Marvel's Runaways S01E02 Review: Parents

Marvel's Runaways, Season 1, Episode 2: Rewind

So in yesterday's review of Runaways' first episode, I talked about how the parents were largely identikit and felt way too bland and uninteresting for us to care that they are secretly a cult. Nico and Chase's mother and father (respectively) are domineering control-freaks, and obviously all (well, almost all, anyway) of them turn out to be part of this mysterious "Pride" organization. It just didn't quite click until this point that only Caroline's parents are part of the Church of Gibborim. Whoops!

So the episode takes the rather odd but in my opinion perhaps necessary state of showing all the events that has happened through the parents' eyes. We get to see just, well, how different the parents are, even if the kids do have an unsubtle bit of introdump this episode. Chase going "my father is obsessed with time travel!" out of nowhere felt the most awkward. But we learn a bit more about them -- we learn that Geoffrey Wilder used to be the leader of the local gang and is forced to intimidate his former lieutenant to stop trying to strongarm money from him. (And said lieutenant, Darius, does the phone-clone trope that is so common in TV). Nico's father is a lot more nebbish, and her mother Tina is the domineering force in the household. Oh, and she wields like a magic staff too. 

Carolina's father is a disgraced actor thanks to his tainted reputation due to his ties to the church of Scientology Gibborim, and is now trying to make his way into the higher-up parts of the church, almost disturbing the enigmatic disheveled old man in a mask that Leslie keeps in the basement. And we get to see Leslie chillingly emotionally manipulate Destiny, the child sacrifice last episode, to come for the Pride meeting. The Yorkes-es are... just... happy hipster parents. I don't think they actually do much beyond being different from the rest. Victor Stein is a superstar scientist that is apparently working with time travel, mucking around with this weird sci-fi bubble bed thing and experimenting on rats. Also, we get explicit confirmation that he actually abuses Chase (and is at least emotionally abusive to his wife too), so boo hiss. 

Which is all well and good, although I really wished all this character development is done without having to turn the clock back and go 'hey, look, what are the parents doing?' It feels a bit jarring, as much as I enjoy how interesting the makeup of the kids and the parents that make up Pride, which come from all different sects of society -- mob bosses turned good, what seems to be a witch, a super-smart super-antisocial super-genius, a religious cult and a pair of smiling happy parents who apparently have a dinosaur in their basement (not a crocodile monster, whoops). 

And most interestingly, the parents also play out quite similarly to their children -- diverse in their cliques (similar to how the kids fill in the 'jock', 'goth', 'geek', 'alpha female' et cetera criteria of a high school) and while they understand why they need their friends, they also don't particularly like each other. It's all bogged down somewhat by just how enigmatic everyone is despite Pride supposedly having everyone on the same page. 

But still, the acting is decent enough and the buildup across the slow first episode works enough so that when we actually cut back to the titular Runaways we kind of root for them. They brush everything over with a 'yeah, the breaker flipped and we were totally playing Twister'. I'm not sure, again, if delaying the final shot -- Wilder texting everyone to gather together and figure it out -- couldn't have been the final shot of the previous episode, though... I dunno. It's enjoyable as it is slow-paced. (The kids are mostly just fun and bonding this episode, with the bulk of the developments going to their parents -- no one mentions Molly's powers yet).

So yeah, the premise of the show suddenly becomes far more interesting when it's Geoffrey, Wilder's dad, who discovers a hairclip on the floor. It's not 'oh shit, the bad guy's found our heroes out!' but rather questions on just how must Geoffrey is willing to sacrifice for Pride. He's easily the one that's the most conflicted about killing poor Destiny, he's the one that is shown to be on very good terms with his child (unlike Nico and Chase). So 'what will Geoffrey do' is far more exciting than if Leslie's husband discovers her basement mummy or the wtf moment when Victor opens the... time capsule or whatever and Destiny is still alive.

So yeah. It's definitely good that we're getting pretty down-to-earth characters that are easily relatable, especially the villains, in a show that promises to have colourful madness like magic wands and dinosaurs.