Headscratchers / Inhumans

• Will they mention Afterlife? I can understand that they would ignore specific people, but a second inhuman city would seem to be way more important than that.
  • The first episodes demonstrate that they are aware that descendants of those left behind during the move to the moon in the distant past are still on Earth, and that Black Bolt is aware of the random Inhumans popping up, but that the society as a whole has been cut off from Earth and is largely unaware that they have brethren on the surface.
• After Black Bolt got his powers and accidentally killed his parents, why didn't the Inhumans install some kind of plexiglass or something in the Terrigenesis chamber just in case someone else gains potentially destructive abilities? When those two kids came out of the chamber in the first episode, for all they knew, one of them could have sprayed acid everywhere...
  • On a related note, why didn't Black Bolt take out the entire Royal family/ruling elite when he emerged from Terrigenesis? It would have been natural for him to say something at that point before anyone realised his voice was deadly, surely?
• When Triton was pursued by soldiers in the opening sequence, gets shot, and jumps off a cliff into the water, one of the soldiers says into his radio, "Target eliminated." It turns out the soldiers were working for Maximus, as opposed to being American soldiers as implied. If that's the case, shouldn't they be well aware that Triton can breathe water and had successfully escaped?
  • Considering he was shot, they probably figured he more of fell into the water from blood loss rather than jumping off it.

• So, Medusa was given that name before going through Terrigenesis? Was it just a massive coincidence that she ended up getting hair-related powers??
  • Eh, she didn't get people turning into stone powers. Maybe that was what her parents were hoping for.
• Considering that the king himself cannot talk, why does no one use text or video-based communication? We know they have the technology- it's used several times to broadcast images into the sky- but no one has thought to make it so Black Bolt has a way of communicating when not face-to-face?

• On a related note, it seems as if only Medusa can translate what Black Bolt is signing, even in the presence of the royal family. None of them have learned sign language to communicate with their own king?
  • Maximus seems to know what Black Bolt means when he signs, the times that Black Bolt directly signs to him. It's likely that the ones who know it best would be those who have known him the longest or talk to him the most. Medusa might just translate for people who aren't directly related to him or don't know what Black Bolt means as well as she would.
  • Except the only people Black Bolt talks to are the royal family, with whom he seems to spend all of his time. So Karnak and Black Bolt could never have a conversation by themselves? Gorgon and Black Bolt getting into the elevator together would just lead to thirty seconds of awkward silence?
    • Karnak might be able to employ his powers to accurately read BB's expressions and intuit specific meaning. Gorgon may only ever need or ask for simple responses along the lines of yes/no/"this one"/four/etc., that don't require speech.

• Why would Medusa even entertain the possibility that an ATM would give her money, just because she's the queen of Attilan? She's not completely stupid; she knows that Earth is hostile to Inhumans, and that they have no idea Attilan exists, rendering all her royal power useless.
  • Best guess is it was supposed to be a joke, a light hearted moment showing she's out of her comfort zone. But everything is so badly written it comes off as stupid instead.
  • One thing that's always missed with these jokes is that the people doing it have zero understanding of the technology. Viewers forget that to recognize how use something, you have to be familiar with something similar. In this instance, Medusa only saw someone pull what she money out of the ATM. She recognizes it as money because she's seen similar bills being used previously. She didn't see what was done for the device to distribute the money, no concept of magnetic strip cards, or PI Ns. She's just desperate and will try anything. I mean, would you know how to use an espresso machine? Most people probably wouldn't even recognize one if they saw it, and we know that espresso machines are a thing.
  • It's not a matter of Medusa mistaking how the technology works; it's her thinking that she has a scrap of royal power on Earth. Again, Medusa isn't supposed to be that stupid. She knows about both Earth culture and Attilan's non-status, and she just goes and tries to assert her authority anyway.

• So apparently Medusa and Crystal's parents were exiled. Considering that the moon, as far as we know, is just Attilan, where were they exiled to? The slums where all the laborers live? If that's the case, why spare the children instead of sending the whole family?
  • Maximus banishes the Genetic Council as well, maybe they get banished to Earth?
    • That makes sense for the prior generation, but it raises a new question: If Maximus wants to go to Earth, would banishing the Genetic Council really be a punishment? Even if he's trying to avoid killing people, doesn't Attilan have a prison or a dungeon beneath the palace or something where they can stash these guys? Also, if Medusa and Crystal's parents were on Earth, does that mean we could see them showing up? Black Bolt has been secretly sending people to look for Earth Inhumans so he could have been looking for his wife's parents at the same time, though granted Earth is pretty huge and they could already be dead.
  • Maximus in an earlier episode refers to his parents killing Medusa's. One gets the sense "banish" is a euphemism.
  • Perhaps those who are exiled are sent elsewhere in the moon, beyond the dome... with all that entails

• Presumably the Genetic Council would have "good" powers, so why haven't they used them? Even in situations where it's clear that trouble is coming none of the guys (and ladies) in robes ever display any powers, whether to fight back or escape. For that matter, shouldn't at least some guards have powers too? Why are they always subduing the council/attacking the Royals/guarding Crystal with guns? I actually assumed the guards didn't have any powers, and that's why they joined up with Maximus, before realizing that Gorgon has powers and is the leader of the Guard and that at least some of Maximus' little Earth-bound hunting party are probably guards and they all seem to have powers. Or are the guards we see after Maximus' coup just a bunch of those non-powered guys and Maximus said "You're guards now, here's some armor and a gun"?
  • For the guards it's mostly a budget thing. Characters with a name and personality get powers. As for the Council, they probably have powers related to intelligence. Not every power is going to have an application during a fight.
    • I get that not everyone's going to have combat-applicable powers, and the Genetic Council might even be more likely to have, say, analytical abilities or something as opposed to more flashy abilities. While out-of-universe it makes sense for budget reasons, especially given the show, it just seems to stretch suspension of disbelief that in a society based on superpowers, where the divide is explicitly between people with "good" mutations and people with weak or useless mutations, we don't see even members of the elite (presumably the Council is pretty important) displaying any sign of qualifying powers. It makes the show feel more unbalanced since it gives the impression that there's a small number of powered people at the top (the Royal Family + Maximus' hunters) rather than a more-or-less functioning society of powered people in sufficient numbers to oppress the non-powered people.
    • To be fair we rarely see the council or the guards do much of anything. Auran has super healing powers, but still uses a laser pistol, if she was just another background guard you wouldn't know what power she had.

• Maximus carried out a largely-bloodless coup, especially as far as anyone outside the palace would have known, and did so largely on the basis of getting the (presumed majority?) of the population, those being non- or low-powered Inhumans, to follow him. It hasn't been that long since he's become king and promised to take everyone to Earth, yet only one guy in all of Attilan is going on the mission to Earth willingly? One guy? No-one else signed up, even if it's just to get to Earth? I know Attilan's got a finite population but for some reason that stands out as something that stretches disbelief.
  • Maximus's coup's biggest promise wasn't going to Earth, it was making everyone equal. Going to Earth is in there, but it's probably not the main draw for most of his followers. And the group going to Earth were being sent as soldiers to fight a guy who could obliterate you with a polite cough. Most would rather stay in the comfort and safety of the city they know then be sent down to a world that's probably hostile to them (why the Inhumans left in the first place) to fight a guy who can disintegrate you with zero effort.
    • It just seems odd that they stressed the fact that there's literally only one guy they didn't have to forcibly draft. It would have made more sense (or at least stood out less) if they'd addressed the fact that Maximus was sending random non-soldiers to Earth instead of, for example, more guards, but it was presented more as "Maximus is losing popularity with the people" instead of the much more obvious "Maximus is asking some really big things of people without any training."
• Why were the guys plotting against Maximus doing so in the palace, and at least once right outside his throne room while he was watching them? That seems particularly dumb. Not only could someone have been listening in, but this is in a civilization with supposedly advanced technology: Modern-day Earth has surveillance technology like security cameras and listening devices, but Attilan doesn't? Were these guys just being careless or what?
  • Maximus even calls them out on their stupidity. It's possible that they viewed him as "just human" and didn't think he would pick up on the coup.
• Were the Royals always planning on abandoning Louise, with Medusa asking her to "help" Dave distract the police being a ploy to leave Louise behind without having to outright say "Sorry, Inhumans only?" I got that impression when Louise was excited about going to the moon and Medusa and Black Bolt exchange meaningful looks, but the distract-the-police aspect made it weird since they could have just teleported away with no need to interact with the police at all. They didn't need a distraction/extra time at all, unless Lockjaw was still hurt and needed time to work up to teleporting, but if that's what they were trying to convey it was really unclear. His prior teleportation didn't seem to require a countdown/wait before teleporting.
  • The distract the police part was just a convenient excuse to avoid telling her directly they weren't taking her to the moon.
• So...how come Thaddeuss Ross and Tony Stark haven't gone after these guys? The Defenders and the Punisher are already wanted by local law enforcement, and the Runaways fit in that whole "too young to sign the Accords" loophole. None of that covers the Inhuman Royal Family, whose presence the general public is now well aware of (unlike the Masters of the Mystic Arts)...so how come nobody is hunting down to force them to sign the Accords? Black Bolt alone can demolish an entire city block by saying "hello", that's the kind of power that Ross and Stark are afraid of.
  • Most of the Royal Family was isolated, only Black Bolt did anything that would make the general population aware of a meta-human in the area. And they don't seem to be on Earth for a long period of time. If you want to be generous you could say that we as the audience never see any government response (just like we never see the police look for Black Bolt after he escaped from prison).
  • Is there any indication as to when on the timeline this takes place? For all we know, it could take place before the accords were even conceived, let alone Ross and Stark started going after people who didn't sign them and didn't have excuses not to.
• While I'm fine with the Royal Family who were just picking up on their flaws. What I want to know is why they were so insistent on maintaining the Caste System after their ancestors had one brutal experience with Hive?
  • Though it isn't explained well at all, it seems the Inhumans have an enemy known only to the king and the head of the council. Chances are they were going for having a society at peak efficiency in order to best be able to protect themselves.
  • It is mentioned at one point that the hardships of living on the Moon are a major reason the caste system exists (that they need people to work the mines, one would assume not enough are willing to do it so they have to be forced to instead), but it'd be nice to have it detailed more.
• Just to be clear, does Black Bolt think sealing Maximus in a bunker forever is a lesser punishment than execution, or is he doing it specifically to be cruel? Solitary confinement in prisons is considered by the UN to be torture, and *those* prisoners get to go outside, eat different meals and have their clothes laundered. At best, the power fails right after the dome falls and Maximus freezes to death in total darkness. At worst, Maximus goes utterly insane from isolation and sheer monotony, dying surrounded by piles of his own waste since he has no way of getting rid of it. And that's more merciful than Black Bolt just instantly atomizing him...apparently.