The big personal character dramatic decisions were John acknowledging Turner's innate goodness and sparing his life; Esme turning against her sisters; Vampire Bill finally conquering his monstrous nature by noble self-sacrifice. Technically, the decision to use Fenris to destroy Inner Circle HQ counts, but the script took it back.
As to the first, Turner's surviving the tomahawk *and* Erg's light show *and* repeated super-powerful blows to the head, so that John could reject "hate" is hard to believe even as you watch. It also suffers from confusing reaching out in daily life to the Other and rejecting a politics of oppression, with condoning crime and rejecting the right of self-defense. The show seems to think pacifism is morally obligatory for the oppressed. It's also still more John character assassination, making him grotesquely stupid. Looking back, though, John has to be a moron to "love" Clarice. Otherwise he'd remember that it was Sonya's love which attached Clarice to him.
As to Esme's wholly expected about-face? The notion that Marcos, the cartel torturer, has always had lasers he could and would set to stun is doubly stupid, in terms of who he is and how lasers work. This nonsense is just about removing any permanent consequences for Esme in betraying her sisters. And, using someone (Fenris) to save your life against an enemy who is going to kill you (Marcos, who has burned them before,) isn't the same as a mad scientist forcing you (Frost) to rat out other captured mutants. The only real reason for Esme to turn is what the show has always thought justified murdering someone, they dissed someone the show liked, with "You're nothing." (That's why Rooty-tooty murdering Fade, who repeatedly dissed Reed, was supposed to be a feel good moment.) Lorna is wrong, and useless, yet again, just like in the garage sequence. Her submission to Carlos destroyed all her agency.
As to the third? This was affecting in many ways. It was undercut for me by relying on gibberish about his powers work. Or is it don't work? Risman Garber's so-called explanation didn't make any sense at all to me. I've never even understood why anyone thought they should believe a word out of Risman Garber's mouth. It was deeply satisfying to hear Reeva call him confused. If truth were a knife, he'd have been dead on the floor. The climax was more or less copied from the end of True Blood, which I suppose is why Stephen Moyer was hired in the first place, to be the reluctant noble monster fighting his monstrousness. In a story where mutants are sometimes a metaphor for oppressed groups this has left the character nothing to do until the final thematic statement, that being different is bad. Amy Acker and the juveniles showed grief very well I thought.
It's never been clear where the show's backward politics come from. It may have been Fox that insisted on dragging in the Purifiers, so that the government (in the form of Sentinel Services) won't be oppressors. But somebody, whoever, realized that actually showing the von Struckers saving Sentinel Services, after what they've done, would be too vile for words. They gimmicked it up so that Fenris was forced. But, Sentinel Service went down, and that really was a feel good moment. And they contrasted it with Lauren's sudden willingness to take down the Inner Circle HQ, indifferent to the truly innocent people who were just in the lower floors of a building. But then, everything with Lauren is opaque. Nonetheless, the fall of the Sentinel Services was a true climax, and a true victory for the good guys. Well done.
As to plot/theme resolutions? Esme making Ryan confess will have no more effect than Frost making the mental hospital torturers and the Creed scoundrels confess. It just makes me wonder why no one thought to trumpet it everywhere, not least to Sage, Bulk, Fade, even the cruise crew. There's no reason to think everyone but Andy would have been on board. There is still not the slightest clue as to how Ryan was built up by Reeva, or what he expects to gain from a revolution. There's just the preposterous assumption that uppity minorities are only uppity because of nefarious agitators. The inexplicable discovery that, contradicting what they told Reed, that the uprising continues and the von Struckers will have to continue murdering mutants---for the rest of their lives?---is not a happy ending. They have definitively gone to the dark side. It's all very much like a fantasy where Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass dedicated their lives to killing John Brown. The government knew Lorna was pregnant, and the government will hunt the baby and keep tabs on it to see if Lorna gets in touch. So, no, there will be no happy reunions. They can put it on screen, but nothing will make it believable, not for a second. The 9/11 theme has apparently been very powerful in somebody's mind all along. It mostly hasn't been apparent, but they really hit it like crazy. The show has been indirect, but it was all Reeva's fault. The stance that hold 9/11 to be some sort of mysterious malice against "us" because a bad enemy with no reason but fantastic powers of subversion and it is of course natural for "us" to be frightened and determined to fight back wasn't very sensible in 2001. Nearly two decades later, it is worse than hysterical, it is malicious. ( My opinion of course.)
Fox apparently has delusions of being a major network, so it will almost certainly dump The Gifted in the vain pursuit of higher ratings. The producers will of course shop it around, but it seems likely nobody will care to mess with Disney. But if somehow there is a third season, it doesn't look promising. I have no idea why they insisted on putting in an incest theme but after they did, not doing anything with it is nuts. The easiest resolution is to make it the unspoken cause of a split in the family, especially if they were afraid to go there. As for the rest, John and Lorna have been made stupid. Lauren is still a cipher. Rooty-tooty is sort of entertaining but she's a pale copy of the original on Person of Interest, plus the show seriously underestimates how much that was all about the lesbian chic. Marcos is blunted by their refusal to accept their own back story for him. Erg is still a vicious fool vainly planning to hide out until the Morlocks can eat people. Esme has an impossible dilemma, which means a season of stalling. And worst of all, the new plot direction seems to center on Clarice, who is even more of a failure as a character than Lauren. Nothing about her makes any sense, there's just mouthpiece for the writers and snark meant to be cool. Cool is overrated.
