Marvel's Runaways S03E06 Review: Magic Phones

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 6: Merry Meet Again

So yeah, Morgan le Fay's plan, or at least part of it, is revealed in this episode. And with around four episodes left in this season for our heroes to basically get their shit together and fight against the supervillain and her plan, it's still interesting that "Merry Meet Again" is essentially a whole episode of nothing but set-up, including doing that Avengers: Endgame bit of catching up to characters in an ongoing story after a time-skip.

And we waste no time in basically shoehorning Morgan's huge plan. She's using the Minorus' company, Wizard, to basically give out these phones called 'Corvus' out for free. It comes with its own community (so I assume like an exclusive Twitter or something) and it basically turns anyone who has it into a super-obsessed person who is actively ignoring the real world around them. There's some bland old-people commentary on the younger generation here that I find to be a bit bizarre on a show aimed for the younger generation here about how kids should get off their dang phones, but eh. The Corvus Phones are actually magical, though, mind-controlling those who use them, and causing them to become terribly violent if the phones should be knocked away from their hands and stuff. Later on Chase discovers that one of the Corvus phones that Gert got ended up transforming into a black raven feather that disintegrates. Magic! But it's in 2019, so clearly it must take the shape of cell phones! It's a stupid plot that sounds like it comes from a comic book, but since this is a TV show based on a comic book it honestly fits right at home.

The focus of this episode, and, indeed, what I think is going to be the rest of the season as well, is Nico Minoru. After completely forgetting about Alex last episode, she blames herself and is desperate to return to the Dark Dimension... only to end up having every single one of her spells trying to access it backfire and summon a stuffed bird. Throughout the episode, Nico ends up encountering Morgan, who's basically moved in with Robert and everyone around them say how healthy and happy they are and how productive they are in rebuilding Wizard up from the ground. Morgan even offers to essentially be Nico's new mentor, teaching her how to utilize the full power of the Staff of One, and totally meaning nothing evil.

Of course, neither Nico nor the people closest to her (Tina and Karolina) buy this friendly act for one second. After all, they heard everything that Amy said last episode, right? Tina basically tells Nico to stay out of it, but her own attempts at confronting Morgan publicly sort of ended in nothing but embarrassment for her and a realization that the pretty ladies in party dresses that Morgan has populate the Wizard party are actually all Morgan's sorcerer minions. Nico, meanwhile, is confident that she can basically do a little 'jump into the lion's pit' thing and come out unscathed. And I don't doubt that Nico is a badass witch herself, but Karolina telling Nico just how reckless and stupid she is for considering abandoning the Runaways for Morgan is also very believable.

Ultimately, though, Nico goes through with her plan, joining up with Morgan's coven and ending up being inducted in some bizarre weird spooky warlock ritual. Obviously the show's going to lead to a situation where Nico's way over her head. Particularly since -- for those familiar with the other Marvel TV shows -- Morgan le Fay has somehow gotten possession of the Darkhold.

While Nico is going off more or less on her own to try and untangle this web of madness that her family's turned into, the rest of the Runaways sort of explore the world after six months of disappearing (when is this season in relation to the Thanos Snap?) and... I honestly admit that I don't care for a lot of the other secondary characters they bring up here?

The biggest B-plot is, of course, the tension between Chase and Gert. As teenagers in a former relationship that ended up badly (Chase's betrayal in season two is also a factor) Chase is still trying his best to mend things between him and Gert, but Gert is all to ready to jump and befriend a brand-new boy, a social-justice-spouting hipster Wizard employee called Max. Which is literally a walking and breathing bag of tropes that appeal to Gert, although, shit, the free smartphone probably helped, too. Of course, this is basically there for exposition purposes to the audience, even if Chase's passive-aggressive mumbling and needling of Max is unexpectedly funny. This basically ends up with the cast experiencing Corvus phones and their danger, though, first with some random customer of Max's assaulting the poor dude, and later on Gert getting super-duper obsessed with the phone and nearly running into the street... although there's of course the oh-so-teenage-drama bit of her constantly talking to Max on the phone. By and by I really don't care about these sort of storylines, but it's actually just in the right amount here, enough for a bunch of gags and some emotional beats without shoving it down our throat. Of course, as of the end of this episode, after Gert attempts to interrogate Max about the Corvus phones and he offers to help out, one of Morgan's sorcerers literally mind-wipe him. Bye, Max. Also, Molly finds a Gibborim boy she takes a shine too, although she gets a lot less screentime before she gets taken over by the Corvus phone at the end of the episode as our cliffhanger.

We get to check in briefly with the surviving PRIDE parents. Victor Stein and Stacey Yorkes are attending some alien-abduction support group, although it's basically a eye-rolling anal-probe joke. This is the Marvel universe, the Chitauri or the Kree or Ego or the Black Order try to invade Earth basically bi-annually, after all, you'd think that Stacey could've found them a better support group. Dale, meanwhile, is a hobo living in a camp... that's situated right within the Gibborim facilities. Leslie Dean (showing absolutely no emotion that one of her children is in space and the other was missing for six months) have sort of reorganized the cult-like Church of Gibborim and turned it into a massive combination of a hippie camp, a soup kitchen and a Sunday school. After how badly Leslie and the Church split ways last season, this feels like a genuinely bizarre development, but okay. Speaking of a bizarre development, Geoffrey has moved in with Tamar? Considering the gigantic pile-up of bad blood between the two of them, I'm surprised they're still on talking terms, let alone implied to be sleeping together. I dunno. After all we learn about Tamar, I genuinely don't believe that she'll really want to have anything to do with Geoffrey beyond what's necessary. Although with him losing his wife and son, maybe it's just pity?

Anyway, I'm not sure if the PRIDE parents other than the Minorus will be relevant down the line, although if they still stick around in these episodes I could definitely see that we're building up to a Runaways/PRIDE team-up as the parents try to redeem themselves. The story and the vibe is very Nico-centric, and honestly, with Alex and Karolina's stories respectively wrapped up in the first half of this season; and the other three never quite having as huge of a plot hook as Nico, she's probably the obvious one left. It's pretty fun setup despite (or perhaps specifically because of) the silly phone plot, even if it is building up to an obvious 'we need to stick together, team' moral what with Nico getting inducted to a witch cult five minutes of her running off on her own. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Darkhold returns! It was a major plot device in the Ghost Rider storyline in season four of Agents of SHIELD, and was last seen being spirited away by the Ghost Rider to another dimension. Evidently, the book ended up somehow into the hands of Morgan le Fay. 
• So I guess I can talk about Morgan le Fay now. Her comic counterpart is the half-human, half-faerie sister of King Arthur in the sixth century, and was part of the Cult of the Darkhold, summoning the eldritch being Chthon, and later imprisoning him in a mountain when they were unable to control him. While fighting against the superhero Black Knight, she would be notable in her accessing the modern day via the astral realm, using her magical powers to menace the Avengers, Doctor Strange, and also have a bit of a romantic relationship with a time-traveling Doctor Doom. Prior to Runaways, she had been depicted in the live-action TV movie for Doctor Strange released in 1978.