X-Men '97 Season 2, Episode 8
"The Dead Man's Hand"
Writers: Brian Ford Sullivan, JB Ballard, Beau DeMayo, Anthony Sellitti
Directors: Chase Conley, Emmett Yonemura
Cast: Voices of George Buza, Chris Potter, Ray Chase, A.J. LoCascio, Jennifer Hale, Holly Chou, JP Karliak, Arian Hough, Lenore Zann, Ross Marquand, Gui Augustini, Cal Dodd
Somehow, this is the penultimate episode of Season 2, and with just one more to go, it's time to loop back around to the season's Apocalypse stuff and figure out what's going on with everyone's favorite Ragin' Cajun!
Deeper Than Skin
As with the previous episode, we open once again on Genosha, circa last season's "Remember It." This time, we're taken back to the dance just before the Sentinel attack — only this time Rogue is dancing with Gambit and not Magneto. And Gambit especially dark hair and ashen grey skin. He tells Rogue to remember, "some things be deeper than skin." Then Rogue awakens from her "dream" with a scream.
Later, the X-Men are playing poker (because this is a Gambit episode, get it?), and there's a showdown between the two blue-furred members of the team. Nightcrawler reveals he has the Dead Man's hand (episode title!), so called because it's reportedly the hand Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was shot and killed (though the Dead Man's Hand is generally considered to be all black aces and eights and Nightcrawler has a red ace). Beast beats it with trip threes, quotes Jack London, and gets called a nerd by Cyclops (also, the X-Men have themed poker chips, and now I'm wondering what the gift shop in the X-Corp building lobby is like…). Everyone seems to be having a good time, though Rogue is a bit melancholy following her dream.
Just then, all the alarms start going off, as an unidentified jet pierces X-Corp airspace. Turns out its Cable and X-Force, bearing the desiccated husk of Apocalypse (Cable says there's been a murder, but that's not the bad news, which is a pretty great Cable line). The X-Men seem unsurprised to see Jubilee and Sunspot amongst X-Force, so I guess they've touched base since the X-Men returned from their trips through time. At any rate, X-Force believes Apocalypse was killed by a Horseman he resurrected — Gambit — and they need the help of Professor X and Cerebro to find him, in the hopes that Rogue can suck out the Apocalyptian evil from him like she previously did with Archangel.
Using the updated Cerebro — christened Cerebra, like in the Grant Morrison run (also the name of my iPhone) — Professor X is able to track the revived Gambit to New Orleans. Cut to the bayous of N'Awlins, where members of the Thieves Guild meet with Assassins Guild members led by Gambit's ex-wife Bella Donna at a church dedicated to their patron, the X-Ternal Candra. The ashen-skinned Gambit emerges from the shadows and uses his upgraded powers to put members of both guilds under his thrall.
Enroute to New Orleans aboard X-Force's jet, Jubilee and Rogue talk about Gambit and how Jubilee has maintained her moral center amongst X-Force. Elsewhere, Cyclops, Jean and Cable have a family reunion, and discuss how Cable never told them about their time together in the future; they vow to focus on the present, rather than the past or the future. Later, as the two X-Teams are planning their move, they're attacked by Gambit and the Guild members, riding flying rocket motorcycles, because why not? The series continues the grand X-Men tradition of sending any plane in which they're riding crashing to the ground as Rogue and the revived Gambit come face to face. Gambit tells her when he died, his life flashed before his eyes and all he saw was her, then repeats his line from her dream before putting her to sleep. Nightcrawler tries to stop Gambit from leaving with Rogue, but ends up in his thrall as well. Gambit and his goons flee as Jean, Psylocke and Cable work together to bring the crashing jet to a (relatively) safe landing.
Wedding Crashers
News of the jet crash reaches the remaining X-Men at the school, and Storm leads Morph, Wolverine and Forge to meet up with the rest of their teammates. Elsewhere, Rogue awakens in a gothic bedroom and is taken to a dining room by the ensorcelled Nightcrawler. Rogue and Gambit have dinner. Gambit, seeming mostly like his old self, tells Rogue of how Apocalypse once loved the Egyptian priestess Candra (the same woman as the Guild's patron and the person shown attending Rama-Tut earlier this season), and how he gave the gift of immortality in the form of a gem, only for Candra to break his heart as revenge for what he did to her people. Gambit's plan is to steal Candra's relic so he can bestow her immortality onto Rogue, so they can be together forever. Aw, it's sweet, maybe?
The cautionary good feels last all of a few seconds, as the subsequent quasi-wedding ceremony between Rogue and Gambit turns into the ceremony to summon Candra with a bloody knife. Gambit tells her he wants her gem, then cuts her subsequent indigent villain monologue short by stabbing her through with his staff-turned-scythe. He tells Rogue he's going all-in (more poker!) and offers her the gem. But before she can take it or refuse it, the X-Men — all of them — and X-Force arrive. In the ensuing fight between the X-people and Gambit's hoodwinked Guild members, the brainwashed Nightcrawler proves particularly adept at taking out his former teammates. With everyone occupied, Gambit takes the choice away from Rogue and slams the gem onto her, knocking her out. Which is when Professor X emerges and enters Gambit's mind.
In the ensuing psychic battle on the Astral Plane, it becomes clear that some part of the old Gambit still exists, while in the physical world, with Xavier's attack leaving Gambit exposed, Cable makes his intention to kill Gambit known — because he's known all along that Apocalypse remains inside Gambit — and it's his destiny to kill Apocalypse. Sure enough, on the Astral Plane, Apocalypse emerges and overpowers Xavier before he can free Gambit. But it turns out Cable, Psylocke and Archangel aren't really a match for all the other X-Men (including Jubilee and Sunspot) while Rogue, presumably able to enter the mind of "Gampocalypse" (Apocabit?) thanks to Candra's gem, is able to succeed where Xavier couldn't, drawing Gambit out of Apocalypse and trapping Apocalypse, in turn, inside Gambit.
Back in the physical world, Gambit's skin has resumed its fleshy pink pallor and Nightcrawler is back on the side of the angels. The X-Men retreat, with Cable finding himself unable to take a shot that would risk hitting Jean. Back at X-Corps headquarters, Beast declares that the still-unconscious Gambit is physically fine, but his neural activity is most strange. Xavier says that Apocalypse won't stay trapped in Gambit's consciousness for long; if they don't move quickly, Apocalypse will take him over permanently. But Rogue declares she won't lose him, not again.
Elsewhere, at an abandoned warehouse, the once-again-a-three-person-operation X-Force regroups, though Archangel is mad Cable's honeypot plan (lol) didn't work and is concerned about their lack of numbers. Just then, X-Factor bursts into the warehouse. Val Cooper, emerging from the shadows, tells Cable they're not after X-Force. Instead, she proposes an alliance so they can both get what they want.
Recommended Reading
Mr. And Mrs. X #1-12 by Kelly Thompson, Jan Bazaldua and friends.
This twelve issue series, launched in the wake of Rogue and Gambit's surprise wedding in 2018 and which ends right before the Krakoa Era begins is more or the less the series which sold me on the romantic relationship between Rogue and Gambit (after reading about their tortured romance for decades, it turns out the key to making them work as a couple is happiness!). While not a source for any direct plot points used in this episode, it nevertheless feels like an apt companion to this episode which sets up the Rogue/Gambit romance to be the emotional climax of the season.
