Spoilers

“Tolerance is Extinction, Pt. 1”

The first part of the three-part season finale dropped on Disney + this morning with an epic episode built on previous episodes. Bastian, a character that I really missed out on in the comics, is designed so beautifully, and feels original and unlike any other X-villain.

This episode felt like it fit inside the Marvel Universe more than any X-Men episode, dating back to even the early 1990s. We saw Spider-Man. We saw Dr. Doom. We saw Baron Zemo. We saw Omega Red. We saw the Silver Samurai. I’m really sure that we saw the timeline from Loki. It felt as if this show was building a world that we have known for decades from out of the pages of the comics.

Some of the action in this episode are absolutely bad ass. The Scott, Jean and Cable being pursued by the human/sentinels and plowing through the mountain in a Porsche with optic blasts was unbelievable. The Wolverine falling from the sky, slicing the hybrids on his way down. The use of Nightcrawler and his sabers fighting back-to-back with Wolverine protecting an unconscious Rogue. These scenes were all just so epic.

Magneto was right. Just thought I’d leave that here.

Magneto’s boss move, as Wolverine stated “He declared war on the planet,” happening in the first episode of the three-part episode is dramatic and quite the swing. Seeing Magneto going final boss just before Charles Xavier returned to the earth was poetic.

The family theme goes throughout the episode, with the Summers, with Nightcrawler-Rogue, with Bastian’s background, with Roberto’s mother, with Xavier’s return. The writing on this show just keeps getting better every time.

I love Nightcrawler. He has always been one of my favorite X-Men characters, but he is so perfectly portrayed here and his words are so wise and impacting that I love every second Kurt Wagner is on screen. I hope this character sticks around past this season.

It was a great start to the finale. Two more to go.