The Gist of It: (Bear with me, it's been like two weeks since I've seen this ep, so I may be a bit rusty on the whole... remembering the episode thing) This episode opens with a mysteeeerious figure (hmm, how many times has that happened?) breaking into a big ol' mansion. Said mysterious figure turns out to be Gambit, and he's using his happy kinetic energy of DOOM! to bust through the window and stuff like that. After doing some good, old fashioned burglary (and pole hugging....), Gambit finds his way to this neat little artifact that looks like half of a spider. During all of this, Angel wakes up (seeing as how this is his house and all), rushes shirtless into the room where Gambit is, and says "See anything you like?"

....

Unintentional subtext aside, Gambit makes a break for it and escapes. Once outside, he meets with Mesmero, who helps him by taking Angel out of commission for the time being. Gambit gives the sider-thingie to Mesmero because *gasp!* Mesmero has control over him! Ah, so that's why Gambit's soulless, permanently dilated eyes looked even more soulless and permanently dilated than usual! (Er... ignore me) Anywho, just then, Magneto comes in and ruins Mesmero's fun by being such a killjoy and demanding that Mesmero release Gambit from his eeeevil grasp. After some threatening on Magneto's part, Mesmero complies, Gambit looks confused, and Angel continues to lie on the ground. And then stuff happens and Angel wakes up.

Cut to: the Institute! The X-Kiddies are playing baseball (ala the X-Men: Evo comic, Issue... 7? I can't remember because somebody borrowed that issue from me and lost it >.>) and... well, cheating. After a fun little baseball sequence that I will not describe, so you'd better use your imagination (basically, all of the mutants use their powers to better their playing abilities, so just sit down and think "What would [insert character here] do when cheating at baseball?" and there's your mental image), Angel, in full superhero garb, flies down onto the field and says that he has to speak to the Professor.

Cut to: Magneto's Abode! Magneto walks in on Mastermind (who looks like a cross between Logan and a Disney monkey!) dicking around with Mesmero's mind (so many M's!). Plot development occurs as Mastermind tells Mags what he finds in Mesmero's mind, which is essentially: the spider is a key, and Mesmero must obtain the other half (which is in London) in order to help free Apocalypse from his tomb. Ooooh!

Back at the Institute, the X-Men are doing research and talk about Mesmero. I suppose they, too, find out where the other half of the key is, and so they're talking about it when Bobby busts in and is all "Hey, guys, let's go!" Sadly, they don't want Bobby coming along, as he's reckless. He's a loose cannon. He's unpredictable. He's a wild and crazy guy! Uh, yes... anyway, there's a brief cut to Magneto's Lair, where Mastermind is like "Hey, uh... dude, Mesmero escaped."

We next see Rogue lying in a hospital bed, wearing makeup. Okay, the makeup's not important to the plot or anything; I just wanted to make mention of it. She's just been through some traumatizing event or another (I wouldn't know because I missed the ep, then somebody recorded over the tape that had said ep on it...), and yet she still finds time to pile on the Gothly makeup... Go Rogue! Anywho, Kurt 'ports in and offers her crappy food, so she's like "Meh. Go die". They talk, he tries to bond (and fails. FAAAAAILLLLLS!! I think. I can't remember), she ain't havin' none of that, and so he 'ports out in order to get more food from Kitty.

And now the real fun begins! The X-Geeks (Beast, Angel, Cyke, Jean, ProfX, and a stowaway Iceman) arrive in London with the helicopter-with-a-lame-code-name. But enough about them. MEANWHILE, at the museum, Magneto and his Acolytes break in. We get a few scenes of Gambit and Colossus taking out the guards in various ways, before we get something magnificent. Something glorious. Something truly wonderful. Oh yes, that's right, kiddies... flaming horses of death! I mean... yeah. A guard's running down a hall being chased by cute little flaming ponies, which are being controlled by a cute little flaming Aussie-- ergh, I mean.... Pyro :D Pyro, being quite... uh... jolly... is cackling all the way down the hall, and then, after locking the guard in a closet.. he speaks! He speaks in accent that is not American! Yaaaay!

The X-Men enter the museum, Magneto discovers Mesmero, and wackiness ensues. As Magneto chases Mesmero, the X-Men and the Acolytes duke it out. It's your basic fight scene. Y'know, character's sorta pair off to fight each other and... uh... yeah. Can't really describe it, as I don't remember most of it, except that Pyro made a little fire demon to chase Angel around, and is taken out by Bobby, who ices up the poor lad's hands.

Meanwhile, Mesmero yoinks the other half of the spider and puts the two together, which results in it becoming a big green glowy spider. Magneto tries to stop it, but it escapes him, so he runs out and orders his Acolytes to destroy the spider at all costs. ProfX protests, but Maggie will have none of that, so Xavier tells the X-Men to try to capture the spider before the Acolytes smoosh it.

Next, we have a scene of Colossus chasing after the spider. He's quickly taken out, so it's up to... Sabretooth to save the day! And he does the quite well by being thrown into a car! Now it's up to Pyro to take care of things, so he toasts the spider and cackles and makes a pun about "barbequed spider"s. As the flames die out, Pyro's shocked to find that the spider is both in tact and very capable of burrowing underground. This prompts him to say that it has gone "down under" (or, rather "down undah!"). Bam! TWO bad puns for our boy, both in one scene! Beat that, other characters!

Oh yeah, and the spider jumps into the water. And Professor X lays a mind-whammy on Mesmero because he's pissed, and thus finds out about the whole "Apocalypse" plan.

With the Acolytes' failures, it is now the X-Men's turn to go after the spider. And so, they all fail and the spider makes it across the river and into the city, where innocent people are going "AAAH! Giant spider!!" and running around frantically. Finally, Gambit hits it with a bus that he stole, then charges the bus and blows it up, which kinda slows down the spider. Everybody arrives on the scene, and Magneto destroys the spider with his mighty powers. Whoo! Of course, all this time, Professor X is like "No, you idiot, stop!" Eventually, Magneto does stop... uh... well, he stops when he's finished destroying it, anyway. Yeah. And then Professor X informs him that the spider was a guardian sent to prevent Apocalypse from escaping, and that Magneto fell into Mesmero's trap by doing exactly what he wanted. Whoops. We then see another door to Apoc's tomb opening.

Fin!

Brotherhood Moments: Zippo. Well, zippo of the Lance/Pietro/Todd/Freddy/Wanda Brotherhood, but there are Acolyte scenes! And Pyro and Mastermind were in the BH in the comics, so that kinda counts!

My Opinion: I loved it. Ohhh, how I loved it. I didn't even care that Pyro made bad puns and cackled like an imp on crack! Hell, I cackled along with him! I just loved it! It rocked seeing the original X-Men together (though it would've been kinda cool if they had them fighting the original BH; that is, Magneto, Pietro, Wanda, Toad, and Mastermind. But hey, I dig the Acolytes, so it's all good). And normally, I don't like episodes with tons of action (as I prefer character development), but I thoroughly enjoyed this episode nonetheless. The action didn't bore me the way it did in "Fun and Games", and there was just enough characterization to make this a good, solid ep! It definitely didn't leave me disappointed.

Rating (out of 5): 5! I'm not sure if this gets a 5 for being the first ep I'd seen in four/five weeks, or if I was predisposed to giving it a 5 for Pyro, but who cares! I love this ep, and so it gets a 5!

Acolyte Babble (Ooooh!):

Coming later, as I must go X-Mas shopping