Marvel's Runaways S03E10 Review: Future Fight

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 10: Cheat the Gallows

Well, uh... that's certainly not what I expected the final episode of Runaways to be. Oh, sure, I did expect the sentimental side of things, which would be appropriate for this show, and I even expected Gert coming back to life in a way. But the sudden two-year-time skip? And then the time travel? "Cheat the Gallows" is actually a pretty great episode that closes the story more satisfyingly than what I thought would happen, which would be a rematch with the Gibborim or PRIDE or Morgan or something. This is certainly a lot more satisfying for sure, which is why I'm not writing TV shows and merely reviewing them.

I also think this episode did a particularly smart thing by mostly abandoning the PRIDE characters. Their relevance and what they bring to the table really isn't worth crowding out the main Runaways cast members, and I honestly already feel like they're mostly serving as hangers-on in an already bloated cast throughout this season. Victor, Geoffrey, Leslie and the Yorkeses feel particularly redundant during the Morgan storyline.

But I digress. After a brief opening that takes place at an undetermined amount of time in the future, Chase essentially invents time travel and disappears. Which, if we remember that one abandoned message-from-the-future plot thread from the first season, is something the shot kinda-sorta foreshadowed, but not in a way that ties in to this finale. We then cut to a time period two years after the fight with Morgan... and things have changed. Molly and Alex are the only ones who stays mostly the same, with Molly being an active cheerleading coach in her college, and Alex running Wilder Innovations and is a typical young, up-and-coming company head, and even his dad works for him now. Karolina... has a different girlfriend, which would shock all of the shippers.

Meanwhile, the two that changed the most and dealt with Gert's death the worst is Chase, who has locked himself up in a sci-fi room in the Hostel and trying his best to invent time travel (again, he succeeds), so much that he refuses to accompany Molly in remembering Gert's death. Old Lace, at least, is well taken care off with a lot of squeaky toys. Nico, meanwhile, has abandoned most of her goth-style makeup, and had went off to master her magic for two years in exile, which is why Karolina ended up breaking up with her.

And then Alex tries to kill Nico. Not circa-2022 Alex, but Evil Future!Alex, from the same time period that Time Travelling Future!Chase from the prologue are from. A combination of Nico's true mastery over magic and Future!Chase's arrival causes Alex to bugger off, and then Future!Chase gathers the 2022 versions of everyone, and explains everything that has happened. Except 2022!Chase, because we don't need any more confusion, I guess. But essentially, one of the Runaways attempts to kill Alex in the future by blowing up his office, causing him to survive and seek revenge via time travel in the past, knowing that this day of the anniversary of Gert's death is the only time when everyone hangs out together. Okay, sure.

After a failed attempt to go after Karolina's new girlfriend Julie, Future!Alex jumps back to when the first season of Runaways took place, where everyone is divided, powerless and at their weakest. Technically if Alex wanted to find them at their weakest, like, go hunt down their toddler versions or something, but I digress. This has more emotional impact, after all, and a alternate little rundown of Runaways' first episode is a pretty great way to end this show, while the time travel aspect makes it so that there's some actually fun stakes in all this.

And... a good chunk of it does have to do with comparing the fleshed-out characters at the end of the show with the literal walking stereotypes that they were in the first season. 2022-era Alex and Nico's sheepish witnessing of 2017-era Nico completely ignoring Alex being a klutz with his VHS or whatever is hilarious; 2022!Molly crying behind a tree when she sees her and Gert's past selves interact and realizing what a godsend of an older sister Gert was is amazing; and, of course, Future!Chase ends up breaking his own 'no-interference' clause to defend Gert from a bunch of jerks. Ultimately, a surprising lack of intervention with 2017 happens, and it's just a great little setpiece to remind the audience and the characters of how far these characters have came.

EvilFuture!Alex ends up being chased into a bus and it seems like we're going to have a prickly situation... until 2022!Nico shows up and reminds everyone what 'total master of the magic staff' means, as she very conveniently stuns EvilFuture!Alex, mind-wipes everyone in the 2017 to forget anything weird has happened, and then drag EvilFuture!Alex to the gym. We get rid of 2022!Alex in order to not give the poor CGI team too many scenes to stitch together with multiple versions of the same actor in the same scene, and then after a discussion between the 2022 Runaways, Future!Chase and Future!Alex, we all learn that Future!Chase has his own ultimate objective, which is, of course, to prevent Gert's death. Future!Alex, meanwhile, is angry that they'll potentially wipe out everything that happened to them after the end of Morgan's death, which, as we see at the beginning of the episode, is honestly not all that bad for at least half of the cast. And in a different sort of show, this would be the selfish, irresponsible time-fuckery that needs to be stopped.

But this is the Runaways. So our 2022-era and Future-era characters teleport back to the events of "The Broken Circle", arriving in the Hostel and hiding here and there to wait and witness what's happening, interfering only to stop Gert's death. Of course, thanks to Evil!Future!Alex being dragged by them to the Morgan battle due to the limited amount of time-jumps, things get just a bit more chaotic. We do get a fun scene between 2022!Nico and Present!Nico, too (and really highlights the difference that goth makeup can make) and it's basically sort of a reminder to not make a mistake regarding Karolina. Okay, sure.

Ultimately the 'minimal change' ends up going sort of haywire, and Future!Chase knocks out his present-day self, borrows the Fistigons, and ends up literally knocking Gert out of the way of the deathblow, but gets stabbed himself for his troubles. What he set out to do ended up happening, though, and all the 2022-era and Future-era characters fade away as their timeline is replaced, and the events that happened for them ended up replaced as, well, Gert survives in this timeline. Not even going to touch how different this take on time-travel-fuckery is from the rest of the MCU and MCU-related shows, time travel is an annoying beast in fiction, really. But in this show's case, it certainly made for a great, impactful conclusion.

And now this new-timeline, permanent present-day versions of the Runaways get to live their lives happy as one big family without a dead gaping hole within their ranks. As one last little hint should somehow Runaways gets renewed or un-cancelled, Alex Wilder finds a little note from Future!Alex or something that somehow didn't get wiped out in the timeline, which might set him up as a future villain in the show (especially also considering Dagger's mind-read and the whole Dark Dimension Catherine thing) but since the show's final shot is basically a perfect scene of the Runaways going off for breakfast together, I think it's deliberately ambiguous if this is just a fragment of the what-could-have-been timeline that this version of Alex Wilder is going to just ignore as a weird, spooky piece of paper.

And ultimately, that's pretty much a great way to wrap this show up. Runaways's third season has been absolutely rocky, and the news about the cancellation probably had them rushing through what I could see as two seasons' worth of storylines in a single one. A lot of characters (particularly the parents) feel redundant, and as I keep mentioning and bemoaning over and over, the Gibborim storyline wasn't handled and concluded particularly well. But hey, as far as show conclusions go? This one was a pretty good one. Unlike some of the other Marvel shows, at least this concluded at a nice point and at a point in the show where it feels like they told just the right amount of stories for this to actually feel like a natural stopping point for these characters.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the comics, the Runaways also splintered after Gert's death, and a time-traveling Chase also ended up causing Gert to be resurrected thanks to temporal hijinks. Over its various runs, the comic-book version of the Runaways have also had a couple of arcs where they were displaced in time. 
• The concept of this episode sort of resembles "Runaways Reunion" one of the early arcs of the fifth run of the Runaways comic, where a lot of the characters have moved on and settled down after being shaken up after a series of events and huge battles that also included Gert's death, and ended up re-banding together after Chase time-travels and saves Gert. 
• The "Victor" that Future!Chase muttered about not trusting isn't just a jab at his dad, but actually to a member of the Runaways team that debuted in the second run of the comic book, Victor "Victorious" Mancha, an android created Ultron. Victor's original story in the second run of Runaways is seemingly sort-of adapted into Alex here. A future version of Gert time-travels to warns the Runaways about the terrible Victor that will betray and kill them all, but due to the intervention of this time-travel encounter, the Runaways are able to keep their guard up around Victor and successfully expunge Ultron's influence. 
• While she doesn't really borrow much other than the name, Karolina's new girlfriend Julie is very likely to represent Julie Power or Lightspeed or Power Pack fame, who was also Karolina's temporary girlfriend in the comics after she broke up with Nico. 
• The original run of Runaways had time travelers as one of the villain concepts of the PRIDE members, with the Yorkes-es being time-travelers (hence, the dinosaur). 

Marvel's Runaways S03E09 Review: Cell Service Sucks

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 9: the Broken Circle

Well, that's... unexpected. I guess the writers of Runaways' third season had more of a heads-up that their series is ending, because episode 9 feels more like a season finale which presumably leaves episode 10 as the series finale as a whole? Or something? But then you have the first half of the season with the Magistrate's family and the abrupt ending that that storyline got... I dunno.

Anyway, "The Broken Circle" has the Runaways and the still-surviving members of the PRIDE take the fight against Morgan le Fay and basically take her out. And, all things considered... Morgan's probably not the best supervillain in Marvel's TV series. She's certainly not the worst, not at all, but all things considered she's sort of just kind of there, charming, threatening and hammy enough when she's needed to be, but compared to how personal Jonah and PRIDE felt when it was their turn as the show's villains, she feels like kind of a disappointment.

Basically all the characters are thrown into the chaos, with PRIDE reuniting to rescue Molly by masquerading as CDC employees and demand that the hotel Morgan is using as a ritual place be shut down (hooo boy, considering recent events) so that they can run up and rescue Molly from the crazy ritual Morgan is casting, which, according to the Minorus, will allow Morgan's 'Dark Army' or something to come from the Dark Dimension. They mostly look like goopy, oily arms, but I really wished the Dark Dimension episodes actually showcased this a bit better. Most of the PRIDE members really don't get to do much here beyond be hammy and act like they normally do, and Tina mostly is there to do some minor spells and say some exposition about what Morgan's doing. Molly's honestly rescued without too much of a problem, other than a slightly-wounded Geoffrey. Oh, and the cybernetic Janet Stein also helps out to hack the internet to interfere with Morgan's plans, because apparently her magic crow-phones still operate by standard internet rules.

The rest of the Runaways spend a good chunk of the first half of the episode sort of bickering. Alex and Nico want to take the fight to Morgan, while Karolina, worried about Nico's safety and worried about Nico in general, wants to take the time to regroup. Plus, the audience knows all about the ominous Evil Alex that Dagger saw last episode, which doesn't actually come to pass. Chase and Gert... make up, with Chase actually helping Gert research her school in the future or something. Again, it's sort of a romantic sub-plot that happens in the background, but it's a nice thing that happens anyway and makes the ending of this episode extra-bitter.

And then Molly brings PRIDE to the hostel, meeting with the rest of the Runaways, and everyone sort of shares a series of quick, rapid scenes with each other which is actually quite nice, and I sort of wished that it wasn't so fast-paced. Perhaps the most impactful, for me, would be the long-awaited talk between Alex and Geoffrey. Alex is still stone-cold, even with the revelation that Geoffrey was wounded (not mortally, it seems) during the hotel raid by the brainwashed Molly. Everyone's suiting up and preparing their weapons, and Dale ends up figuring out that they could extract the antibodies in Karolina's blood and innoculate everyone from witchy possession. Which... okay, sure, got to give the sci-fi side of the power spectrum something to do. In what's probably the most obvious showcases of the show's inability to consistently show off their CGI Deinonychus, the magic-antibody process cuts off Gert's connection to Old Lace, and she has to be locked in a room. Alex, Victor, Digital Janet and Chase hack into cell phone towers to bring them down.

Nico is adamant that the magical dagger that Dagger gave her is the key to taking out Morgan, and devises a ritual involving some blood magic salt that Tina prepared to seal Morgan again. Tina also quickly gives some last-minute backstory on Morgan, which is honestly too little, too late -- they knew each other when they were studying witchcraft, and she considers the Staff of One to be her birthright or something... which really doesn't tell us much that we don't know about. She's magic, she's evil, she used to be sealed in the staff. Sure.

Morgan shows up via portal, Dagger's dagger proves completely ineffective, and Morgan demands obedience from the Runaways in exchange for their parents' lives... and they initially do seem to kneel... but it's just a ploy for time for Digital Janet to disconnect the cell phones and take down all the Corvus Phones... which drains Morgan of power? Sure. Molly, Nico and Karolina try their best to ineffectually take on Morgan. Karolina's alien powers ain't worth jack shit in this second half of the season, huh? Also, Morgan's two pretty witch minions also show up to help out, but one is knocked out by Chase's Fistigon blast, and Alex saves the non-Tina parents by straight-up stabbing another one in the neck. Holy shit, Alex.

It's ultimately Gert who ends up taking down Morgan, stalling her with a angry stare-off and giving this whole speech about motives, feminism, power and how she draws her power from her family. It's all, of course, a ploy to complete the salt circle around Morgan which ends up containing Morgan and allowing Tina to banish her again to the Dark Dimension... but it's a bittersweet ending, because Gert was actually seriously injured before the speech, having been stabbed by a fallen chandelier, and she succumbs to her wounds, and the episode ends with the Runaways, PRIDE and Old Lace gathering around Gert's dead body.

And... and it's ultimately a pretty decent conclusion to the Morgan storyline? Again, it's kind of a shame that the episode feels so chaotic. Which definitely works in the second half when everyone's pulling out all their weapons and Morgan's minions teleport in and everyone's doing something, but in the first half? It really does highlight a lot of the season's weaknesses, with Tina's exposition about Morgan really highlighting just how flimsy the villain is written (Elizabeth Hurley's fantastic hammy performance notwithstanding) and the whole cell phone power-up thing not really holding up particularly well. And the ending really ended up just focusing mostly on Nico and Gert, doesn't it? I think that's been one of the weaknesses of a lot of Runaways's huge conflict episodes, where half the cast end up feeling redundant. In this case, nearly every member of PRIDE that's not Janet and Tina really honestly didn't contribute much to the climax, although some of the relationships and gags are certainly appreciated. Ultimately, though, that's certainly an interesting way to wrap up the Morgan storyline, and I'm actually curious to see how the show's going to resolve itself.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Other than Alex's death at the end of the first run of Runaways, Gert was actually the second one of the team to die in the comics, taking a dagger in the gut meant for Chase. 

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. 

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. 

Marvel's Runaways S03E05 Review: Fear Dimension

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 5: Enter the Dreamland

(I originally did two-episode reviews for the rest of Runaways season three, but my laptop ate it, so... those are going to be slightly delayed. Whoops.)

So after the abrupt finality of the alien storyline last episode, "Enter the Dreamland" ends up kick-starting this huge Morgan le Fay storyline... with our heroes trapped in a creepy version of their hostel with a racist magician that once lived in their house in the past. We also quickly establish that none of our heroes have their superpowers, and they're also in some bizarre alternate 'world-between-worlds' dimension, or, well, whatever bizarre grassland-scape magical dimension that Nico's Staff of One connects to. The episode starts off leaving us as disoriented as the Runaways themselves are, not quite sure how they ended up in this bizarre dimension, but apparently they're just off looking for their missing parents. Just the parents, mind you -- we're just assuming that Jonah and the rest of his family were completely vaporized because of magic. Also, the magician warns that this Dark Dimension (a familiar name to both Marvel fans, and to MCU fans) will erode their memories the longer they stay there.

And it's a pretty interesting episode reminiscent of the Algorithm-heavy episode earlier in the season, which honestly leads me to question once more why they didn't just properly pace and wrap up the alien stuff if they were going to do a whole alternate dimension episode somewhere down the line. But I digress. We do get to see a bunch of different realities that correspond to their personal history and stuff, and it's actually quite brilliant that these fake worlds are basically crafted from their greatest subconscious fears or something (Karolina's certainly is) but with some of them, like Gert, Chase and Molly, we and the characters never quite know for sure if those are just repressed memories and ugly truths they want to forget, or things that never actually quite happened.

For Gert, it's her stumbling into Stacey experimenting on a proto-Old-Lace in the laboratory, and Stacey apparently has been injecting young Gert with amnesia serums since she was a kid, something Gert blames for her anxiety. Molly has brunch with her biological parents, but then gets to witness them being party to the child sacrifice stuff that the rest of PRIDE are party to. Chase sees his father being beaten up by his abusive grandfather, which is one of those 'explains but does not excuse' Victor Stein's own abusive tendencies. In two of these, we sort of see the real Stacey and Victor too, trapped in an endless loop of... well, for Victor it's a nightmare for sure, but for Stacey it's something? She's just experimenting on a dinosaur. Chase beats up Victor's dad, and the two sort of have a weird conversation or something.

Karolina's encounter is with the ghosts or spirits of Destiny and the rest of the sacrificed kids, who blame Karolina for abusing their faith and leading them to their deaths -- not Karolina's fault, but it's clearly something she blames herself for. There's also a creepy demon Nico dragging around the corpse of Jonah, which really doesn't add much other than allowing Lyrica Okano to ham shit up as a creepy demon. Nico's is perhaps the most interesting, meeting her hooded relatives who seem to,  obviously, know a bit more about what's going on. Also, Nico's scenes play out in grayscale, which makes it a bit more impactful when they start unleashing magical spells. The powerless Nico is saved by... Amy! Her dead sister! Who's trapped in the Dark Dimension or something and is a ninja sorcerer now, but doesn't remember Nico emotionally but does know who she is. Or something.

With the aid of Amy's ability to navigate the bizarre 'taken from your memories' scape, Amy leads Nico to Tina's worst nightmare, which is, naturally, the day that Amy died, with Tina desperately begging herself and Nico to remember a resurrection spell. Poor Tina is pretty shaken, and at this point I think I know what the episode is meant to do -- we're shown the PRIDE members like Tina and Victor as being absolutely broken people who are over in their heads, but at the same time we're also reminded that they're not innocent and that they're evil child-sacrificing cultists. The Gert/Stacey conversation is probably the best showcase of this (and since Stacey is 'real', it's likely that this is less a nightmare and more a replay of something that happened before) -- Stacey keeps saying that everything is for her children's good, but Gert quickly lampshades that mind-wiping your own daughter, creating a genetically-engineered dinosaur and sacrificing children... aren't really something that a sane people would do.

Eventually, though, all the Runaways and their parents regroup before the amnesia can settle in, without any real huge thematic conclusion or realization for the PRIDE members. It's something that's perhaps a bit more realistic than not, I suppose, but it also does cause this episode to end in a climax that's perhaps not the most satisfying. Tina and Nico do some blood magic spell to summon the Staff of One (which is now permanently within Nico's body, it seems) create a portal out of the Dark Dimension before the terrifying 'master' arrives, but Amy ends up staying behind, because she's basically a Dark Dimension being at this point now, and Morgan will be able to detect her in the real world. Okay, then. It's a bit of a bizarre handwave, really, but I'll buy it, having Amy back is going to be a glaring thing we're going to have to address in the subsequent episodes, so having her sort-of have a post-death cameo while not really being resurrected from the dead is probably the best.

Of course, episode 5 is merely a bit of a setup for the true second half of the season, because, like many other stories before it, season three of Marvel's Runaways is going to feature a time-skip. Our heroes and the three parents trapped in the Dark Dimension have been gone for six months (thank god Old Lace apparently, like, hunted things and didn't starve to death) and poor Alex is still trapped within the Dark Dimension. As we'll find out in episode 6, other things have changed too, as Morgan le Fay essentially had six whole months to put her master plan in action.

Ultimately, like most Runaways episodes, this is a very, very solid episode. Perhaps one that's a bit too self-contained, and one that ultimately isn't super-favourable to look at considering the haphazard pacing this season, but it's still a pretty solid individual episode nonetheless. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• It's not quite identical, but the various magicians in Nico's dream use magical circles similar to those used by Dr. Strange and his supporting cast in his movie.
• The Dark Dimension debuted in the MCU in Doctor Strange, but it has also been mentioned and been featured in the second season of Agent Carter and Cloak and Dagger.
• Nico does some blood-activated magic in this episode, and that is how she originally activates the Staff of One in the comics until the publishers realized how problematic showing a teenage heroine consistently cutting herself is. 

Marvel's Runaways S03E04 Review: Alien Parents

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 4: Rite of Thunder

Well, this episode was... it's certainly a thing. This season of Runaways have been paced pretty quickly, seemingly to get as much of the stories they wanted to tell wrapped up as soon as possible. It does lead to some episodes like this one, "Rite of Thunder", which is essentially the main conclusion of the Gibborim body-snatcher aliens storyline... and it's... I'm not sure how I feel about it? I watched a couple of episodes ahead, and it doesn't seem like we're getting the Magistrate's family back any time soon -- if they'll come back, it's probably in the final episode or two -- and for someone who's such a massive presence in the first two seasons, seeing that this is it for Jonah and his alien family is honestly kind of... it's not anti-climactic per se because the conflict in this episode is a pretty tense climax, but it does feel really rushed, and there's an obvious bit of foregoing a satisfying conclusion for one aspect of the series in favour for building up another... and that's not always ideal, y'know?

Anyway, this episode starts off... very hectic, just basically catching the cast up on things that happened in the previous episode. The Runaways discover Catherine Wilder's death through the news, figure out that Alex is possessed by the Magistrate's Son, and has basically kidnapped Leslie Dean. Also, insert obligatory mysterious Morgan le Fay foreshadowing and obligatory Xavin self-doubt scene. Leslie herself figures out that Alex isn't himself, but manages to play along and gets "Alex" to bring her to Tamar's house, and together Leslie and Tamar sort of draw things out (and protect Tamar's baby) before calling in the other Runaways. "Alex" manages to escape, although not before taunting Nico with the idea of him jumping bodies into Nico's body and then killing Karolina, while Leslie ends up giving birth to a new baby girl.

And this takes place over a very, very short amount of time, y'know? Sure, we do get enough time to breathe, with Karolina and Leslie going all goo-goo over the new baby Elle, but then we jump straight into Xavin reading the Abstract, and then just exposition-dumping to us about how the Gibborim plans to escape Earth, causing a huge catastrophe, and also they will send back a killing squad to wipe out every single person who interacted with the Gibborims, adding even more stakes to this conflict. Also, Chase and Gert sort of bond together and work to create brand-new weapon coated with the special anti-Gibborim tech or something. They can stop the Gibborims from jumping bodies, is all that's important.

And at this point, a character that perhaps hasn't been working as well as the writers probably intended her to, Xavin, gets her character arc very, very hastily wrapped up. Xavin has been an interesting enough character in that she's got a pretty interesting character quirk, that Thor-esque "I have no idea how human society functions", but without the rambunctious energy that Thor has. And in that, Xavin has had a lot of great scenes interacting with Molly... but the way that Xavin was introduced to the story in the first place was abrupt and shoehorned in, as is the random space civil war prophecy that she comes in with. And other than giving Nico a bit of an angry side-glance every now and then, Xavin's whole main goal has been kind of... m'eh? And I suppose it's just as well that this m'eh goal is basically handwaved aside with a genuinely randomly-inserted sequence of Xavin and Leslie realizing that Xavin has mis-interpreted her prophecy, and the 'great love' that will bring peace between the aliens is not a marriage between Xavin and Karolina, but rather Xavin taking care of Baby Elle like a parent? Or something? It feels genuinely random and out of nowhere, and just how blase Leslie is with parting with her newborn child honestly feels more like the writer wanting to get rid of Elle and Xavin from the second part of the season and just hastily wrapping this up. Maybe this wouldn't have felt so sudden if there was some sort -- any sort -- of foreshadowing prior to this moment, but no. It's just sudden, random, and easily the weakest part of this episode.

There's a bit of a typical pre-final-battle banter while all the Leslie/Xavin expositioning is happening, but mostly it's Nico and Karolina affirming their love for each other, and Chase and Gert affirming their... awkward post-breakup not-love for each other. I do kind of like the fact that Gert hasn't really forgiven Chase for all the betrayals that he's pulled off in season two, which is a lot more realistic than, like Gert points out, just falling to their hormones and adrenaline at the eve of their potential deaths.

Then the plot continues, and "Alex", having taken over an ambulance, kidnaps Baby Elle and goes off to meet up with the rest of the Gibborim family, because now they have a full set of four Gibborims to power up the portal. The little conflict in-between the Magistrate's family is likewise quickly smoothed over, although because the aliens are actually on a timeline, I can actually buy this a lot better than whatever's going on with Xavin and Leslie. "Stacey" and "Alex" quickly agree that the Magistrate's family can take Baby Elle back to their homeworld since "Alex" will never be forgiven for whatever crimes got him exiled in the first place, and he's more than happy going around killing donut store cashiers on Earth anyway.

And then the Runaways arrive, fully armed with their Fistigons, dinosaur and anti-Gibborim-laced weaponry, and for all my disappointment about many of the abrupt ways that this episode hastily wraps up a lot of the story arcs, this action scene is actually pretty cool. The Gibborim-possessed humans run around the facility fighting some members of the Runaways, and it's very neat. We get a fun thematic scene of the Runaways fighting against their possessed loved ones, with Chase fighting "Victor"/Jonah, Nico and "Tina" doing some martial arts fighting, and Gert and Molly overpowering "Stacey". Despite the anti-Gibborim weaponry giving them an edge, the Gibborim actually win this and it's not until some Xavin trickery that they manage to get Baby Elle, and then Xavin just uses the machine to teleport away and bring peace with the power of vaguely-worded prophecy. Again, the fact that Karolina and company are so okay with the fact that Xavin's going off with a newborn child with no concrete idea of what she's going to do other than a vague sense of 'bring peace' is bizarre.

And then all four members of Jonah's body-snatching alien squad appears, and they unleash all their sparkly alien light powers at the Runaways, knocking them all down. Karolina tries to hold them off, but one versus four isn't enough... and then Nico starts hearing Morgan le Fay's voice in her head, and she basically gives in to the dark side, her eyes turning black and summoning the Staff of One from within her chest, and unleashing an angry spell that causes the alien quartet and their human hosts to disappear. Elsewhere, Nico doing this seems to unleash Morgan le Fay into the real world, where she wakes up Robert Minoru in a hospital.

...And that's it for the Gibborim. And while the Gibborim storyline hasn't been the most exciting or engaging part of the show, it has been very much a major presence and a major driving force of the show. To have them (and especially Jonah, who's been Big Bad for two and a half seasons) be wiped out this easily in a very off-handed manner is genuinely pretty poor pacing, honestly, and there's also the aforementioned way that Alex's betrayal, Xavin's prophecy and Baby Elle are all basically piled on each other and wrapped up in the course of two or three conversations. Ultimately, while the actual confrontation was great and there's still a lot of great scenes in these episodes, I can't help but feel like these four episodes could've been a lot longer, maybe benefiting a lot from having one or two extra episodes attached to it to really let aspects of it sink in. I dunno. It was pretty exciting when I watched it, but ultimately looking back, it's a bit of a dud.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Nico Minoru finally follows her comic book counterpart's ability of storing the Staff of One in her own body, pulling it out as she needs to.

Marvel's Runaways S03E02-03 Review: Glitch in the Matrix

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 2: The Great Escape; Episode 3: Lord of Lies

Episode 2: The Great Escape
I honestly feel that Runaways makes for a better binge-watch experience than many of the other Netflix shows, for the simple reason of the fast pace of the show in general. And part of it does admittedly come from the large cast, which, because we have to cover a lot of things happening to a lot of characters, so things understandably move pretty quickly. And while it did admittedly take a long while for us to get here, Runaways has settled into a pretty comfortable pace of quickly moving through its story in the late half of the second season and these episodes in the first season. Pity, then, that like the Punisher, this is also the final season of Marvel's Runaways. All these orphaned Marvel TV shows, man.

And this whole alien-takeover-in-our-cast's-bodies thing is a very, very interesting plot, and it's just such a shame that throughout these two episodes that we seem to be rocketing very quickly to its conclusion. Presumably, judging by what people have told me about this season, the Gibborim aliens will take up half of the season before being replaced by Morgan le Fay as the final big bad of the season. And I'm okay with having two big bads in a season -- one big complaint of the first and second seasons of Runaways is that things take way too long to get moving. It does help that the setup for the aliens taking over half of PRIDE has mostly been done in season two, making this more of a delayed climax than anything. Sure.

Episode two, "The Great Escape", spends a significant amount of its screentime with the three characters trapped in the Algorithm, though -- Chase, Karolina and Janet. And it's... it's not a terrible scene. It works in the context of the characters, and it is filmed well. Chase is reliving a version of an attack on the Runaways' home as a badass that takes down the bad guys and gets the adoration of his ex-girlfriend. Janet is living a hallucination where she's eating waffles made by a very loving and caring husband. Karolina is getting a wedding with Nico with everyone present. Then Janet sort of figures out how to manipulate the Algorithm and cause it to start collapse and get the three real people to sort of hang out with each other. It's all neat and stuff, but I just think that the episode perhaps spends a bit too much time with these scenes, and considering how much of a break-neck pace the rest of the second episode (and most of episode 3) is, I kinda wished that we had trimmed down some of these extraneous Algorithm scenes.

Alex and Nico try and break the Algorithm in the real world, but honestly, I don't remember a whole ton about their scenes. It's nice to see them work together after the friction they had in the first season, and Nico slowly losing control of her staff powers are always fun to look at, but their scenes mostly amount to a couple of close shaves with Jonah. There's a bit of an action scene and stuff as Jonah/Victor cuts off oxygen to Chase's tank when he figures out that Nico is nearby, but the timely arrival of Xavin and Molly ends up rescuing the day. Speaking of which... Molly and Xavin's great. There really isn't much to their scenes other than just bonding, with Molly being an adorable little girl who's just trying to make this emotionless alien friend actually be a proper, nice person. Very great interactions all around, and honestly, I'd rather see more of Molly/Xavin buddy cop hijinks compared to the Algorithm stuff.

Meanwhile, the aliens themselves are having a bit of a crisis. The Son (who is still stuck in one of the main cast members, but they don't know which) is still MIA and they need a specific amount of people to power the magic space portal that they're using Tina Minoru's company to create. The Magistrate's Daughter (a.k.a. "Tina Minoru") is making deals with Jonah/Magistrate/Victor Stein behind the back of the Magistrate's Wife (a.k.a. "Stacy Yorkes", I'll be using the quotation marks for the Gibborim cause it's easier to keep track in my mind) and because all of the Gibborim are kind of assholes, "Tina" agrees to swap out "Stacey" with Karolina and leave "Stacey" stranded on Earth in exchange for the birthright that went to the Son. "Tina", by the way, is an absolute delight in these scenes as Brittany Ishibashi hams the hell out of her scenes, particularly the bit in the board meeting where she is eating random things. Particularly the bit with the Grub Mates delivery dude... who, as the next episode reveals, "Tina" eats in the most literal sense.

The other big confrontation here is Stacey arriving at the woodland cabin where Gert and Dale are hanging out and practicing Gert's dino-mancy powers, and it's actual real Stacy for a change, giving them a bit more exposition about the aliens' plans to leave Earth via a portal, and in typical alien fashion, return with a giant army to scourge Earth. I mean, since this is the MCU universe, it's basically a bi-annual thing between the movies and the TV shows, but sure. Of course, right before she tells the weakness of the aliens to the heroes, "Stacey" takes over, and we do get a fun bit of Old Lace headbutting "Stacey" and knocking her out. She's not quite as entertaining as Ishibashi, but Brigid Brannagh's wild mood-whiplash from being a caring, eccentric wife and mother into a cold, psychotic supervillain is amazingly well-done.

Gert and Old Lace arrive to help save the people trapped in the Algorithm at about the same time that Molly and Xavin does, and they basically gang up on poor old Jonah. Because of sci-fi reasons, though, Janet has to stay behind to allow Karolina and Chase to escape. We do get a pretty heartwarming/tearjerker scene as Janet uses the Algorithm to set up a nice place to say goodbye to  her son Chase, and then everyone escapes back to the Hostel. And... Janet's death is perhaps slightly ever so anticlimactic, but I do agree that at this point, the show is definitely served well by writing out some characters. Either killing them off like Janet (who, uh, bursts into sparkles or something?) or just putting them out of reach of the main cast like Dale.

Either way, though, while the Runaways are reunited, things aren't quite as clear-cut or as happy-fun-times as they have been. Everyone is still suspicious about Chase and his betrayal of the group in season two, especially Gert. Despite learning about human customs and emotions, Xavin clearly doesn't like her 'betrothed' Karolina smooching Nico. And, of course, there's the Magistrate's Son, who's hiding somewhere among the Runaways... and Nico's theory is that the creepy dark eyes and unexplained inner-demon rages that she's been having is actually the Magistrate's Son.
_____________________________________

Episode 3: Lord of Lies
So one of the plot lines that I've always felt to be very distant and detached from everything else that's going on is the Wilder family, which, with the plot of Alex trying to make his parents accountable for their crimes and get them in jail feels... well, it's certainly connected and fits with the PRIDE and its "villains from different walks of life" theme in the first season. It's even a neat expansion from the comics, where the Wilders certainly don't get much focus. But we're three seasons in and at this point, with the far more pressing storyline of the aliens jumping in and out of people and whatever the hell's happening to Nico, it feels like such a bizarre decision to return back to the focus of Alex dealing with his parents, especially after I felt like the final episode of season two has wrapped up their confrontation pretty well.

And I get it, it's basically a huge send-off for Catherine Wilder, but... eh? Catherine got herself arrested last season thanks to Alex, and we start this episode with an interesting scene -- Catherine and Geoffrey's actions during Amy's funeral, where they have an argument and are clearly disturbed by the child-sacrifice rituals in PRIDE, and telling Alex that Amy's death was not his fault. And Catherine spends the episode in prison, telling Geoffrey to contact Alex and stuff, wanting to make amends.

And while Alex is involved in a lot of the other stuff with the Runaways, I feel like I want to get his storyline in this episode over with first. Geoffrey calls Alex and gives him a string of numbers that's his IP address or something, and that gets Alex to see Catherine (despite, y'know, the fact that Alex's secret meeting is basically the same thing that fucked them over last season with Chase). Catherine basically wants to make amends and make the family whole again, but Alex simply isn't interested and tells her mother to go to hell... which leads to the final scene of the episode, where Catherine gets ambushed by a bunch of other prisoners, who are apparently exacting revenge for Tamar (!) and shivs Catherine to death. (Shouldn't like, former DA's and stuff not be mixed with the general populace in a prison?) Which... okay, it's a great, tragic story for Alex, rejecting his mother's attempts at reconciliation hours before her death, but ultimately I feel like in an already jam-packed season, this episode just takes time to take a character that's already written out of the main story... and write her out of the main story for good. I dunno. I just felt like while the actors certainly did their job well, it's not a particularly good storyline. A neat way to wrap up the Wilder stuff, certainly, but eh?

Meanwhile, the rest of the episode deals with the Runaways trying to figure out which one of them is housing the Magistrate's Son, but things seem to point to a saboteur among them. Alex's X-Ray goggles are smashed, there are a lot of finger-pointing between Chase and Alex, Xavin is way too quick to suggest murdering Nico out of jealousy, Nico keeps having strange dreamy encounters with the mysterious raven woman in a field, and Molly just wants some peace and quiet. Molly trying to teach Xavin about dreams -- or, as Xavin calls it, 'night-time delusions' -- is adorable.


Alex, in-between running out of the group to see his mother, comes up with the plan to use the inhibitor chips from the Minoru mansion to make sure, and the group makes it clear that they have to stick together at all times since there's a potential psychotic alien hiding within them... which makes it far, far more baffling when they let Alex leave with minimal resistance. There's a bit of a creepy spooky stuff going on when Nico sees a picture of Tina with the mysterious crow-lady Morgan le Fay, and then talks to Robert for a bit. And then Robert, uh... turns into a smoky crow, the picture of Morgan transforms to a regular Minoru photograph, and apparently the real Robert is in the hospital, having convulsions while the crow watches? It's all interesting set-up as this mysterious Morgan le Fay sorceress lady seems to be manipulating Nico, but things are being kept extremely ambiguous at this point. Pretty fun foreshadowing, though. And I suppose to anyone who's not spoiled on the identity of Morgan le Fay, I guess Nico meeting a mysterious other person in her own mind-space could be her meeting her inner alien? After all, there's no real rule saying the "Magistrate's Son" has to appear as a dude. But the magical crows flying all about the place makes it clear that Morgan is clearly something more than just a body-snatching alien.

Again, despite the fact that they make it clear that everyone needs to be present to make sure the alien doesn't slip away, the Runaways decide to test out the inhibitors without Alex and Leslie present. And, sure, Leslie is a pregnant woman and everything, but doing it without Alex just seems to be such an oversight for them, y'know? I dunno, I don't think the episode really makes a good case why they're so blase about letting Alex run around on his own personal meetings unsupervised. Of course, by process of elimination turns out that the Magistrate's Son is within Alex, and it seems that the Son has just 'woken up'? Or something? Because all of the scenes of Alex and Catherine seem to be genuinely Alex, and he's certainly got none of the ruthless streak that everyone keeps saying the Son has in the previous two episodes. But when Geoffrey calls Alex to tell him of his mother's death, Alex (or "Alex", as it is at this point) gives out a devilish grin, then seems to do something with Leslie's unborn child before calling "Victor"/Jonah and sets about at making a deal. 

Ultimately, I think episode 3 is a bit of a weaker episode. As I mentioned, the Wilder family stuff just isn't that interesting to extend it as one of the main plotlines of the episode. The character work is great, but I felt like it's a wee bit too obviously shoehorning Alex into the forefront before the huge alien revelation is made. I dunno. I kinda felt like this was a bit of a mixed bag, where it feels like we're going through a bunch of B-plots when suddenly we get a swerve back to the Magistrate's Son and stuff. I dunno. Feels a bit odd, is all, and I'm not sure how much I would've bought the "Nico has the alien within her" red herring if I didn't already know about Morgan le Fay. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the original comic book run of Runaways, Alex Wilder is actually the mole in the group. And while the show takes things in a different direction (Chase ends up being the PRIDE mole, albeit in a far less malicious way) this season allows Alex to be a traitor in a different way. 

Marvel's Runaways S03E01 Review: Morgan le Fay

Marvel's Runaways, Season 3, Episode 1: Smoke and Mirrors

I am very slowly moving through the glut of Marvel shows that I haven't watched for the past year or so, and one of these shows is Runaways, another show that is among the large amount of Marvel TV projects that were cancelled last year as Marvel is moving all their TV efforts into Disney+. Unlike some other shows, Runaways at least seems to have one last season to wrap up all of the hanging plot threads between the increasingly convoluted conflict between the children, PRIDE, and the invading aliens, some of which have basically possessed members of the PRIDE. And it's... let me tell you that it's kinda confusing remembering who is who and who is possessed by who and who is captured by who. And while "Smoke and Mirrors" plays catch-up as much as it plays set-up, it's something that's necessary for a show like this, with so many moving characters with differing motivations and loyalties. They are, at least, sticking with the alien storyline, at least so far (there is the mysterious magic dream and I know a certain Marvel villain makes her live-action debut, but I'm not sure how mysterious magic dream lady is going to factor into the show) instead of introducing a half-dozen random new plotlines.

And as we go through the season three premiere there certainly is a sense of things being rushed. Dale going off with Gert and Old Lace ends up going a full 180 as Dale basically realizes that his attempt of 'kidnap my daughter and live a happy life in a random cabin' is not a smart plan, and while I believe that Gert and Dale are both kooky enough that their wacky conversation would work in-universe, and the Yorkes-es have been some of the least evil PRIDE members, it does feel rushed because we jump straight into Gert's warging abilities into a Deinonychus very quickly. Also feeling quickly is how the Wilders being captured by the police ends up veering quickly in something that would probably take half a season if we were going through the pacing of the past two seasons -- basically, Catherine takes the fall after all the guilt of killing Darius and fucking up their family, while Geoffrey Wilder goes free.

Janet, Karolina and Chase gets trapped in the Algorithm, basically sedated and trapped in ideal lives, while the Magistrate, the Wife and the Daughter are basically arguing on whether to eat these humans. It's interesting and it allows the cast to dress up for the huge lesbian wedding between Karolina and VR!Nico, but ultimately it's just some neat fluff before Janet finally figures out she's in the Algorithm and starts trying to find a way to escape, which they kinda-sorta end up gaining the help of Alex when he and Nico infiltrate the PRIDE-base. Also, hey, turns out that the Wife and the Daughter aren't very, very keen on Karolina, a.k.a. 'the bastard child', and Wife is very much willing to murder Karolina off the bat.

It's fun to see the actors for Stacey and Tina (especially Tina -- Brittany Ishibashi does an amazing pouting act throughout the episode) act when they are possessed by these aliens, and we get some fun bits of them trying to figure out human culture. They're also looking for the Son, the fourth member of their group, which have apparently possessed one of the children, which is one of the big mysteries. The remaining Runaways discuss how they are totally shooting to kill the PRIDE members possessed by the aliens, but when push comes to shove, obviously Molly tries to do the whole 'talk down your possessed mom and win her over with the power of love' things, and what do you know, the power of love works and Stacey regains control of her body long enough to tell Molly to GTFO. This is Runaways, after all, it's not that dark of a show. (Xavin's conversation with Molly earlier in the episode also works amazingly well)

Speaking of which, yeah, we do get a bit of an action scene, but as the season premiere it's not super-duper exciting, it just serves mostly to get the ball rolling on most of the plot elements. We do get some fun usage of superpowers, though, with Xavin's shape-shifting giving some expected 'gotcha' moments that are still executed well. Overall, though, a pretty solid season premiere, reminding us of the many conflicting loyalties and allegiances that the cast of Runaways have. 

Marvel's Runaways S02E13 Review: Alien Arranged Marriages

Marvel's Runaways, Season 2, Episode 13: Split Up

This is... certainly a way to end a season. We start off this episode quickly going through the whole Xavin information dump, and as much as I do like my sci-fi, I kinda wish it was the Church of Gibborim stuff that was info-dumped on us over a montage and we had allowed Xavin to actually interact with the Runaways, y'know? It's something that I'm not a particularly huge fan of, but hey, at least it's quick and painless, and most of Xavin's purpose in this episode, in addition to delivering some comedic and robotic "I do not understand why my betrothed does not respond to my courting" bits and basically delivering a lot of exposition about Jonah's race. Or, well, the Magistrate, as we have to call him now. And... on one hand, I do like the clarity of finally getting a bunch of revelations about the things we've been seeing on the alien storyline in this season. On the other hand... it's kind of cheating, isn't it? The random huge revelation of royal alien bloodlines and whatnot? It's just a huge random info-dump, and I kinda wished that the second half of the season had the kids figure or stumble into all of these themselves. 

Actress Clarissa Thibeaux does a pretty great job as the almost-robotic alien paramour Xavin, but ultimately, while she's handled a lot better than someone like Susan or AWOL, Xavin is still kind of just there to be convenient when the plot demands it, and even more than before I really wished that the show-writers had arranged out the post-Last-Rites episodes and the stories a bit better. I'd have loved for the AWOL stuff and the Gibborim stuff to each be contained to one episode each, and maybe have the PRIDE and alien hoo-ha be more built up upon over the half-season. 

And, honestly, we probably should've given Xavin's debut to a prior episode, because she's sort of a non-entity here. She's an exposition machine in the first scene, shows up and fights the Magistrate for a bit before being chased off, and sort of just hangs out the Hostel at the end. The rest of the episode thankfully focuses on the far, far more emotionally-driven fight between the Runaways and the remains of PRIDE. 

And the huge conflict here, of course, is that Chase, representing PRIDE and given the paper-thin ultimatum of "talk your friends down, or we'll use potentially-lethal weapons and memory wipe drugs", and... so much for a seat at the table. I definitely believe that none of the other Runaways want anything to do with Chase's deal with the devil, and likewise, I definitely believe the cocksure ability they have that their superpowers can deal with anything that PRIDE can throw at them. 

And... of course, the Magistrate and his two buddies (his 'wife' and his 'daughter'?) have manipulated the produced weapons to be far deadlier than it was originally meant to, because all they want to do is to capture Karolina, and damn the rest of the kids. James Marsters gets some neat acting opportunities when Victor wakes up and is absolutely baffled that someone else has altered the designs of his weapons, and does a lot of amazing moments when he finally drops all pretense of masquerading as Victor and re-introduces himself as Jonah before Karolina and Xavin in that warehouse. 

The fight against PRIDE's army of drones and the individual parent teams is chaotic as the Runaways find that the parents have countermeasures for their powers. The Fistigons and Karolina's beams don't work, Nico's poor brain is scrambled, Molly can't hit flying drones and Gert's kind of just a regular girl without her dinosaur. They're forced to split up, and basically go through a bunch of individual character arcs as they each confront their parents. 

Alex's sheer, boiling hatred and desire to bring his parents to justice has been, for better or for worse, the driving force of his character throughout the season. With the aid of a borrowed sports-car and after managing to force one of the PRIDE drones to run out of bullets, he leads Geoffrey and Catherine into a bunch of alleyways, and I do like that Alex seems to have learned his lesson from a whole lot of stupid plans over the season. It looks for a moment like he's going to take Tamar's advice from last episode to heart and shoot his parents in cold blood, but he ends up shooting into the air with the incriminating weapon while leaving a cold tip, causing his parents to be arrested by the policemen. 

Karolina, meanwhile, gets into a brief stand-off with Victor-revealing-himself-as-Jonah, and we get to see the weird anti-alien devices that the Magistrate has developed to subdue Karolina's powers. There's really not a lot to go on here, though -- Karolina's taken out by the Magistrate and is one of the 'casualties' of the episode. I'm very much sad that we've seemingly dropped any attempt at trying to make Jonah/Magistrate as a conflicted parental figure to Karolina. Between him and Frank Dean, Karolina's dads just devolve from interesting parents to just sadists, yeah?

The Magistrate basically returns to the Steins only to be confronted by Chase and Janet. They have their own theory about how "Victor is turning into Jonah", which is adorably wrong (they blame the blood transfusion machine) in the reasons why, but this does end up with the Magistrate showing that he's prepared himself against his own anti-alien weaponry, and takes out both Chase and Janet. 

Dale and Alien!Stacey chase Molly and Gert through a mall, and it's perhaps the most bizarrely fun action sequence. Between Molly getting a bunch of people to help get in Dale's way because of PEDOFILO, or the way that Stacey gets the shopkeeper out of the way so she and Gert can get some one-on-one time, the scene's pretty neat. Stacey ends up knocking Gert out with a blow onto the head, something that Dale witnesses... and I do like that ever since Stacey's possession, Dale's continually whining about it but never really having the balls to stand up to Stacey. This ends up becoming the straw that breaks the camel's back, though, because, as one of the final scenes of the episodes show, Dale ends up taking matters into his own hands, kidnaps Gert and Old Lace and heads off on some bizarre road trip away from what to him is an increasingly unstable Stacey. Pretty interesting. 

Nico and Karolina, meanwhile, decide to split up, with that one speech about how they'll "always find each other" making it obvious that they'll be separated and we're going to spend at least half a season with them apart. Karolina, of course, goes off as the distraction and while she loses the drone, she gets taken out by the Magistrate... while Nico, poor, poor fighting-the-brain-scramblers Nico, ends up going straight into PRIDE's headquarters, facing off against Tina (who seems to also be completely taken over by her alien) and... and Robert! Who knows kung fu! Nico's basically dressed in a superhero goth outfit anyway throughout this scene, and I do love that we do get a bit of neat fighty-fight sequence. The slow-motion is a bit much, but eventually, one face-slap too much causes Nico to snap and unleash her inner demons. Her eyes grow scaly-demonic again and she unleashes a "SMAAAASH" spell all My Hero Academia style, knocking out Tina and Robert, before walking away. And it's... uncharacteristically cold for Nico, and she's also apparently losing time, so something about the Staff of One seems to have a grab on Nico?

Ultimately, the Runaways return to the base battered and defeated. Alex and Nico both have had hollow victories over their respective parents, sure, but the two of them plus Molly meant that only half of the Runaways team return to their base to meet Leslie and Xavin... and we get a bunch of additional complications. The Gibborim will definitely be gunning for Leslie and her unborn royal-alien child. Dale has Gert and Old Lace; while the Magistrate and his two cohorts have Chase, Karolina and Janet in alien tubes to 'feed' from. Plus, apparently, there's a fourth Gibborim member, the "Son", which have possessed someone, either from PRIDE or the Runaways, but haven't really shown himself. Nico is kind of an obvious red herring, but I'm curious if the revelation next season on who the "Son" is will end up being. 

Ultimately... it's definitely a bit messy. Season two of Runaways started off really strong, and while a lot of the characters do end up getting in the grove and this does make the second half definitely watchable, the storylines and exposition of the second half of the season does leave a fair bit to be desired. I kinda wished that they either committed to having the second half be a bunch of shorter story arcs, or if it's about the return of the Magistrate and a rekindling of the PRIDE/Runaways. A lot of characters (particularly PRIDE members) just also sort of simmer down into the background in these post-Jonah episodes, which also hurts the season somewhat. This finale is still strong enough for me to care about what happens to these poor children next season, but I really do wish that between the body-hopping possession aliens and the various subplots that the children are embroiled with that we hopefully have better focus and character management next season. 

Random Notes: 

• Chase is briefly shown looking at the designs of a weird device called the Leapfrog, which is the Runaways' stolen future-vehicle in the comics. 
• Xavin's a Xartan, a completely different race from the Gibborim. The original Xavin from the comics is a Skrull, but now he's a Xartan, a completely different race of shape-shifting aliens. 
• So Leslie is just now an honorary Runaway member now? She seems content to cut ties with everyone else in PRIDE, if nothing else to protect her unborn child who the Magistrate's going to be happy to be hunting. 
• Alex relaying Chase's message to the four girls who promptly do a simultaneous bird-flipping is hilarious. 
• That bit with Gert randomly finding some boy named Earl who shares her emotions (and is bizarrely okay and unoffended with Molly using the scooter as a boomerang) is very random and out of nowhere, yeah?
• “I should never have let him play Grand Theft Auto.” -- Geoffrey Wilder. 
• When did Dale start wearing sunglasses? Either way, it's hilarious just how much he pretends to be this cool dude with a swagger whenever he has those on. 
• Robert Minoru randomly pulling out the second brain-scrambler with an apologetic "sorry" is probably the most unintentionally funny scene in what's otherwise a pretty tense scene. 
• We don't learn with any certainty that Robert survived. Tina seems to momentarily revert to her human persona to look at Robert's neck-wound, but we don't really learn what happened to him afterwards.