"The X Impulse"
Writer: Greg Johnson
Director: Gary Graham
Original Air Date: November 11, 2000
Introducing: Shadowcat and Avalanche
Synopsis/Review: The episode begins
as the camera focuses on an average, middle-class house, in a girl's bedroom.
She's sleeping, and it suddenly shifts to her dream. She's flying over
a cityscape, and obviously having a pretty fun time too. Suddenly, she
starts falling towards the cement ground below! Just as she's about to
go ker-splat, however, she wakes up- only to find out that she's in the...
basement!? Needless to say, she starts panicking, and it wakes up her father
and mother, who come downstairs. The girl (who we later find out is Kitty
Pryde) starts telling her parents in between sobs that she fell through
the ceiling. Her mom, of course, thinks that Kitty was just having a nightmare,
until her father steals a glance at the ceiling- to find a blanket and
pillow stuck halfway through it. And during all this, Xavier picks up Kitty's
Mutant signature, and tells.. er... someone... to prep the Blackbird. A
VERY nice beginning.
After the title sequence and the commercial
break, there's a rather pointless (but funny) bit where Kurt rushes (and
teleports) to school, since he's late after getting another "Breakfast
Burger Gutbomb". And Principal Darkholme catches him in the act and almost
gives him detention, teehee. This scene is where Kurt's junk food obsession
emerges, which he keeps for the rest of the series, heh.
Back at Kitty's house,
she gets ready to leave for school when her mom catches her in the act-
she thought that they had agreed that Kitty wouldn't be going to school
today, after what happened last night. Kitty makes a face and starts explaining-
in the rather annoying manner that she keeps for the first half of the
first season- that, like, nobody wants to talk about it, and she'll, like,
totally go nuts just sitting around the house. Yes, the valley-girlness
of Kitty is overdone quite a bit for both this episode and next few ones
she's in, but at least it dies down after a while. Anyway, her mom eventually
caves in (after promising not to tell Dad) and lets Kitty go.
Meanwhile, Jean and the Professor head
in the Blackbird to Illinois, where Kitty and her family live. The Prof
wants to talk with Kitty's parents about enrolling her in his school, and
Jean's a "model of what we're offering them". If Jean was the model, I'd
never join the X-Men, but I digress. Anyway, Jean mentions something about
another Mutant signature being spotted in the area- a foster kid named
Lance Alvers- and Xavier tells her not to worry about that, and to focus
on Kitty. I assume he tried with Lance before, or something. I dunno.
So, they show up at
the house, and get the door slammed in their faces after Xavier mentions
the "incident" last night, which he is told is none of their business.
So, he decides the direct approach, and tells Jean to meet up with Kitty
at her school.
Meanwhile, AT Kitty's
school, she's putting away her books when two "bullies" named Riley and
Amy talk about what a bookworm she is and push Kitty into her locker, locking
the door after she's in. Kitty pounds on the door and yells to let her
out, but the two other girls just walk away to P.E. Soon afterwards, a
teenage guy comes out of the men's bathroom, and, after making sure no
one else is around, starts to spraypaint graffiti over all the lockers
in the hallway. As luck would have it, Kitty accidentally phases through
the locker just when the guy (later revealed as Lance, the foster kid mentioned
earlier) passes in front of it, and he sees her powers. That's so cool,
he says. He has powers too- and he proves so by concentrating and causing
a small earthquake in the near vicinity. Kitty is, of course, freaked out,
and runs away. And then Lance says something really corny about not giving
up- it's not worth repeating, really.
So, Kitty shows up to P.E. late, and Riley
and Amy are there, and act like snobby jerks some more after Kitty fails
to make a good long jump. While Riley shows her how "athletes" do it, Lance,
on a nearby rooftop, uses his powers to shake the ground a bit and cause
Riley to screw up. He then gives a thumbs-up to Kitty (who, luckily/conveniently,
is the only one who say him do it), who then gets even more weirded out
and decides to run back into the school, bumping into Jean on the way.
Kitty runs into the
school auditorium (empty, of course), where Jean catches up to her. Jean
tells her that she knows exactly what she's going through, and performs
a demonstration of her own powers. Kitty tells Jean that this must all
be a trick, but Jean comes back with the fact that she KNOWS Kitty believes
her- she can also read minds. Kitty just shrieks and tells Jean to stay
out of her head, before running off again. Jean is then confronted by Lance/Avalanche,
who tells her that Kitty is HIS friend, not hers. (It was revealed that
Lance really just wants Kitty to phase through the school office door,
unlock it, and help him get the answers to some upcoming finals so that
he can sell them for money.)
Lance then catches up
with Kitty, who's getting her books out for the next period or something.
Kitty is wary of him at first, but after Lance explains to her how lonely
and sick he felt after he first got his powers, Kitty agrees to talk with
him after school.
And then there's a bit
here with Cyclops and Nightcrawler following Wolverine, who had caught
scent of Sabretooth. The two big guys meet in a parking garage and take
part in the token fighting scene for the episode, and are pretty evenly
matched until Cyclops and Nightcrawler come in and blast Sabretooth into
an elevator shaft. Wolverine's not very grateful though- he tells them
that he doesn't fight their battles, so DON'T fight his. And he leaves
Cyclops and Nightcrawler behind with their car that had gotten wrecked
during the fight. Nice guy.
Anyway, Kitty meets
up with Lance after school, and Lance tells her that the way to take control
of her powers is to admit something that no one wants to- that they are
outsiders, and that there IS something wrong with them. But he also tells
her that this is a good thing- "Fate dealt us winning cards. If we play
them together..." Kitty still is confused, but Lance tells her to just
try her powers out- to phase through that wall in the school (which leads
to the main office) and unlock the door for him from the inside, proving
to him that she can come to terms with her powers. She does, and is successful,
of course. Lance then reveals his plan to change the school grades, but
Kitty isn't too sure about that. Lance explains his reasoning behind it-
which actually makes sense, in a bad sort of way- but Kitty still won't
have anything to do with it.
Meanwhile, outside, Jean and the Professor
meet up with Kitty's parents. They apparently got a call from Jean that
told them what Kitty and Lance were doing. Deterimed to stop Kitty and
Lance, Jean and Kitty's parents head inside.
Back in the school office,
Lance is getting a bit forceful with Kitty, keeping his hand around her
arm to keep her with him. Kitty's parents and Jean then burst through the
door. Kitty's dad originally tries to stop Lance, but the Mutant just topples
a bookcase over on him using his powers. Lance, afraid of what might happen
if they're caught, creates a hole in the wall via his powers, so that he
and Kitty can get away, and stats pulling Kitty with him. Things eventually
escalate to the point where Lance decides to bring the whole school down
to stop Kitty's parents and Jean from following him. Kitty, finally using
some common sense, phases her arm out of Lance's hand and runs back to
her parents. Lance gets furious and brings down the ceiling on her, then
leaves. Jean manages to keep the building from collapsing around her and
Kitty's parents using her psychic powers. Kitty's parents are really grieving,
though, over the apparent loss of their daughter. Kitty phases through
the boulders that came down on her, though, and helps phase everyone out
of there after they grab hold of her. Safely out, Kitty apologizes to her
parents, and they all decide to talk with Professor Xavier about Kitty
entering his school.
Later, Lance watches as the Fire Department
puts out any flames from the remainder of the school, only to have Principal
Darkholme come up behind him. Turning to face her, the mysterious Principal
explains to "young Avalanche" that his chances at this school are pretty
much blown- why doesn't he come to her school, where she's made an opening
for him. Bum bum bum!
Last Words: This episode's beginning is VERY well done, and still ranks with some of my favorite beginnings of the entire series, if not my ABSOLUTE favorite. The rest is written very well, too, and at times gets genuinely emotional without crossing that fine border into corny. My only complaints about this episode were the rather cliche bullies and Kitty's general annoyingness in the way she talks, which thankfully dissipates after a few more episodes. Highly recommended viewing.
Overall Rating: 9/10 Excellent