X-Men '97 S2 Ep 4 Breakdown: Every Detail You Missed!

[00:01] Apocalypse is loose in history. Is this the darkest timeline? I'm Gina Ippolito and episode 4 of season 2 of X-Men '97 just pulled off another major character death in the most brutal way possible. And as usual, it was packed with Easter

[00:13] original animated series. So, I'm going to break it down scene by scene for everything you missed and talk about what horsemen might be on their way. But nerdriot.shop and check out some of our sweet merch. We've got a bunch of X-Men

[00:25] to support the channel. Episode 2, Rise of Apocalypse Part 2, by Bo DeMayo, who Sellitti. And just like part 1, it was directed by Chase Conley. Charles speaks appropriate since he's the most emotionally devastated by the events of

[00:40] the recap is just everything from part 1. I didn't point this out last week, Blackbird along with Wolverine, Jubilee, Morph, Beast, Bishop, Jean, and Scott. Bishop gets his own intro here right after Nightcrawler. He charges up and

[00:54] absorb and store energy that he releases as energy blasts. There's a new scene his cyber hounds, which I accidentally said were designed after T-1000s when I meant T-800s. It cuts to En Sabah Nur when the X-Men first encounter him.

[01:08] Magneto's mind. This moment from last online think that they'll be introducing the villain Onslaught this season. He's created when Charles and Magneto's subconscious minds combined. Then

[01:21] another new clip, Gambit and Rogue heading to fight the giant bug sentinel from the burning wreckage float around them like the embers from the campfire will later when Rogue talks to En Sabah Nur after everyone else is asleep.

[01:33] army. They used this last season as well series season 1 episode Enter Magneto when Charles and Erik revealed their powers to one another for the first time. This serves to remind the audience

[01:45] and how long they've been friends, so the end death hits even harder. It's working together instead of against each other, which was way more common in that original series. They started out just as friends. Then we see Ship crashing

[01:58] Apocalypse. This is from the original series season 3 episode 9 Obsession. And moments later because he befriended Ship. Then the rest is the same as what picks up right after the last one with En Sabah Nur's yell heard as the dust

[02:14] settles around him after Rama-Tut's energy beam hit its mark. He's cradling from slavery and took him in as a Sandstormer. So this death hits him hard. The episode starts with the death of En Sabah Nur's closest friend and

[02:27] both men are full of rage at what happened. Here En Sabah Nur snarls and the camera focuses on his clenched teeth and heavy breathing. Magneto saved the running thing for Magneto lately has been his depression at not being able to

[02:41] save more individuals and how that regret fuels all of his decisions. Jewish heritage to be made with Oskar Schindler and the scene from Schindler's done more, could have saved more. Magneto losing so many mutants on

[02:55] resettled there with the promise that they'd be safe, made him fool himself Sabah Nur avoid the fate of becoming Apocalypse. And it's also what motivates the timestream to avoid any more of them dying because of his mistakes. Magneto

[03:10] has always lived with regret and that has always fueled his character choices. save his family and his loved ones from the camps. Regret over not being able to motivate him to try and save the city from Apocalypse later in this episode

[03:24] much energy he has to expend. And just when he finally starts using his regrets to make the right choices, he's snuffed out. Bishop wants to high-tail it out of Charles probes En Sabah Nur's mind but there's too much rage there. This is

[03:37] similar to the times we saw him try to probe Apocalypse's mind in the original series, which usually caused telepathic pain. So instead Charles tries to talk to him, another skill he's known for. I love how Bishop keeps his gun trained on

[03:49] conversation. Bishop hasn't spent the past several months with N'Garai like memories of the awful things Apocalypse has done. And to him, it's obvious that they should not be trusting this guy. And Sabah Nur agrees to hear Charles out

[04:02] proved their strength. Survival of the fittest is this guy's whole deal, no also warns Charles that if he lies again, Nur won't hesitate to kill him, foreshadowing the end of the episode. Rogue, Magneto, Nightcrawler, Beast, and

[04:16] plan to rewrite history in favor of mutants with a non-Apocalypse doubt and Sabah Nur as an ambassador between mutants and humans. This is some great them comes to a different conclusion for their own reasons. Again, Magneto is

[04:30] he couldn't do more to save people on Genosha, and he's mourning the loss of mutantkind. Rogue is still deep in her grief over Gambit's death, so she's happened on Genosha. While every one of them was horribly affected by those

[04:45] the most personally affected, so it makes sense that they want to stay and guided more by his religion and his beliefs. Messing with time on this scale the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So he wants to go back to

[05:00] their own time. Bishop is a realist, shaped by countless dystopian futures they need to get back to their own time before they make things even worse. And Beast is logical and democratic, believing everyone deserves to be heard,

[05:12] more simply, Rogue is thinking singularly, this might save the man I love. Magneto is thinking globally, this might help save mutants. Nightcrawler is thinking religiously, we are messing with fate. Bishop is thinking cynically,

[05:25] time travel always has consequences. And Beast is thinking democratically, we does an amazing job of showing all their personalities and belief systems, and it's loaded as hell. Even when Rogue is the only one to agree outright with

[05:37] Magneto, he knows she's doing it out of love for another man that isn't him. that he himself has time traveled many times to avoid specific futures. And difference here will end up being that En Sabah Nur becoming Apocalypse is a

[05:51] fixed point in time, much like Beast suggested Genosha was last season. The future to come to pass. So, they're in a causality loop. The act of time trying to avoid come to pass. Magneto empowered En Sabah Nur to become

[06:04] Apocalypse, which led in turn to Magneto's death. Magneto takes a hell of a gamble here and breaks Bishop's time band, saying the tech in the lost temple home. Charles tells En Sabah Nur some more of the truth, that they're from the

[06:16] whole truth, that in the future they frequently fight the all-powerful mutant Nur will become. And notably, that exclusion of the truth seals their fate. Last episode, Magneto told Charles that what happened on Genosha is both of

[06:29] the rise of Apocalypse will also be something for which they share the of his people and believes that there's no better world to look forward to. And Apocalypse's goals had always been to forge a new world. Charles tells Nur of

[06:44] out more about it. In his mind, he sees Nur as a baby being abandoned in the her as he cries. His mother wears a golden scarab beetle as a cloak pin, and the scarab was the name of Apocalypse's sword in the comics. Then, an adolescent

[06:58] Nur stands on the slave block as the auctioneer tells the horrified onlookers not to mind what color he is. Then, Nur after he was sold into slavery breaking bricks. As he swings the hammer down, the cracking cuts to the crack of

[07:10] sleeping together in the rain for warmth while Nur huddles by himself, unable to never able to sleep. Then, he single-handedly raises a statue. The strength. In this moment, he's realizing that his strength can be his salvation

[07:25] onlookers to a crowd of cheering onlookers. It makes sense why he'd adopt the sandstorm or survival of the fittest belief system since his strength is the note that the statue he's raising is of Khonshu, the moon god. Lots of Egyptian

[07:39] deities have a bird head, but this one has a half-moon symbol on its headpiece. Knight. Then it cuts to N lying awake, cold, and alone at night. Even though alone and angry, and that's when he hears the voice. The Celestial Eson

[07:53] MCU before in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. He wielded the power stone and destroyed an entire planet with it. Also, we obviously saw Celestials in the Eternals. The stars in the sky form the six eyes of the Celestial, which then

[08:06] reflect in N's eyes. The artists this season are focusing on eyes a lot to link people to their destiny. We saw the Phoenix Force in Mother Askani's eye. The man on the slave block told the crowd to look at his eyes when selling

[08:18] N. Later, the temple N will use to transform into Apocalypse is reflected death is shown reflected in Charles's eyes. One's true identity and fate is shown in the eyes. Charles stops probing N's mind and says that he saw the same

[08:31] constellation in General Logos' mind. N identifies it as the Gardener's gaze. Celestials were known as gardeners since they seeded life across the planets. Celestials were mentioned only once in the original X-Men animated series when

[08:43] Beast located Ship and saw on her info pad that she was of Celestial origin, as a people or what they are other than beings from the on the stars. N and the Everyone rides horses except for N and Beast who ride camels. Camels can carry

[08:57] about double the weight a horse can and Beast supposedly weighs between 400 and 500 lb, which would be significantly more than the others. I assume N in all as well, so hence the need for camels. As they walk under the Gardener's Gaze

[09:10] view. The group camps for the night and Rogue and N talk about love, something believes is the only thing that makes life worth living. She says she hopes he gets to experience it for all of their sakes. In the Age of Apocalypse comic

[09:23] storyline, he did indeed fall in love with Nephy, Apocalypse's sister, but she Apocalypse is an interesting duo, and I'm so glad the writers chose to include Cure, Rogue was actually supposed to be

[09:35] for being a mutant, and Apocalypse referred to her as a fool and ordered slaves. [music] Rogue changed her mind, and instead Because Rogue drained Worthington and snapped him out of Apocalypse's control,

[09:49] that comes along with being under Apocalypse's control despite never being thinking of all of that right now. It's also in that episode that Apocalypse said this. >> I know more of this world than you have

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[11:24] to take advantage of their 4th of July sale and get 20% off site wide. And be the Helix site. It cuts from North Face by the fire to Kendra putting a headpiece that's similar to Cerebro on Rama-Tut's head. The headpiece is green

[11:37] to communicate with Charles and offers to tell him the secrets of the temple. episode, then water drips into a pool and ripples out reflecting an image of the temple. Over the imagery we hear three different versions of the same

[11:51] is identified by the subtitles as mischievous voice, which reminds me a lot of Bender in Mortis's disguise in the original series. Then there's one thought that this was Kang the Conqueror, but there's some imagery

[12:04] later in the episode that makes me think this is Immortus, different from Bender, because later we see Rama-Tut, Bender, and Immortus in a drawing. The assertive voice tells the mischievous one that he pedals a dangerous history as Charles

[12:16] setting. Charles reaches a giant Rama-Tut who says this. Rama-Tut who says this. >> I have so many names, Nathaniel, Victor, Kang. Finding oneself can get addicting. Where do I end and me begin?

[12:30] >> Notice on the last part he breaks the fourth wall and looks directly out at something that He Who Remains also did at one point in Loki, giving us the variants are aware of who's watching them. He's speaking here of his

[12:43] different variants, Nathaniel Richards, Victor Timely, obviously Kang. So comic storylines are usually kind of sprawling and convoluted and a lot of stuff gets And since the canon of the show is mostly following the canon of the

[12:55] original series as opposed to being beholden to any one comic storyline, I'm going to assume for briefly sum up Kang, Rama-Tut, Immortus, and the others. Rama-Tut was introduced in the comics in Fantastic Four number 19 in 1963 and was

[13:07] later retconned to be Kang. At that point Kang was time traveling, went back Rama-Tut. So these different versions were all the same man just at different points in history. Then later it was retconned again to be Kang variants, not

[13:20] points. And this is what we saw in Loki. I think in the show they're going with also a time traveler. Like I said, it's complicated and sprawling, and I don't it's clear what the show is going with. Charles becomes aware that all three

[13:34] An eyeball that clearly belongs to a variant, since it's the same golden color, opens and gazes upon Charles. As Rama-Tut explains that they're echoes of who he was and could be, a golden web of crisscrossing lines appears behind him.

[13:47] around which the past, present, and future all dance, I assume this place we saw Mortis in the original series, which exists outside time and normal reality. Rama-Tut came to this time period and enslaved En Sabah Nur

[14:01] from becoming Apocalypse, and so he could get his own hands on the power really stuck between a rock and a hard place here, because really neither of unlimited power. A lot of these Rama-Tut poses he makes on his throne are taken

[14:14] directly from the comics. Charles refuses to help Rama-Tut, and Tut says >> Then you shall see for yourself. You cannot stop him. You never stop him. >> Charles echoes this at the very end of the episode. Last season, Jean /

[14:29] first episode made sense and came true throughout the season. And here we see the elements of Charles's vision from last episode. The water crashes against looms above them. And later, Magneto's cracked helmet as Charles lies in the

[14:42] there are trace levels of gamma particles. This is because Celestials window that looks exactly like the one in Loki. The group comes upon the head to locate the source of the power. Beast, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and Magneto

[14:57] head one way, and Charles, En Sabah Nur, and a very wary Bishop head another. Both groups quickly have some pretty big oh revelations. Beast realizes that ship, which he knows will eventually become a sentient weapon of Apocalypse.

[15:11] as in the episode Obsession. The other group walks into a room with symbols on happened and what will happen. And Charles realizes that they've all just fulfilled a horrible destiny. On the wall, you can see Apocalypse's machine

[15:24] Cure and Come the Apocalypse. Underneath the machine are his first Horsemen from Archangel, Abraham Kieros as War, Plague Famine. There's also En Sabah Nur rising to become Apocalypse, and he's flanked

[15:38] Rogue, and Nightcrawler. There's Nur fighting alongside Ball, a large image of Apocalypse standing, and one of him sitting on a throne flanked by skulls. be a baby. There's an image of Esau with a figure in front of him. I assume this

[15:51] is Nur or maybe an Eternal since we hear him say, "Come, be Eternal." again here. Immortus on one side and Bender on the other and a shackled slave in front of images, they light up with Celestial tech. As En Sabah Nur realizes what's

[16:06] were trying to keep him from his destiny, a panicked Charles psychically get there fast. From this point on, all hell breaks loose. Nur is pissed and the edge. Nur chokes Charles, pulling him up from his chair, and then walks up

[16:21] shape of Apocalypse's head. The others get there and try to fight, but even chance. At one point, it looks like he straight-up breaks Nightcrawler's arm. enters the shrine and transforms into Apocalypse, becoming the rocks of the

[16:35] Eternal Shore that all things must crash against, repeating the words we first heard him speak way back in the original series in season 3. The group debates fleeing back to their time. And Bishop is me here because I absolutely would be

[16:48] like, "What the hell are you nutballs talking about?" Magneto once again when he broke the time band. He decides that since this is his mess, he's the it up. He doesn't want to lose any more mutants. Before he can force them all

[17:01] Charles are both blown away from it by Apocalypse. Right as the blast flashes, there's another image visible on the wall that looks like someone with a supposed to be Gambit as the Horseman Death, given the face coverings on the

[17:14] get a full 360 view of this room in detail, it might show all of Apocalypse's horsemen throughout history. Apocalypse sizes himself up, in the original run. He uses Magneto's own words against him.

[17:28] >> Now, who is the god and who is the insect? >> Again, Apocalypse loves nothing more than calling people insects. insects. Who

[17:40] >> Apocalypse orders Ship to attack Rama-Tut's kingdom and Tut hightails it putting on his Kang the Conqueror garb before he leaves. He also says this to >> You're not. Your destiny starts today, [music] for his power can only be

[17:54] challenged by a force that is external. >> At some point between now and the X-Men's current time, Candra will become the entity known to the Guild of Thieves External. Externals are immortal mutants who can only be killed by another

[18:07] External. In Earth-295, Candra at one point served as one of Apocalypse's horsemen. When Ship begins the attack, we see the black hole-like thing from Apocalypse tells Charles he won't make him a horseman because he lacks a spine.

[18:20] Magneto were turned into horsemen. Magneto was also a horseman in the live-action movie. An injured Magneto encases Apocalypse in metal and shoots work binding the debris surrounding the black hole to try and save the city. He

[18:33] does it and manages to survive, crashing down near Charles, and for a minute, we then, as Charles drags himself towards his oldest friend, Apocalypse comes into view, a shadow with the sun behind him. Charles and Magneto know what's about to

[18:46] happen, and each man apologizes to the other. Apocalypse picks up Magneto, puts his gun against his back, and absolutely obliterates him. And we see the death in Afterwards, there's nothing left but Magneto's helmet, and this is

[18:58] insane, not least of all because of the fact that both Apocalypse and Charles are voiced by the same actor, Ross Marquand, and the man is killing it here on both fronts. Charles clearly no longer cares if he he or dies, and trash

[19:11] talked before. >> If only Baal had left you to bake. What >> But Apocalypse doesn't grant him death, repeating the lesson Magneto imparted on him last episode. >> Alas, only a coward feels mighty when

[19:27] stepping on ants. >> Time passes and Charles cries into the Charles realizes that what Rama-Tut said is true. >> Hopefully you didn't click away after that horrible death because this episode

[19:40] And it's both a callback to the original series episode Old Soldiers and a to be a follow-up to the original series episode Weapon X Lies and Videotape. Wolverine is on a roof in Paris wearing the same thing he was in Old Soldiers.

[19:54] to the time he was fighting Nazis and was sent on a mission with Captain Red Skull. Here, Cap says it's been a long time and Wolverine says about 50 each other since around the time of the events of that episode. That was back

[20:08] skeleton. He instead grapping claws, which was a nod to his first comic Keaton who voiced him last season in Bright Eyes and Tolerances Extinction Part 3 and also voiced him in What If. Cap is joined by Black Widow voiced by

[20:21] tells Cap that he's easy staying inconspicuous. In Old Soldiers, he asked Cap where he got his star-spangled monkey suit saying fatigues would be a catch me in something like that because it's got to itch. Cap hands Wolverine a

[20:35] can't go after these guys alone. Wolverine tells him not to worry, he's back together. The title of the next episode is Weapon X Lies and DVDs and to be a follow-up to the original season 4 episode [music] 16 Weapon X Lies and

[20:49] Videotape. In that episode, violent delusions and flashbacks lead Wolverine meets up with Sabretooth, Silver Fox and Maverick. So I'm assuming that's the talk more about that original episode in the next breakdown. [music] But that's

[21:02] it for this breakdown of episode 4 of X-Men '97. How crushed do we think Rogue this death? Let me know what you think in the comments. And a special thanks to executive producer level. Big thanks to studio tech Brian Kim and New Rockstars

[21:14] the supporting editors. Follow me everywhere at Gina Ippolito. Subscribe news coverage of everything you love. Thanks for watching. Bye.