This week The Reflection finally gives us some quality time with our main villain, as Wraiths plan hits its final stages. Lets jump in.
Reflection opens on Elen arriving at the mansion we saw at the end of last week, meeting evil!Stan Lee. Deciding that her decision to give herself up for the sake of others was a poor one, Elen immediately starts running through the mansion. Teleporting from intersection to intersection, rather than simply… exiting out a window? Not sure what she is doing here, but its necessary for the big reveal at the end. Meanwhile, our crew continues to follow Vy as she leaps through the streets. Eventually she reaches the mansion, busting in through a side window! Inside, as Lisa and co arrive, we see evil!Stan Lee sipping a nice cup of tea, expecting them. Apparently, he was the one telling Vy where to go and how to reach him, leading her to this very room, but surprise! Its a trap!
The mansion begins to burst into flame, as the Russian Ninja and Human Thunderbolt appear in the room. The man who can phase through walls comes up from the floor and whisks Stan Lee through a wall to safety. Unprepared, our heroes are quickly overwhelmed. The floor gives out, causing them all to fall. As they do, we see Elen through a doorway, walking down a hall. Its a slow-motion shot, with her looking into the room, so clearly this isn’t real. Could it be the one who can create illusions from before?
Meanwhile the real Elen is still running through the mansion. Since last we saw her, the color-palette of the building has changed to a grayish blue. As she runs through the halls, Elen finds the bubble woman from when we first met Vy and Michael collapsed on the floor of a hallway. Without speaking a word, when Elen checks on her, the woman points, gets up and starts to walk away. Its mean to be creepy or unnerving, mind control or something, yet it just comes off as lazy. The woman leads Elen through the mansion and down a flight of stairs, into a cavern beneath the building. The path is lined with little purple flames, leading to a raised platform. The platform bursts into purple flame and solidifies into Wraith, standing right in front of Elen.
During this I-Guy finally arrives at the mansion ready to go and X-On runs into Steel Ruler in the hallways. I-Guy immediately runs into the Bat Man, voices running through his head. At this point it is unclear if there is an AI in his suit talking with his friends voices, or if he is just hallucinating them. I would prefer the latter, but we will see. The Bat taunts I-Guy, mentioning his new suit, before stating that he should have taken out his team earlier. Looks like the Bat killed Ians team, and Ian is not happy about it. Pushing his unknown power to its limits, he shears the Bats wing off and blasts him through a wall. Congratulations Ian, you are the first good guy to do something useful.
X-On on the hand is trying to avoid a fight, as he tries to dodge around Steel Ruler. He is focused on chasing the fake Elen, but Ruler just wont let him go. During their fight Steel Ruler makes a number of very confusing comments. She keeps talking about how X-On never cared for Elen and he could have done this or that, yet why does she care? X-On meanwhile doesn’t say a word. The man hasn’t spoken more than 10 lines for most of the season. Where is the wise cracking from episode 1? Eventually X-On gets past Ruler, but she is hot on his heels, as he sprints down the same paths Elen went. He runs into the save cave underground, with Steel Ruler slipping in behind him. We learn immediately after that the Elen leading him there was infact an illusion, but that Steel Ruler wasn’t meant to get stuck there as well. Curious what will happen now.
While all of this is going on however, Elen has a disjointed conversation with Wraith during which Wraith basically try’s to convince Elen that she isnt the bad guy here. There are numerous flash backs, showing how Elen was hunting Wraith all this time, while Wraith questions whether or not her actions were actually bad. Well yes Wraith, kidnapping people does in fact make you a bad person, no its not just because X-On says your bad. Your henchmen killed an old woman by sticking her in a parking lot just a few episodes ago, and you think your not evil? Wraith continues, saying she was taking their hands and helping them be part of something greater, as if this was some kind of cult. Eventually, because every show needs a twist, Wraith convinces Elen to join her and they take each others hand.
We cut back one final time to see X-On approaching the same flaming altar Elen did earlier. As he does, he sees Elen herself sitting on the edge of the altar, alone. He approaches and Elen speaks, but its not her voice. She begins to glow green, then purple. Its Wraith using Elens body and whats more, its actually Ethan, Elens long dead brother! Plot twist! Somehow a brother who died long before the Reflection has returned to life and started basically eating Reflected in order to, I can only assume, take their abilities? With how the characters acted this episode and the general direction of the plot and how silly some of these twists are, each episode of The Reflection feels far longer than just 25 minutes. Not to mention, the Idol Group was nowhere to be seen! Are we sure they weren’t added last minute for some contract?
Suppose we will find out next week on, The Reflection! See ya then.
