Marvel's Runaways S02E09-10 Review: Marine Biologists & Gangsters

Marvel's Runaways, Season 2, Episode 9: Big Shot; Episode 10: Hostile Takeover

A pair of episodes that basically deal with a little side-plot after the heavy Jonah stuff. We're clearly building up to a follow-up on the alien business, but while all of it is going on, we have to deal with Alex Wilder and his attempts to shoehorn in some police/gangster drama into the whole thing. And to be fair, it's not like the Alex/Livvie/AWOL storyline is poorly written or anything, but I dunno. It just kinda feels underwhelming? With Runaways being sort of open-ended at this point as we kick-start the second half of the season, if eels honestly underwhelming. Maybe it would've felt better running as a B-plot secondary to something bigger, as opposed to being the technical main storyline? I dunno. The acting of the cast is pretty fantastic. Corrupt officer Flores and AWOL are both pretty great actors, and Alex's actor Rhenzy Feliz gets to flex a lot of great acting chops, but ultimately the two-parter sort of fell short to me.

Basically, episode 9 and 10 is all about Alex's character. As he tries to be a great chessmaster, turns out that his biggest flaw -- his inability to read people -- is still there. He ends up lying to both Livvie and the Runaways at different parts of his plan, not aware at how much it hurts both his credibility and his relationship with them. He ends up underestimating the "small fish", officer AWOL, seeing him as an easily-manipulated pawn that's totally going to help him bring down Flores and eventually PRIDE, not realizing how vengeful AWOL will end up being, nor did he anticipate AWOL basically going to PRIDE on his own and offering his services.

Eventually, after a lot of various forms of evidence and blackmail are tossed in the air, episode 9's situation ends with AWOL finally securing a stronger ally in PRIDE, locking Flores and killing him in a meat locker, and he's out for blood for the Runaways. All the while, Alex ends up making more and more stupid plans -- like going into the restaurant with basically no plan beyond "hey, I have super-powered friends, they'll figure things out" without informing them of what his goal is, or to cut a deal with AWOL without making sure Livvie is okay with it. And, again, the basic storyline of Alex having to juggle his relationship with Livvie and the Runaways, while also trying to put himself in a cops-and-gangsters storyline and failing miserably because he can't read people is a neat one, but ultimately one that wasn't executed as well.

While all of this is going on, there are other things happening with other characters! After some drone began to spread a bunch of gas onto the wild, Old Lace gets absolutely sick, which means Gert gets absolutely sick as well thanks to their psychic link, a sickness that ends up taking up her storyline for the majority of the two episodes. Chase and Gert gets some neat scenes together, which, while I'm not the biggest fan of, is neat. At least that romantic tension's resolved, yeah?

And as the PRIDE parents are torn between dealing with Flores and AWOL and basically trying to bring the kids home themselves, we get hints that some of them are behaving oddly. The revelation that Jonah was a random Australian doctor that's possessed by an alien means that, hey, it's likely that some of the other parents have been possessed too, which ends up being confirmed over the course of episode 10. Victor Stein has been creating weapons to use against the kids, while also fostering a good relationship with Janet. And also being super-horny around Janet. Tina Minoru, meanwhile, acts super indifferent and drunk about everything. And also gets super-horny around Janet. Stacey Yorkes, meanwhile, throws herself whole-heartedly into her work, and apparently being possessed also fixes her eyesight. A lot of these doesn't really come into play until episode 10, though, other than brief segments of the possessed parents 'losing time' every now and then.

Then we get to episode 10, "Hostile Takeover", where we get the confrontation between AWOL and the PRIDE Strike Team as they kidnap Livvie, use Tamar and the baby as hostage, and end up besieging the Runaways base. With Livvie hostage, Alex's loyalties and intelligence under question, and both Gert and Old Lace dying from vague illness, it leads to a pretty fun action sequence. And it's a shame so much of the episode hinges on Alex and AWOL's little rivalry, because... well, it doesn't work quite as well. Basically, all it boils down to is that Alex overestimated his intelligence and savvyness, while also underestimating the lengths that AWOL is willing to do to win, and this means that beyond holding Livvie hostage and taunting Alex with the same old "you think you're a big boy?" line repeated a couple of times, it's not super interesting.

Ultimately, this leads to Alex managing to trick AWOL into charging to get him and getting his ass trapped by Nico's Fortress spell, leading to "each side has a hostage" stalemate, while Nico uses the spell to keep out the soldiers. Runaways isn't such a dark show that I ever believed Livvie was in danger, but it did stretch my suspension of disbelief that these evil corrupt cops would just blindly hammer on at the door instead of basically going "we don't care about AWOL, but we will kill Livvie", y'know?

Ultimately, though, the hostage siege conflict basically runs as much as it needs to run, which is the entirety of the episode, with Nico's magic being the limiting factor that allows the action to progress. She faints and AWOL's team gets the advantage, then she wakes up and her eyes gets scary black demonic cracks, and she wipes out the entire strike team and sends them elsewhere. Which I would say is a bit of a cop-out, but on the other hand, I really didn't care all that much about the AWOL stuff, and it did what it needed to do -- a catalyst for Alex's character development, and Alex was well and thoroughly humbled by basically trying to do too much without trusting his friends. And as much as I do enjoy Nico, the fact that this conflict basically ends up being single-handedly resolved by her (Alex and Chase's negotiations are kinda pointless, while Karolina helped out for the single scene she uses her flight to trick AWOL).

While all of this is going on, Chase and Gert go on their little side-quest, taking the advantage of Nico going from "illusion" to "fortress" and driving off to get to the Yorkes and figure out what the fuck's wrong with Old Lace and Gert. And I absolutely love the interaction between Dale and the clearly possessed Stacey. Dale's increasing anxiety and panic at his wife's cold-hearted attitude and revelation that Stacey unleashed an agent poisonous to the Deinonychus, and Dale eventually trusting Chase that they have to give the antidote to Old Lace and not Gert, is pretty well-done... even if Chase and Gert are still locked up in the Yorkes' basement at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Victor Stein and Tina Minoru have basically contacted each other, and in-between freaking the shit out of poor Janet, have basically made contact with each other and basically confirmed that they're both part of Jonah's alien race (the Majesdanians, if we're going by Karolina's race in the comics), and are spreading pamphlets to let the other body-possessing members of their race know where they are. Absolutely love the scenes of Janet getting more and more perturbed at the weapons Victor is designing, then getting distracted by Victor being a caring husband and offering sex, and then being baffled by Victor being angry at the smashed-up lab, and then having Tina flirt with her. Poor Janet.

Overall, while I do enjoy the Chase/Gert storyline, and I appreciate the character growth for Alex and the build-up of the possessed PRIDE members, I do feel like the Alex/AWOL/Livvie storyline wasn't done well at all and felt pretty filler-y. Oh well -- Flores is definitely dead, AWOL is banished to some shadow realm, and Livvie's ended her relationship with Alex. Whatever the final 3 episodes of Runaways' second season brings, it seems like we're in for something that's a lot more exciting. 

Random Notes:

• Alex tells Livvie about how he's going to make her phone look like it's in Wakanda, which is, unless I'm missing something, the very first reference to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Runaways. 
• There is a plotline in episode 9 and 10 about Frank Dean getting even more and more flustered with Leslie essentially wanting to junk the entire fake cult religion, and the episode ends with Leslie basically forced into a reconditioning chair. It's pretty creepy, to be sure, but at the same time kind of detached from everything that's happening that I'm not sure what to make of it. 
• Somehow I completely missed that Flores didn't know about the Runaways' powers, so Molly's very, very quick escape from Flores by way of super-strength was pretty dang hilarious after the huge deal that the last episode and the opening scene of episode 9 made about it. 
• Alex constantly being flustered when the big fish/little fish line gets interrupted by practically everyone and his angry running gag of "marine biologists" is admittedly very fun. 
• While it does settle down at the end of episode 9, I was legitimately kind of confused what AWOL's real game is, especially when he showed up magically inside Tamar's house.
• The possessed parents really end up making use of their host bodies' quirkiness to really have some hilarious scenes, yeah? Tina being a bit cuckoo and talking about dopamine high from cake is bizarre, but considering how she tends to act, I don't really blame Robert for shrugging it off. The possessed Stacey telling Dale to bugger off from her secret project while talking about how Dale doesn't "respect the autonomy of my process" is so in-character as something the Yorkes would find to be a valid reason. 
• The visuals of the Fortress spell with a bunch of metal plates slicing off AWOL's safety line, is pretty damn badass.
• Alex gets a pretty awesome scene when he loses his temper and holds the Fistigons up against AWOL's chest and feels like he's about to really hurt him. That's pretty scary and also awesome at the same time. 
• Nico notes how the Staff of One seems to be talking to her and potentially corrupting her, which is... interesting, if very RPG-y.