The Scott and Jean Archives
(This episode originally aired as episode four of season five of X-Men: The Animated Series. For continuity correction, I placed this episode after The Phoenix Saga and before The Dark Phoenix saga so this episode makes sense.)
Beast recites poetry for Jean’s memorial service.
Beast: “And when it’s turbulent journey ends, the river flows into the sea, and rest now, for all eternity.”
Cyclops is still visibly upset and retreats to the War Room, staring at a holographic projection of Jean.
Scott: (To Jean.) “I miss you. I never knew how much I would.”
Xavier: “We all miss her, Scott. The question is, how will we move on without her.”
While Xavier urges Scott to carry on living as an X-Men as normal, Scott is “sick of the responsibilities”, working towards a goal that is near impossible to achieve. He quits the X-Men and storms out.
Scott returns to the orphanage where he grew up. He gets flashbacks of growing up, lonely, feared and ostracised because of his mutant powers. No parents wanted to adopt him either. The caretaker of the orphanage comes to greet him. Both Sarah and Scott grew up in the very same orphanage that Sarah has become caretaker of.
Sarah brews some tea for the both of them. She tells Scott of Mr Killgrave, who not only contributed financially to the orphanage, but also adopted four mutant children from the orphanage. Suddenly, the fire alarm goes off. Sarah gets the children downstairs while Scott searches for the fire and puts it out.
Scott reprimands the child, Rusty for “playing with matches”, but Sarah quickly informs Scott that Rusty is a mutant who had been adopted by Killgrave recently. Rusty had run away from Killgrave and sought shelter in the orphanage.
Scott takes Rusty out for a walk, to talk to him. Rusty finds out that Scott is also a mutant like him. Rusty tells Scott that Killgrave is a bad man, but Sarah would listen to none of the “lies” given Rusty’s track record. Suddenly, Killgrave arrives with a police escort. He has come for Rusty and assures Sarah and Scott that there is no reason for Rusty to fear him. Sarah sends Rusty off with Killgrave. However, Scott is still suspicious of Killgrave.
Back at Killgrave’s house, Rusty is strapped to a chair and put in a hypnotic state to be brainwashed. Killgrave plans to take over the government using the children. We also learn the Killgrave himself is a mutant. With the help of the children, Killgrave invades the Governor’s office to demand his “Plant River Project” be reinstated, not without his mutant ability to persuade the Governor.
As Scott prepares to leave the next morning, he catches the special news report on television. The Governor has suddenly “resigned from office”, and the next most likely candidate to take his place is Killgrave. Scott suspects that Rusty was telling the truth about Killgrave. He urges Sarah to get the children away from Killgrave as soon as possible.
Killgrave invites Scott into his house, and into a trap. Scott is left in the pool to drown as Killgrave departs for a press conference. While unconscious, Scott dreams of Jean and reaches out to kiss her. He awakens to see Sarah giving him CPR after fishing him out of the pool.
Scott and Sarah hurry down to the basement. Scott destroys Killgrave’s machines before “the last stage of [their] training” can be carried out. The children are brought back to the orphanage.
Killgrave starts attacking the orphanage. He summons the children under his control and orders Rusty to burn down the orphanage. Scott manages to blast Killgrave’s helicopter. Scott runs into the burning house after Sarah to rescue the child in the wheelchair still stuck inside. Meanwhile, Killgrave is being secretly filmed by a news crew, and exposes him on air.
Helping Sarah and the children has made Scott realise that his place is with the X-Men. He returns in time to discover that Cerebro has found Jean, and that she’s “alive”.