“Past as Prologue” is episode one of season two of Mutant X.
In the season one finale, “A Breed Apart”, Gabriel Ashlocke had taken out the GSA and stuck Eckhart inside one of his pods. This episode opens with Ashlocke threatening someone inside a mansion as Shalimar watches from outside. The man tells Ashlocke that what he wants is probably in the wall safe and opens it, retrieving an urn, after which Ashlocke blasts him. Shalimar jumps in through the window and Ashlocke is threatening to blast her when Brennan arrives and blasts Ashlocke instead. Ashlocke gets knocked down, but he manages to blast Brennan out of the window and knock Shalimar down. The jet appears outside and, when Ashlocke tries to blast them again, he can’t. He takes the urn and leaves.
Adam is listening to Proxy Blue talking about what happened when Shalimar and Brennan return. He asks what they were thinking. Shalimar tracked Ashlocke and Brennan tracked Shalimar. They tell him that Ashlocke nearly passed out. Adam asks if he was sick, physically sick. He thinks this is a good opportunity. Not to take Ashlocke down; to cure him. Shalimar does not like that idea.
Ashlocke is telling a woman, Azira, he overdid it as she drags a device through his flesh. Shalimar jolts awake to see Ashlocke in her room. Emma enters and Shalimar tells her Ashlocke was there. Emma says he was just in Shalimar’s mind. Azira has finished Ashlocke’s treatment. She confirms that he’s dying; his power is killing him. All she can do is make him comfortable. Ashlocke states he was born to rule; it’s the ones who get in his way who die.
Adam is telling Jesse and Emma that they are not executioners. Yes, they are going to rescue the man who want to kill them. Adam needs a current sample of Ashlocke’s DNA to save him. Ashlocke, meanwhile, is talking to Azira about alchemy. It’s no more magical than gene splicing or DNA therapy. There was a reason he got the burial urn. As Ashlocke and Azira leave, Emma and Jesse phase in.
Adam is with Brennan, who thinks possibly he should have gone; he knows more about breaking and entering. And will what Adam’s working on work? If it doesn’t, they will go with Plan B. They don’t have Plan B. Shalimar enters; she’s definitely not happy to find out Adam is working on a cure for Ashlocke.
Jesse phases through a door into Ashlocke’s room and Emma waits outside. Another woman approaches and tells Emma that Ashlocke doesn’t like newcomers down here. Emma says she has known Ashlocke for a while. Her dissemblance isn’t working, so Emma blasts the woman with a mental bolt as Jesse returns with a sample.
Gabriel is telling Azira that his bracelet came from an ancient alchemist, Avaris, who he has perfectly reconstructed as a hologram. He’s using a culture from Avaris’s DNA to grow her a new body and bring her back to life. Then, she’ll be able to use her magic to save Ashlocke. Azira thinks that they were primitives; Ashlocke thinks they sound like mutants.
Outside Ashlocke’s lair, with an intrusion detected everyone is being called in as Shalimar approaches. Followed by Emma, who wants her to come back. Then a man in a car tries hitting on them both. Shalimar destroys his door. Emma asks if they can go now. Yes. Back at the Sanctuary, Shalimar sees Ashlocke again and Emma seemingly can as well. She uses her powers on Shalimar, which causes Ashlocke to vanish.
Adam sends Jesse and Brennan to Manhattan, as the Strand has sent a strike team there. To steal an Ancient Egyptian divination game.
Ashlocke is at least as bad a boss as Eckhart ever was and it does look like Shalimar might have a point about putting him down for good. There are a few changes inside the Sanctuary; the virtual dojo is gone. The view from outside is now real, not a computer-generated image. Some of the more futuristic computers look to have been replaced with normal ones.
With the GSA out of it, there’s a new enemy in Ashlocke and the Strand and adding magic into the mix is different.