Marvel's Runaways S02E06-07 Review: Fracture & Reunion

Marvel's Runaways, Season 2, Episode 6: Bury Another; Episode 7: Last Rites

Holy shit, this really felt like a season finale, huh? I honestly wonder if the first season was actually meant to build up to this point, or if this whole sequence was meant to be the entirety of the second season? Regardless, I didn't expect the Runaways/PRIDE/Jonah three-way to even be straight-up concluded at the end of episode 7. We still have half the season to go! Like, sure, there definitely are a lot of hanging plot points, and I'm not 100% that the Jonah storyline is over yet (they're aliens, after all), but it definitely was a pretty tense pair of episodes. 

Episode 6 is a typical "escalation" episode as all of the characters basically continue on with their respective plans. There is a bit of suspension of disbelief where I went "no, you idiots, why are you still even cooperating with him?" when Jonah dropped Robert Minoru in front of PRIDE and basically demanded that they still cooperate, and that the earthquakes are totally not going to harm the world... but the episode is fast-paced enough that this particular bit of questionable behaviour could be chalked up to PRIDE simply not having enough time to discuss and react. 

And... and at the end of the sixth episode, we basically have things rising up to a lot of revelations. Jonah beats the shit out of Geoffrey Wilder while he's in a gym shower, using him as a sacrifice to restore his body when Leslie refuses to give Jonah another sacrifice... and then when the Runaways infiltrate the building, they kidnap Geoffrey back. Chase and Gert get into a whole lot of arguments, caused not just by Gert calling Chase's mom to sign off on her meds, but also becuase Gert is doing all of this on her own. And Karolina came clean to Nico about her meetings with Jonah, as well as the revelation that Jonah killed Amy.  And... and I do appreciate the plot and character developments moving pretty quickly, even if I do think the Chase/Gert stuff felt pretty kind of detached from the rest of the episode. And while I do think that Chase does have a right to be angry... he's a massive dick in this one, yeah?

In between revelations and the adults' infighting, the Runaways plan that aforementioned raid on the Gibborim church (with a genuinely hilarious bit where Karolina distracts the entire congregation with a light show, which they take for a miracle), leading to them getting Geoffrey as a prisoner, while also disocvering Victor being alive, but suspended in that sci-fi machine. 

And then we get episode 7, where the confrontation happens. The Runaways team up with Geoffrey Wilder, in a manner of speaking, as they decide to get to the dig site and dig out Karolina's "siblings", rescuing these aliens and giving them a chance. Because murder is bad! What they don't know, though, is that PRIDE is also doing their own thing. The Yorkes are doing their alien necrosis bullets, Victor Stein is freed and immediately helps Janet develop some weird sci-fi frisbee, while Jonah is desperate to basically form a connection with Karolina (and Leslie, to a far lesser degree). And... and credit where credit's due, it's genuinely well-done acting, where Jonah displays both parts of his emotions and motivations very well. He clearly really wants to be a good dad -- but his concept of a 'father' and his possessive ultimatums do make it clear that there's a lot of Jonah's own ugly personality seething under that facade of fatherhood. 

Eventually, after Jonah figures out that Karolina is trying to distract him away from the dig site (god damn it Leslie for helping him figure it out), everyone ends up arriving in the dig site. The parents and Jonah face off against each other, and Jonah is absolutely ready to just murder everyone else in the hole (and everyone else present, really) because all he cares about is Karolina and the rest of his race. And I do like that this basically means that Jonah is still driven by the same desires that drive the other members of the cast -- protect his family, fuck everyone else. Julian McMahon's confused expression when Jonah is confused that his teenaged daughter would lie to him is absolutely hilarious. "But we have a connection!" Oh, parenting. Even immortal aliens aren't immune to it. 

The Runaways' attempt to free Karolina's family didn't work, and Karolina is forced to evacuate Chase and Molly from the hole. Nico has the staff, so she elects to stay behind. Alex, Geoffrey and Gert also eventually join the confrontation, just as Jonah orders the alien ship to launch. And I do like just how bizarrely alien that ship is, it's a giant... rainbow blob making sounds like a singing whale, and it's actually genuinely beautiful. 

Of course, the confrontation is absolutely neat. After the obligatory verbal showdown, the actual climax is not so much of an action scene. While the Runaways (mostly Karolina and Chase's Fistigons) try their best to talk down or delay Jonah, the parents actually manage to do something -- the combined sci-fi weapons made by the Steins and the Yorkes eventually succeed in causing black necrosis to overwhelm the alien ship and blow it up. 

Of course, the one to make the most badass dynamic entry in this climax is Nico Minoru. After her "oh no, is she hurt?" bit when she doesn't come out of the hole, she bursts out in a massive magic whirlwind, lands on the ground in perhaps one of the most straight-up teen superhero moments ever... and then as she slowly stalks towards Jonah, who is absolutely enraged at the death of his ship and is about to presumably murder the parents, we get Nico basically going through a couple of lines hammered home into her head. "Jonah. Killed. Amy." And honestly? As humanized as Jonah has been to Karolina and the audience, we have established, really hard, that Nico's most raw nerve is the fact that her kid sister was brutally murdered. Can you blame her for slamming her staff into the Yorkes' necrosis goop and then stabbing Jonah in the back for it? 

Meanwhile, while Jonah seems to be out of the game, he might return. The Jonah body glows after Nico stabs it, returning to what appears to be a different, human, Australian-accented Jonah, pre-alien-possession, to a very confused state, while the alien!Jonah did mutter about how "we're going to have to take it all". That's for later, though, because the immediate conflict is the very, very mournful yell from Karolina as she sees her girlfriend murder the shit out of her evil alien dad. 

With the alien ship blown up (a moment that honestly does feel a bit tragic considering taht none of them have really done anything wrong other than the circumstance of causing some earthquakes) and Jonah dead, the Runaways and their parents are reunited. Nico casts a sleep spell to allow the Runaways to, well, run away again, but there are definitely things that are going on. Karolina is absolutely pissed off at Nico murdering her dad, becuase, well... as Karolina points out, she had the sleep spell, and they could've stopped Jonah without having to murder him. With Karolina losing both her father and her alien 'brothers' that she tried to save, I'm curious if this is the impetus for Karolina potentially fighting against the rest of her friends.

Overall, though, it's a climactic, bombastic arc finale as far as the dig site, Jonah and PRIDE goes. I'm curious to see what we're going to have after this. Is it just going to be the fallout from the alien stuff? Or is it just going to be 100% teenage drama all the way through? This half-season isn't perfect. Some of the character-juggling felt a bit awkward -- Chase felt under utilized the whole way through, while Alex and Gert's gang life and anxiety storylines, while well executed, felt like they could've been integrated with the rest of the story a bit better. And in the climax, there definitely were a lot of parents that felt like they were there just because. But god damn, it sure as hell was entertaining, and I am definitely a huge fan of this arc of Runaways's second season. 

Random Notes:

• Episode 7 has this whole Frank Dean side-story where he's trying his best to get the hang of this Church of Gibborim stuff while it's thrust in the middle of the Runaways/Jonah/PRIDE conflict... and accidentally gets confronted by the brother of Destiny Gonzalez, the kid killed in the first season's premiere. Frank accidentally killed the brother during the ensuing struggle with a gun, which presumably is going to be a huge storyline to lead into the second part of the season. 
• Chase's bitter snap at his mother about how "this won't be the first time, or the hundredth time" that his father would be different is perfectly delivered. 
• Alex's "you're in my house now" line to Geoffrey is also perfectly delivered, and you really do feel just the amout of spite in Alex's voice. 
• Alex's line about being an "NPC in the MMORPG of your lives" because everyone keeps going to him for advice is kinda hilarious, becuase... honestly, as well-acted as that Alex/Darius storyline is, he is kind of the most detached from the rest of the core Runaways team. 
• The final shot of episode 6, with Karolina being so happy and free and unburdened after letting go of her secrets, as the camera rotates to Nico, whose face just goes through a range of emotions as she tries to process the news that she now knew who Amy's murderer is... that's pretty well done. 
• They really still don't have the budget to show Old Lace doing anything cool but hang out and make cute dinosaur sounds, huh. 
• And as fun as that line where Gert lampshades how she's going to be just a lookout on their mission, it does kind of really sideline her from anything not relationship-drama-related, which is a shame. 
• Geoffrey did get a lot of neat scenes in episode 7 interacting with the kids, particularly realizing that Alex Wilder is way more awesome of a hacker than he gave the kid credit for. He doesn't really get too much to do or say, but his cooperation with the kids is definitely well executed.
• That line about Geoffrey thinking that Alex was watching How To Train A Dragon when he was learning how to do some FBI-level hacking. 
• Dale interrupting Jonah's speech about how they all remember their children's births, mumbling about how he got a panic attack when Gert was born, is such a mood-ruiner, but man, such a hilarious one. 
• Victor Stein talking to his wife and son about how there's that future message from Future Adult Chase is... I completely forgot about this plot point, honestly, and I'm curious to see if it's going to lead anywhere. 
• Tina Minoru is now unable to use the Staff of One, which has imprinted entirely to Nico. An interesting development, particularly since this does mean that PRIDE is probably out of any sort of extra-human ability to fight. Tina's absolutely great expression of pride when she realizes this is amazing. 
• The Gibborim drivers being all "IT'S A MIRACLE FROM GAWD" when Alex hacks their trucks and has them drive away is probably the most hilarious joke in these two episodse. 
• Jonah talks to someone called "Xavin" and orders him to get the ship to take off. We'll hopefully see more of this Xavin fellow!