Marvel's Runaways S02E08 Review: Immortal Aliens

Marvel's Runaways, Season 2, Episode 8: Past Life

As we start off what feels like the clean mid-season point for the plotlines of Runaways' second season, we get a bit of a lukewarm episode that mostly revolves around "okay, Jonah is dead, what do we do now?" The audience does get a brief little bit of hints that Jonah, or at least his race, isn't quite done yet. We get to see a flashback of the alien-we-know-as-Jonah moved from a different body to a different body, eventually ending into the body of a doctor called Jonah, and eventually founding the Church of Gibborim, inspiring Leslie Dean's father to inspire a new religion while also meeting young Leslie for the first time. (Also, ew ew ew). I guess that's the explanation for the 'light leaving Jonah' bit from the previous episode. Okay? 

Meanwhile, both PRIDE and the Runaways are trying to pick up the pieces of what's going on with their lives, which is definitely something that's going to happen after the life-shaking revelations they've been through. PRIDE goes through a brief, muted celebration before deciding that, hey, their kids should return to them now, right? We don't see a ton of PRIDE outside of this other than the Wilders and the Deans. The Wilders basically are involved heavily in the Darius subplot, although most of what we see is Geoffrey calling out Catherine for being a goddamn idiot for ordering the hit on Livvie (very nearly causing Alex, Tamar and the baby to get shot), and Geoffrey eventually making amends, of sorts, with Tamar at the end of the episode.

Meanwhile, Frank Dean is desperate to hold on to the power he's climbed to in the Church of Gibborim, panicking when Leslie basically tells of her intent to shut down the church and PRIDE, since Jonah's gone. Frank asks for Leslie in assistance in disposing of Oscar Gonzalez's body, but ends up backstabbing Leslie and taking incriminating photographs and seemingly about to use this to spin Leslie as a criminal, which would lead the Church to him. Okay? I can't say I really care all that much for Frank Dean, but it's... it's a storyline, I suppose. 

Frank isn't the only man melting down over the dissolution of PRIDE. PRIDE's main hitman slash go-to-guy for messy stuff like cover ups, Flores, ends up being told in no uncertain manners by Leslie that this is going to be their last job, and Flores clearly doesn't like this. He likes PRIDE's money, after all, and after showing up in the various related storylines in this episode (masterminding the Wilder hit, cleaning up Frank Dean's mistake), he ends up showing up in the end as part of the team that investigates the Runaways' attempt to infiltrate the hotel, coming face to face with little Molly. It's interesting -- Flores seems to be built up as a villain of an arc or something, and I'm curious where this is going, even if I'm not invested. 

Speaking of the Runaways, other than Karolina, who's still super-pissed at the death of her father, and sits out this episode's main mission for a B-plot of her own. The kids basically decide to bring down PRIDE and have them answer for all their crimes, like the child sacrifices, and it's... interesting. With all of the focus on parent/children relationship particularly in the second season, it's easy to -- like Chase -- completely forgot that the parents in PRIDE are all criminals and murderers. And the first step to do this, as Alex realizes, is to try and make his father pay for Darius's death. Cooperating with Livvie and bringing her along for this mission, the Runaways go for a fun little heist as they infiltrate the hotel where Darius is killed, wanting to allow Alex access to hack the security tapes. 

And... it's kind of an excuse to throw in some hijinks, really. Mostly on the Gert/Chase front, where Chase finds out that Gert's been making secret college plans, and the two are forced to do their argument while pretending to be newlyweds to fool a hotel staff lady, which... yeah, it's funny to a point, I guess, although I do feel like this romantic argument storyline has really kind of ran its course and feels a bit tiring at this point. The acting is great, which is what made the scenes bearable to watch. And while Alex and Livvie none-too-subtly flirt with each other, Nico and Molly end up accidentally realizing that their cover's blown, and, of course, the Runaways run away. Molly ends up staying behind, planning to break out with her super strength later on, but, of course, is confronted by Flores. Oops!

Not the most eventful episode, and we're seemingly setting up for a lower-stakes arc or something, but I did like what we got in this episode. 

Random Notes:

• Karolina goes off on her own to enter the Church through some neat little excuses, and ends up discovering a message left behind from Jonah. I'm not sure where we're going with Karolina, and I'm happy that we're not sure if she's going to betray the Runaways and embrace her alien-hood or if she's going to just go through a phase, as it were. 
• I'm a fan of that montage-like sequence of scenes as the Runaways basically do their plan to infiltrate the hotel. 
• It's really confusing that both the alien and the host body are called "Jonah". 
• It took me way too long to realize that the dude that shot at Livvie is also a policeman that shows up multiple times later on in the episode.