The latest chapter on The Gifted is all about the Strucker family as Reed goes to see his daddy with quite the backstory.

But what Red learns in The Gifted Season 1 Episode 8 becomes a game changer for The Gifted Season 1 and the series as a whole.

I'll admit that I've so far been more invested in the underground network than the Strucker family. But "threat of eXtinction" allowed the Strucker family to get another layer. I dug it.

While I'm not an expert on Andre and Andreas from the comics, I knew they would be a big deal here. At least when conversing with fellow comic critics, I could tell it would be important for the Struckers.

I have always suspected that Reed or Caitlin could be carriers of the X-gene. How else would The Gifted explain Lauren and Andy getting powers?

Reed felt like the most obvious solution. The irony of him being a prosecutor that worked with the Sentinel Services only to learn that he has the X-gene was practically carved in stone.

What I don't understand, though, is why Reed still hasn't gotten his abilities. If we're meant to believe the X-gene is still active within him, shouldn't he have powers now?

I could almost picture The Gifted ending its season with a cliffhanger featuring Reed activating his powers. Now that it's out there, we will, without doubt, see Reed wielding some powers sooner or later.

The thing I couldn't wrap my head around was the rushed development with Otto. I almost would have preferred if we'd spent more than one episode with him to justify his mysterious behavior with Reed in the past.

I never felt I got an explanation why he did what he did. Other than being afraid of his involvement with Trask, we didn't learn enough about him.

I usually don't like when shows make something or someone seem like a big deal only for it to the complete opposite. Maybe more answers about Otto's actions will be explained down the line, but don't expect it to be through Otto.

Especially since he, you know, died and all. The important thing we discovered through him was that clearly, the siblings should not be holding hands because of what their powers can do together.

Even before we learned that Andrea and Andre would tie into this mythology, I knew we were meant to pay extra attention to Andy and Lauren. It remains to be seen how they deal with this newly discovered aspect of their characters.

I look forward to seeing how it's executed as I'm sure they won't turn into mutant terrorists. "threat of eXtinction" is so far my favorite Strucker related episode of The Gifted.

We got quite a lot of backstory about Roderick and how seriously messed up he is. At this point, he has truly become the big bad of The Gifted Season 1 and I have no problem with that.

What we saw of Chloe indicates that the Hounds he has working on have gone through literal hell. The fact that Chloe couldn't even speak about them without feeling pain was chilling.

Although that plot point doesn't go unexplained. I'm never a fan of overpowered methods that don't get a backstory. A bad guy too powerful without any answers feels like lazy writing.

"threat of eXtinction" was particularly good for Clarice as we got to see more of her softer side. Don't get me wrong, she has been perfectly justified in being as hard as she has been.

But when it's been more than five episodes, it is probably time to take a break from that and explore another side. I enjoyed her being so sisterly with the new mutant refugee and how she got Dreamer to use her powers in a helpful way.

Are we simply going to leave that whole Dreamer-infusing-fake-memories-on-Clarice plot behind us? Or will Clarice get them out of her system at any point? I need answers!

Overall, "threat of eXtinction" was another strong hour of what continues to be one of the best new shows of the season. The Struckers stole the spotlight this time as we got some needed background on the family.