𝓓𝓮𝓵𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓪𝓻𝓽

.

.

.

First of all, I want to say that this is my personal opinion, and it’s a bit long. I hated the Season 2 finale because it was just straight bad, and it really breaks my heart, the first season is what made me fall in love with the X-Men, and I was so excited for this new season. The main problem was the writing disaster. I’m not going to defend DeMayo, he definitely deserved to be fired, but they could have at least handed the show to someone who actually cared about creating cohesive episodes with good pacing and telling a real story. Personally, I felt like the final episodes weren't even telling the same story.

I think most people would agree that the first four episodes were good and set the bar very high for the threat Apocalypse would pose, however, from the fourth episode onwards, the quality really dropped, and quickly. As I said, this is just my personal opinion, but honestly, the episode focused solely on Wolverine felt out of place to me. I know he needed to get his adamantium back, but I think it would have worked better as a side story, just like they did with Storm in the first season. The next episode started off discussing Polaris and her relationship (or lack thereof) with Magneto, but after that, the whole Danger plotline didn't really go anywhere. She’ll probably return later, but it felt like a wast, they could have told a story that actually contributed to the main plot instead. The episode about the Acolytes also felt out of place, they could have conveyed Kurt's message without dragging everyone to the Savage Land, not to mention how poorly written Magik's death was, serving merely to drive Colossus's storyline forward.

In the last two episodes, they really tried to resolve everything with the power of love. We had known since the previous season that Gambit would become the Horseman of Death, so we expected to see the other three as well, but that didn't happen, we only got Gambit. It didn't even feel like a real shift in his character from the first season; sure, he technically did some evil things, but, come on, he was the Horseman of DEATH. And what did he actually do? He just went looking for Rogue instead of carrying out Apocalypse's objectives. That’s a problem that’s persisted since the first season, they haven't developed Gambit's character beyond his relationship with Rogue, though I don't know if you'd want me to discuss that in a separate post. The biggest disappointment was the finale; I simply can't describe what a disaster it was. We got more screen time for the Havok vs. Jubilee fight than for the battle against Apocalypse. It’s striking and disappointing that the 90s series, which was written for children, managed to portray Apocalypse as a sadistic, dangerous villain who was a formidable opponent, whereas X-Men '97 just gave us empty hype and had him defeated in a minute. It made no sense that the Celestial was suddenly willing to help Rogue, and don't get me started on Kurt's death, it felt almost disrespectful to the fans that we weren't even given time to grieve him. In short, there was great potential that was squandered due to poor organization and production issues, leaving us with an unsatisfactory product.