Marvel's Runaways, Season 1, Episode 9: Doomsday
Where are the CW shows, you're asking? Well, I'm on a little break from superhero shows at the moment. A little bit of burn-out. Rest assured that I'll still review them eventually, but at the moment I just didn't feel like watching them, and their episode reviews will be released intermittently.
Yeah, it's a bit of a shame that the first season of Runaways fails to really stick the landing. While I wouldn't say that the two final episodes are actually bad, they do fail to really deliver in any of the mysteries, storylines or character payoffs built up over the first eight episodes. Part of it is because the entire season is supposed to be a prologue to a more proper Runaways storyline, but it ends up feeling like they definitely could've done something far more interesting and different for the climax. Add copious amounts of kissing and shipping vaguely handwaved away with "we're going to die and I'm scared", and this episode sadly feels somewhat dull. Add that to how Chase's emotional breakdown is treated like a whiny "come on, guys, I'm sorry." moment when it took us the better half of a two-parter and a heist to obtain the evidence. Other than the coldness between Nico and Alex, none of the relationships feel genuinely earned. Chase suddenly realizing he likes Gert more than Karolina, or Nico liking Karolina, both feel unearned and pop out of nowhere. The actors try their best with what they're given, but it, again, feels really unearned.
The Runaways finally face off against the parents after an inspiring speech from Alex about how "we're friends and I won't face the world with anyone else" speech, and it feels clunkily delivered, especially since the past few episodes have been flip-flopping between shoehorning conflict and having them resolved off-screen. Again, there's some leeway given to them since they're kids after all, but kiddy emotional instability can only get us so far.
We also get even more mysteries thrown down the line which would be fine if this wasn't the penultimate episode in a season that hasn't made good on any of the mysteries it built up. Well, it sort of answers the origins of Molly's powers -- some pulsating meteor with ambiguous comic-book sci-fi powers -- and that Leslie Dean was the one that killed the Hernandezes, blowing up their house and inadvertently giving Molly some superpowers. She is actually in cahoots with Tina, who actually did burn her hand on a stove and not while using some fiery magic spell or whatever.
At least it ends up leading towards a pretty amazing standoff as the massive army of parents walk up to their kids in the construction site (after Molly well and truly fucks it up by dropping a vehicle down the hole). The "we're a family" line as the parents demand their kids to get home, but they stand together with Fistigons, dinosaur and glowing rainbow powers activated makes a pretty stunning visual.
Again, I really want to praise this since I honestly, genuinely enjoy it... but the entire ten-episode season ends up feeling so much more like a two-parter pilot stretched over way too many episodes. Ah well.
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