Spoilers: I will speak on season 2 of X-men 97.
Ok so I understand the criticisms that the finale was rushed and that Apocalypse was built up so much and defeated too easily. I too felt that, but I’m going to reframe the finale with what it was trying to say and the message of the entire season and why it had to tie up with Mystique as the next season’s villain.
So first off this season was not an Apocalypse season it was a Rogue season, Apocalypse was just the medium to see the depth of Remy and Rogue’s love and the power of Rogue’s empathy.
This may be crazy and out there and may be me being a X-men 97 writers apologist but I think this framework explains the logic of why things were structured the way they were. Firstly, Rogue didn’t defeat Apocalypse by becoming celestial and crushing Apocalypse. She sowed the seed for his downfall thousands of years ago when she timejumped and showed him radical empathy. Secondly, Rogue generally is a prophecy child. Mystique raises her with Destiny and adopts her even after abandoning two natural born sons. But in the Kang manufactured timeline of Apocalypse, Rogue couldn’t be laden by prophecy because her defeat of Apocalypse had to be done in a pure way. Magneto tried to play chess by mentoring Apocalypse and that backfired horribly because it felt forced. Rogue has a conversation about love and listens to En Sabah Nur and he spends the next thousands of years thinking about that moment of empathy and hearing about the man Rogue loves Remy Le Beau.
Then he gets to present times and he encounters Genosha. He literally could have picked any of the countless dead mutants there many more powerful than Gambit. But no he picks Remy as horseman. He has spent millennia thinking about him in relation to Rogue and so he absorbs him and his memories and feelings and powers. He must have thought about Remy over the years wondering if he was worth Rogues love after death, after time travel and so he thinks let’s see who this guy is and also how much did he love Rogue and then comes to discover that Remy is a badass and through Remy sees Rogue the way Remy did.
All of this leads to apocalypses further decisions which focuses on Rogue and giving her immortality and marrying her instead of turning people or seeking world domination. Which in turn sets up the finale and the sacrifice and the defeat. All of which wouldn’t have been possible if Rogue was saddled with prophecy or if her actions seemed coordinated and unnatural.
In essence, in this timeline the solution to defeat Apocalypse required Rogue to be free of prophecy and that means that Mystique and possibly Destiny had to take a backseat. That’s why they weren’t in this season before but as soon as Apocalypse is defeated the timeline reasserts itself and the Mystique who trained Rogue and asked Magneto to be a mentor to teen Rogue and who allowed Rogue to absorb Carole Danvers knowing it will push Rogue to the X-men knowing she needs to be important in the future comes roaring out guns blazing.
Her daughter fulfilled the prophecy. She was part of the solution that defeats Apocalypse. Mystique in all her monstrous machinations of positioning pieces so that fate falls in favor of mutantkind is real. She was sidelined in this timeline but for a reason. Then it works, the spell breaks and the timeline heals itself.
Except now she knows the cost. She lost her son. Not only was Rogue’s empathy needed to plant a seed in Apocalypse but it also saves her life because she goes in with her brother who mystique herself abandoned and is no blood relation to Rogue, but who she loved as a brother. Her love for Kurt causes him to sacrifice himself and Rogue can not only be the savior for the Apocalypse timeline but survives to possibly be a savior or important factor for other timelines.
So if you put all those things together and look at the finale in that way and accept that it could have been better but it did what the writers want to do. It showed the power of embodied empathy and love, the perils of being laden by prophecy and Mystique is going to be badass villain next season because she sometimes is right and does love but also does morally questionable awful things.
