Just wow. This is unquestionably the standout episode of the season. I've enjoyed this series thus far, but "Remember It" was next level. I was speechless by the time the credits rolled.
If the animated series is going to be this good, I don't even mind if Marvel Studios doesn't give us live-action versions. But whenever they do, this is what MCU X-Men stories need to strive for.
In 30 minutes they were able to include super-meaningful story beats for Jean, Cyclops, Wolverine, Madelyne, Magneto, Rogue, and Gambit *plus* the return of Nightcrawler, Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw, an enigmatic Cable cameo, along with a feast of easter eggs and subtle references for readers of the comics (Krakoan Age & Hellfire Gala vibes, kinda? IFYKYK. 😄)
I had to check if this episode had a longer runtime than the previous ones this season because it felt like there were so many key things that we saw here. The pacing was excellent. Not a single wasted moment, imo.
In terms of the overall story it was always reasonable to expect that some sort of major world-shaking crisis would threaten Genosha and just before it joined the UN, We certainly got that here, and it did not disappoint. What was unexpected and what made this episode truly great, though, was how incredibly good the build-up to that crisis was.
This episode foregrounded all of the emotional tensions between Jean and Scott and between Rogue, Magneto, and Gambit that had gradually been building up this season--in parallel with Magneto's main arc of fulfilling Professor X's dream in the face of every looming challenge.
So basically, in "Remember It", the writers were like, "sure, let's bet the farm: let's put the major high-emotional-stakes arcs of the show in the spotlight...all at once."
Pushing those individual character dynamics to their crisis points while introducing big existential threats is risky because it's asking the audience to care about so much at the same time.
Everything needs to balance and all the characters' stakes need to relate for it to work.
If it does, the audience gets an giant-sized experience that they really care about. If not, the audience is left scratching their heads, feeling like the show was trying to do too much all at once.
It definitely a bet the show could have lost if they didn't get the storytelling right. Thankfully, this really does feel like they managed to pull it off.
This was one heck of an episode, and probably will go down as one of the all-time best in this series.
