Friendly reminder that the makers of X-MEN 97 literally told us Magneto was super dead only to reveal that he was actually alive just two episodes later. So... maybe don't take everything they say at face value. These people are really big on secrecy and making sure surprises aren't spoiled, and seem to have no problem misdirecting or flat out lying to us to keep things under wraps.

I'm just saying, if/when Gambit is coming back, they obviously won't want us to think he is until it happens. Right now, we're meant to believe Remy's really gone so as to not spoil their big 'GOTCHA' moment. It's stressful and nerve-wracking for us, but that's the whole point.

Don't get me wrong, I don't know anything for sure. But these writers have already shown us how they act when they're trying to keep a secret from getting out, and that's how they're acting right now, so just try to keep this in mind whenever you're feeling anxious about these last 3 episodes.

So Beau DeMayo dismissed the possibility of Gambit returning via time travel, but he's being very coy about the Deathbit theory. And they've definitely been teasing Deathbit a lot since ep4, so that seems like the direction we're going in.

I'll take it if that's how we get Gambit back, but it's pretty depressing. I really wanted the story wrapped up this season. And I suppose there's a chance that could still happen if they have Prime Sentinel Gambit stand in for Deathbit, but I'm less convinced of that theory every day.

And I REALLY don't want to have to wait a fucking year for new episodes only to then have to endure a whole season of Gambit as a villain. And don't even get me started if they go the AoA alternate timeline route. Just don't. That gets a hard pass from me, thanks.

But Gambit fans are no strangers to angst and having to wait ages for something good to happen. I just want him back and if this is the way it happens, then so be it.

Just please don't make us wait until season 2 to see him alive again. I don't want to be sick over this for the next year, not knowing if I'm ever going to feel better about it or not. Give us a mysteriously empty grave, give us Deathbit in the final moments of ep10 as a cliffhanger. Just give us SOMETHING to put our minds at ease because just leaving us hanging with nothing to go on when season 1 ends would just be fucking cruel.

It occurs to me that what we saw in ep7 may have been Rogue going through the 5 stages of grief. She started with Denial (can't accept that Remy's dead) and Anger (killing Trask).

Cable showing up with the possibility of saving Remy via time travel could mean we'll see Bargaining in ep8, then Depression if that somehow doesn't work.

If this is what's happening, then my guess is Remy won't return until after Rogue reaches the Acceptance stage. In storytelling terms, that's just how this stuff tends to work. I kind of hope I'm wrong though; I really don't feel like waiting that long to get him back, but I could see it playing out like this...

In the closing scene of ep10, Rogue finally, sadly accepts that Remy is gone, she visits his grave to say goodbye... only to find the grave empty.

BOOM. Enter Death!Gambit or Prime Sentinel!Gambit... in season 2.

I just thought of something and now I feel miserable all over again...

During Kurt's eulogy, he said that he believed Remy was bluffing and that not seeing himself as a hero was just Remy being modest...

...except it wasn't.

We got a peak inside Remy's head in ep3 when Madelyne was taunting the team with their inner-most fears, and his was literally Rogue telling him that he was a piece of shit and that she'd found a real man in Magneto who was a hero and way better than him.

Also, the showrunner literally said it was "key" that Remy thought he didn't deserve to be a hero when he died.

So don't try to bullshit us, writers. It wasn't fucking modesty. Remy truly DIDN'T see himself as hero and he fucking died believing that.

And we've got another one. These teases have been popping up in every episode since ep4...

Those are Remy's colors...

I mean, guys. Come on. COME ON. They're not even subtle about this! Unless the writers are being deliberately misleading just to fuck with us, how does this NOT lead to Horseman-of-Death-Gambit?

So... has anyone else noticed that in that scene from ep4, in the room with all the X-men effigies... the Gambit one had its' skin mysteriously darkened.

All the effigies had the glowing red eyes, but only the Gambit effigy had darkened skin... not unlike a certain Horseman of the Apocalypse.

And let's not forget this...

I mean, I'm not saying this is foreshadowing, but... that sure is what it looks like right now.

Why do these shots look so uncomfortably similar? Did they do this on purpose? Were they meant to parallel each other - Remy being dead and Rogue feeling dead inside? Is that what this is signifying? Is that what they're telling us with this? Haven't we suffered enough?

These writers are fucking sadists...

Curious about something...

Beau DeMayo said that Remy dying thinking that Rogue chose Magneto instead of him was going to be key. So what form will this take?

I guess, the simplest explanation is that Apocalypse uses that heartache to twist Remy into his Horseman of Death and Rogue making him realize that she actually chose him is how they break Apocalypse's hold on him, but what does it do to Rogue in the meantime?

It MUST be on Rogue's mind, but she hasn't acknowledged it yet... so how and when do we think she'll do that? And how painful will it be when she does?

Okay... aside from Lenore Zann ripping my goddamn heart out AGAIN, I love how everyone has completely stopped shying away from how Rogue/Gambit feel about each other.

They're all owning it now. Jubilee saying Remy loved Rogue, Rogue calling Remy, "MY man!" and acknowledging his death for the first time while in the backdrop of a widow mourning her husband. No subtlety at all. The denial is 100% DONE.

Rogue is finally confronting her feelings for Remy. She spent so much time pushing him away out of fear of hurting him with her powers, but now she accepts that she really did love him... and it hurts so fucking much.

The payoff to this better be worth it, I s2g...

At this point, I will accept nothing less than Remy being resurrected as Death or a Prime Sentinel and Rogue bringing him back by telling him she loves him. I'd also be fine with a timeline reset. But if that's not where this is headed, then FUCK THESE WRITERS FOREVER FOR PUTTING ME THROUGH THIS.

Every time I read a post about how all the deaths in ep5 won't be reversed because they weren't reversed in the comics (they actually were during the Krakoa era, but that's beside the point) and in the comics it was a horrific tragedy that nearly wiped out the mutant race and blah blah blah, I just get so frustrated.

The two things are not the same. In the comics, it was easy to stick to this and not reverse the attack somehow because no one important actually died. The only notable characters who were present for it were Magneto and Emma Frost, who both survived. So, yeah, it was an unthinkable mass casualty event, but the casualties were 16,000,000 background extras who nobody gave a shit about anyway.

That is not what happened in X-MEN 97. In ep5, they were killing off named characters, important characters, characters the writers will want to use in the future, characters it would simply be a giant waste to get rid of like this.

And it didn't stop there. They were killing off characters whose storylines hadn't even finished yet, (ex. Gambit, Madelyne) which, to me, is the biggest sign that these events are going to be, if not reversed, then at least changed somehow. I mean, how do you kill a character without concluding their arc first, thus leaving the audience without any kind of closure?

'Oh, you thought the Madelyne/Scott psychic affair storyline was super interesting and couldn't wait to see what happened with it? Too bad, she's dead! That story will just never be finished now, so suck it!'

'Oh, you felt bad for Gambit who didn't think he was a hero or deserved to have a happy ending and got his heart ripped out thinking Rogue chose Magneto over him? Too bad, 'cuz he died believing all that stuff and now Rogue will just be left to drown in her grief/guilt and be consumed with rage forever! *womp womp*'

Fuck. That. Shit.

That's not tragedy, that's not tugging on heartstrings and it's certainly not "Making a Point" or "Sending a Message About How Much the World Sucks." It's just fucking lazy, shitty writing. There's nothing narratively satisfying about it whatsoever, even in a sad way; it's the complete opposite! The only thing that does is frustrate the fuck out of everyone who's watching. That's the kind of slap-in-the-face garbage that makes fans want to ragequit a show, not support it.

So, no, I don't believe that the attack will be completely prevented. No, I don't believe that every death will be undone. But SOMETHING about that event is going to be changed (via time travel, resurrection, etc.) by the time we get to the end of this story. Because if it's not, if all those deaths are permanent and can't be reversed, then this isn't a story... it's just a bunch of bullshit.

It just occurred to me that what's happening right now is eerily similar to something that happened on Family Guy years ago. They pulled a stunt where Brian "died" and was immediately replaced by a new dog.

The very next episode, Brian was removed from the intro title sequence, the new dog Vinnie was put in his place, and for a few weeks, everyone involved with the show tried really hard to sell this, doing interviews about it, acting like the change was permanent, that Brian was gone, Vinnie was here to stay, and it might be sad, but hey, that's life sometimes.

Sound familiar?

Then a couple episodes later, the whole thing was revealed to be a trick. Brian was brought back to life via time travel shinanigans and the writers were like, "Psyche! You totally believed us, didn't you lol? Like we'd ever kill Brian! We'd have to be idiots to do that! LMAO!"

I'm just saying, it's not like this kind of thing has never happened before. Just because Gambit is "dead" at the moment, it doesn't definitively mean he's gone. The X-men franchise is infamous for its' resurrections and there are already three very viable ways they could bring him back, any one of which would make perfect sense:

(1) Cable resets the timeline and changes those events.

(2) Apocalypse resurrects him as Death.

(3) Sinister revives him like he did with Morph.

I'm not saying this isn't going to hurt in the short term - I wouldn't expect them to bring Gambit back immediately - they're going to want to let this sink in first, so get ready for more pain for at least the next few weeks. But try not to lose your heads here.

Trust me, I was as gutted by ep5 as everyone else, but I'd be very surprised if we didn't get some kind of tease of Remy coming back by the end of the finale. The reveal of DEATH!Gambit would make one hell of a season-ending cliffhanger, amirite?

So... has anyone else noticed that in that scene from ep4, in the room with all the X-men effigies... the Gambit one had its' skin mysteriously darkened.

All the effigies had the glowing red eyes, but only the Gambit effigy had darkened skin... not unlike a certain Horseman of the Apocalypse.

And let's not forget this...

I mean, I'm not saying this is foreshadowing, but... that sure is what it looks like right now.

So I know I've been fixated on this, but the more I think about it, the more signs are pointing to the timeline getting reset. Upon rewatch, there are just so many things about the events of ep5 that simply don't add up if this was meant to be permanent.

First, there was that weird psychic blast that hit Madelyne/Jean right before the attack. What was that about? Could it have been Cable? Possibly. But it seems awkward when it happens right before he shows up in the flesh anyway, so my guess is it had to do with someone else. But who?

It might be a stretch, but given what happened in ep6 with Xavier on his way back to Earth now, I could see it being Charles trying to warn them from the future via time travel tech. I might be way off base on that one, but we've certainly seen weirder things happen.

Also, Rogue wearing a version of her famous first-date-with-Remy dress in the comics only to dance with Magneto while Remy dies without knowing that she'd chosen him is a detail that stands out like a sore thumb. That didn't happen by accident. This was a very deliberate choice by the writers and unless the point of it was to just be intentionally cruel to Gambit AND Romy fans, (and I kind of doubt it was) this is going to come back somehow. These writers have been very reverential to the comics and they had to have known how fans would react to that. If those events aren't going to change so Rogue dances with Gambit instead, (paying off that line in ep1 about suffering her hand for a dance) then why do it this way? To heartbreakingly end one of the most iconic and popular relationships from X-MEN TAS, which was built up over 5 seasons, with no payoff at all? How is that an ending that would satisfy anybody?

Maybe I've got my tinfoil hat on a little too tight right now, but I just don't see any way that this is going to stick. I don't know if the attack will be prevented entirely, (probably not, tbh) but something about that night is going to be changed. You don't establish that the whole reason Cable's here is to stop the attack and then have him completely fail at stopping it.

Maybe Cable, Xavier and Forge put their heads together, get Cable's tech working properly and manage to warn everyone in time to make a difference.

In fact, I read a brilliant theory the other day that Xavier would use Madelyne/Jean as psychic conduits to make the X-men and everyone at the gala remember what happened before the attack starts, giving them enough of a heads up to save themselves. And ep5 was literally titled 'Remember It'; I mean, it could be more perfect.

AND since Sinister was behind the attack, how fitting would it be for Cable (the product of Sinister's machinations) to be the one who thwarts him?

What if Cable and Xavier manage to warn everyone in time, all the mutants of Genosha band together with the X-men to take the Wild Sentinel down and then afterward the gala happens, but with Rogue dancing with Remy this time?

I don't know... that's probably wrapping things up too neatly (and the teases of Remy becoming Death are piling up fast, so we can't rule that out) and I'm sure there are going to be consequences to the Sentinel attack that stick even if they do reset things, but narratively, this would make a lot of sense, not to mention finish the story in a way that doesn't leave Gambit/Romy fans utterly depressed and miserable.

Same. As much as I love Kurt, seeing that was a bitter pill to swallow. But the intro has been very fluid and it changes every week. Storm and Bishop's title cards were removed from it as well right after they left and I'm sure they'll be put back in once they return, so this is just a thing that happens. But there are still shots of Remy in the intro even if his title card isn't there right now.

Nightcrawler replacing Gambit in the title sequence is my villain origin story

Just some food for thought...

Episode 2x07 of X-MEN TAS (Time Fugitives Pt. 1) literally ended with all the X-men dead.

You know what happened after that? Cable did some time traveling, changed those events and saved them.

They. Took. Gambit's. Title. Card. Out. Of. The. Intro...

Yeah... yeah, okay. Laugh it up, you cheeky little shits. Have your fun. Keep toying with us. But Gambit fans have built up a hell of a tolerance for angst over the years; we can take it. We know we'll be the ones laughing at the end of this.

Um... yeah. No way did Lenore do THAT by accident. Of all the panels from all the comics she could've used, why this particular one? Homegirl's giving us a clue here.

Not Lenore changing her profile picture to Rogue cradling Gambit after he's resurrected from death/saved from being Death in Knights of X 👀👀👀👀 Spotted by @punkerduckiememes !