X-Men, Season 1, Episode 2: Night of the Sentinels, Part 2
When I started writing these observations, I had no idea that they would eventually evolve into a series onto itself. They were just me reliving my childhood but with somewhat snarky comments. By now I’ve posted 3 seasons’ worth of material, but did not post about this episode. So here we go.
Previously, on X-Men: Chinese-American adoptee teen 90s icon Jubilee is the audience surrogate that introduces the viewer to the X-Men. The US government has a secret facility with a database of minorities, and the X-Men aim to shut it down. However, a group of X-Men are about to be ambushed by a squad of armed security guards.
Synopsis: A pseudo-NSA called the Mutant Control Agency is using that information to hunt them down. Surely they must have information on regular humans, but the minorities get Sentinels and an entire army, showing that spying affects minorities disproportionately, all in the name of “safety.”
The X-Men attack the facility but Beast is arrested and Morph is killed for basically defending their communities. Jubilee is captured separately because she was already on their list. When Madame President finds out about the disaster at the facility, she sympathizes with the X-Men in the name of civil rights and orders the program shut down. The pseudo-NSA goes behind her back to further their own agenda, showing that power and racism transcend party lines and executive order from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HERSELF.
The X-Men attack the Sentinel factory, putting an end to the massive weaponized drones (for now!), and rescue Jubilee. The episode seems to end on a high note as she joins the team. But Morph is dead, Beast is now a statistic in the prison industrial complex, and the X-Men are aware of new government initiatives to hunt down minorities, thus setting the stage for the rest of the season.