Marvel's Runaways S03E07-08 Review: Guest Stars

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 7: Left-Hand Path; Episode 8: Devil's Torture Chamber

Episode 7: Left-Hand Path
A bit more of a setup episode that basically ended with a genuinely surprising cliffhanger, but we'll talk about it when we get there. It's basically a fair bit of follow up from episode 6 as we learn just a bit more what Morgan's real plans are. The two cliffhangers from episode 5 are dealt with relatively quickly, with the obligatory mind-controlled Molly fight not being particularly long, and Nico waking up in a coven of women after what I can only assume a very good night for her. Morgan's plan to corrupt Nico or whatever the hell she's planning seems to be a bit more long-term instead of just turning Nico into Darth Nico which was honestly what I was kind of expecting.

Again, Nico is still on center stage here, and the family drama between Nico, Tina, Robert and Morgan continue on with their little drama, and we basically learn that Morgan has Robert literally under her spell. Nico and Tina sort of bond with each other, and Brittany Ishibashi is undoubtedly the MVP actor among the adults, playing sinister detached emotionally-abusive mother to amazement in the first two seasons, a crazy woman-child alien possessing a body in a culture she doesn't understand in early season three, and now as a pretty awesome woman who just wants to bring her family back and maybe atone for some of her sins.

To that end, Nico and Tina basically root around in Morgan's estate behind her back, and it's honestly kind of a case of supervillain passiveness that Morgan's not even aware of this until it's a bit too late... particularly during the first act, where Nico quite literally breaks Tina out of an asylum ran by Morgan. They break Robert out of the charm that Morgan cast around her, and it's Robert that ends up realizing that Morgan's Darkhold spellbook is hidden as a book about Arthurian legends. Clearly, Morgan le Fay never played D&D before. If you're a wizard, carry your spellbook at all times! Morgan is savvy enough to know that Robert's stolen it, and apparently that bizarre scene in the hospital is indeed Morgan using her magic to heal Robert, and now... well, she took the gift that was given, killing poor Robert Minoru. He does leave one last bit of clue, though, using his Wizard glasses to record the important spell pages that Nico needs. Speaking of which, there is a neat little parallel between Tina and Nico, both of whom are atoning for something. Tina for failing her family (and most likely Amy, too, although it goes unspoken) while Nico for failing Alex.

The rest of the Runaways are... trying their best. I dunno, though, between being de-powered in the Dark Dimension and both Chase and Gert being regular kids most of the time (because Fistigon and Old Lace SFX are expensive to animate) it does sort of kill some of the whole 'small team of young super-heroes' vibe. Their big plan is to... warn people with a Youtube video, which predictably gets wiped off the internet pretty quickly. That sort of plan wouldn't work with a mortal organization like PRIDE, let alone a coven of sorceresses who are clearly at least well-versed in technology.

It's Molly that ends up being the one that gets a fair bit of screentime, with her still struggling over the revelatoins regarding her parents that she learned in episode 5. Molly gets a pretty great, short conversation with Leslie, but I kind of feel like this is all we're going to get from Molly's character arc of trying to accept that her long-dead parents are also PRIDE members. Molly's built up less of a character with her own Big Story like the rest of the cast, anyway, and more of the interpersonal glue that holds the rest together, so, eh, I suppose I'll take her story arc basically being quickly resolved. Speaking of Molly plot threads... she reveals her power to her new crush, Bodhi, and turns out that Bodhi's a mole for the Morgan coven, whoops.

Speaking of the Morgan coven, a grief-struck Geoffrey ends up basically being duped into wearing a raven skull necklace and gets manipulated by Morgan to become her newest thrall. I would call Geoffrey a complete moron considering what he's been through in the series, but he is desperate for any news about Alex, so. Oh, meanwhile, Janet Stein is back as a living computer software, making her a pretty interesting superhero on the good guys's side. Janet, Victor and Stacey are sort of just... there in the sidelines, though. Thanks to Bodhi and Geoffrey's betrayals, Morgan's witch henchwomen basically overpower the Runaways' powers (again, Chase and Gert are basically civilians and it seems like Karolina only ever fires one beam at a time now) and everyone that's not Nico or brainwashed are under the mercy of the witches.

It's mostly just moving pieces on the board, really, and I feel like episode 7 was a lot less impactful as a singular episode compared to the past two episodes or the next one. It's still a pretty neat puzzle piece in my binge-watch, though... and god damn I actually made a huge squeeing sound when the genuinely unexpected crossover cliffhanger happened, with Nico's attempt to do magic stuff interrupted when a bunch of black smoke start roiling in the Hostel... and Cloak and Dagger show up! This is genuinely unexpected -- I didn't hear of this, and while it's pretty logical for the two MCU-Hulu shows to do so, it's so rare outside of the Netflix Marvel shows and CW-DC for any two superhero TV shows to acknowledge each other, so-called shared MCU universe or no, that it was genuinely exciting. And I'm not even the biggest fans of Cloak and Dagger per se, but man, when done right, these crossovers are hype, yeah?
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Episode 8: Devil's Torture Chamber
And... y'know, I really shouldn't be suckered in with just the promises of a crossover. But I am, because, well, Cloak and Dagger just easily work with the premise of Runaways, yeah? A bunch of young heroes? And as a huge fan of the actual original Runaways miniseries, I'm genuinely happy to see that this is a neat little callback to Cloak and Dagger being quasi-mentors to these kids in their first outing. As with these crossovers, a lot of the confusion and interrogation that comes with these sort of encounters are quickly brushed aside because no one wants to watch 20 minutes of our main characters just argue about each other's backstory and stuff. Nico, Cloak and Dagger basically trade barbs about the very basics of their backstory and powers -- and it's very clumsy and honestly not very convincing, but that's how superhero crossovers go. There's only so much screentime and we want to get to the good part.

With Ty's bamf-ing powers, the three magic superheroes show up to rescue the rest of the Runaways and the good PRIDE parents from the witch cult, although since there are just a bit too many characters running around, Tyrone drops the parents off at the Hollywood sign. Man, Cloak's teleportation powers are extremely convenient for set-up purposes, huh? With a bit of exposition on both sides of the team, Cloak brings everyone back into the Dark Dimension from episode five once more.

I kinda simultaneously love and hate the fact that Tandy quickly lampshades how utterly useless half of the Runaways team are sometimes, a fact that's particularly prominent in parts of this season. Sure, the Nico focus does mean that Nico ends up basically being the main focus most of the time, and the CGI budget means that the show's constantly coming up with more and more random justifications why Old Lace always hangs out in the Hostel, but... yeah, let's make Chase, Molly and Karolina effectively powerless too. And I kinda like that the show's self-aware enough to poke fun at itself, but it also kinda sucks when you tune in for a superhero show and only maybe three or four of the ensemble cast have their powers, y'know?

And the walk through the Dark Dimension definitely feels repetitive. There's only so many times you can do the 'dimension of personal fears' in a season, and that was definitely one of the weaker parts of Cloak and Dagger's home season, but the interactions between Tyrone, Tandy and the Runaways definitely more than makes up for it compared to the vague, generic inhabitants of the Dark Dimension who talk about sacrifice this or tower that or the generic goons working for AWOL that holds Alex captive and is out for the blood of the other interlopers. Also, turns out the wacky racist wizard that they meet last time is... happy to help out just a bit, and doles out some exposition about how Morgan wants to weaken the walls between dimensions. Or something.

There's a bit of splitting up the team, with the typical "okay, maybe I don't trust you guys fully" sequence between the members, most notably between Tandy and Karolina discussing Nico's rather bull-headed recklessness. Ty and Chase also get a bit of a good rapport going on. There's also the rather eye-rolling but very natural bit of both superhero teams to prioritize their own 'family' over the other superheroes there, which is slightly selfish but considering they just met each other, it's definitely in-character for both C&D and the Runaways. The action scene isn't particularly super innovative or novel, and while we do get to see both Ty and Tandy's "greatest fear/greatest hope" powers sort of come to light with Gert and Nico respectively, it doesn't really amount to a whole ton? Which is just as well, because the episode is moving at a pretty fast pace and having the two teams get up into hijinks is the far more entertaining option than to have everything screech to a halt just for everyone to get personalized dreams and nightmares given to them. We did that twice already this season alone. The big takeaway, I guess, is that Tandy declares that Karolina and Nico are the OTP and how their light and dark balance each other out and stuff. Neat-o. Ty tries to somewhat analyze Gert and Chase a bit, but he's always been the more reserved of the duo so he doesn't get all love guru on them.

The action scenes are fun, and with Cloak and Dagger being a bit more refined in terms of their power-using (the Runaways, true to their name, do spend most of their screentime investigating or, well, running) and there's a neat sense of the two of them being a wee bit more experienced and a wee bit more willing to use their action hero instincts without making them feel too over-the-top. It does help too that, well, like I mentioned before, a good chunk of the Runaways are kind of powerless.

We meanwhile cut back and forth to Alex being menaced by AWOL, and it turns out that in the Dark Dimension, he's spending time in a cell locked up with his dead mom Catherine, who's alive and well in the Dark Dimension, so she's just some sort of projection or something because I'm pretty sure just being shivved in a prison doesn't net you a trip to this hellscape. Alex resists doing what 'they' want him to do, until the sounds of his friends in danger caused him to murder this image of Catherine... and as Tandy's dream-seeking abilities reveal, apparently Alex has some... disturbing ambitions of grandeur. (Also, I actually recognize that from the comics, which is cool) It ends up being handwaved by Alex as just the side effects of the Dark Dimension, but... is it? I'm not sure if two more episodes and the whole Nico/Morgan stuff is going to be enough to fit in a potential Alex betrayal story, but maybe this is the extra oomph to make the finale more than just defeating the supervillain of the month.

Tandy and Tyrone peace out after the little adventure, because all they're here for is basically just to help get Alex back. It's typical crossover logic, the less you think about why they don't gang up together with Cloak and Dagger to fight Morgan le Fay, the better. But Molly, who skipped out the crossover goodness... and up apparently being mind-controlled again by the witches, and is seemingly being inducted to Morgan's coven as her newest herald. Overall, not a particularly Big Event, but it is a very delightful and wholesome crossover, and it's amazing how seamless Cloak and Dagger ended up being in terms of being guest stars for the Runaways. Of course, with only two episodes left in the pipeline, it's clear that we're going to just do the climax in the next two episodes. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Cloak and Dagger return! From the TV show! Their dialogue confirms that this crossover takes place after the events of season two, where they do enter the Dark Dimension and encounter the Loa there. The original run of the Runaways comic book did have them get a crossover with Cloak and Dagger, who are a fair bit older than them and more established in the comics. 
• The whole "Alex with all the powers of the Runaways combined" dream that Tandy detects within Alex is actually a plot twist that happens in the comics, when at the climax of the very first Runaways storyline it's revealed that Alex has been the PRIDE mole all the while, and ended up briefly taking over all of the powers of the other Runaways.