the two male farmers are quietly disagreeing with each other, and paranoid farmer kills peacemaker farmer off camera. We see him burying the body at night as the episode ends. I’m thinking that wasn’t a gift meant to give the new couple more privacy.
Seriously, are they driving Thelma and Louise’s car? Never mind, Thelma and Louise’s was a 1966 blue Ford Thunderbird. Medusa and Louise are driving a red Buick (Cadillac?), but I think the show is making the reference, anyway.
Or maybe it’a a reference to Phil Coulson’s car, Lola, a 1962 Chevy Corvette, and presumably a better flyer than Thelma and Louise’s car, though I guess we’ll never know.
Lola herself was a reference to the flying car Tony Stark’s dad Howard showed off at the Stark Expo the night Steve enlisted and Bucky shipped out to Europe, and it’s replacement, the Mark II Hovercar, which Agent Carter got to use to save the world. What I’m saying is, when convertibles or red cars show up in Marvel properties or driven by two women on the run, they often end up flying.
For now, Medusa and Louise are just a couple of galpals, on the run from the law in the middle of a crime spree, in their cool car, enjoying the countryside and fresh air.
Medusa is still the weak link, though her friendship with Louise is fun.
Iwan Rheon and Henry Ian Cusack act circles around everyone else in this cast.
We’re halfway through the season. That went fast!
A different-style Lockjaw was part of the title card, but otherwise slept through the episode, again. The little title card animation was more lively. So disappointing.
No one else used their powers either, except a moment of Crystal, Mordis, and the Echolocater.
In a flashback we find out that Medusa and Crystal’s parents were exiled when the girls were children for disagreeing with the king and queen about something important. Exiled to…Earth?
* I suppose it’s a sign of progress for women that the deaths that result from heroine’s journeys are more often temporary or symbolic these days. But women are still punished for freedom and fighting back.
Metawitches 
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