Television 

Five Thoughts On Runaways‘s “Last Waltz”

By | March 18th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Runaways is back baby! And they’ve finally run away. The first season was arguably the best of any Marvel television and so far, the things the first season did right have been carried over but the stakes are even higher. On the run, they’re wanted by the cops and their parents. “Last Waltz” covers a lot of ground, gives us a party and delivers a surprise.  Let’s jump into this but be warned, there will be spoilers throughout.

1. Did I Miss Something?

Leslie is still hellbent on dismantling the entire church but she’s very much the only one who wants to do that. After her reconditioning ceremony fails miserably, she is carried off to some kind of compound for further reconditioning. Things here get really, really wild because everyone at this site is dazed a bit and doesn’t go by names. They all have numbers assigned to them and because Leslie knows everything about the church and how it was built, she fights back hard. The woman she’s met by is sort of the leader of all this and comes up against someone she can’t just fight off easily. This woman tells her that it’s not worth fighting and then we get a huge bombshell. Leslie Dean is apparently pregnant and very visibly so and we’re just tossed that like it’s nothing and I just sat with the show on pause for a few minutes trying to figure out if I missed a whole episode or something. She’s far along very suddenly so I gotta think this is Jonah’s kid and because of aliens or whatever, it’s happening much quicker. It’s weird but this show is weird so let’s just go with it. Leslie still has a little power and she uses it to get into some files and she discovers that the woman running this whole thing is her mother and she was presumably sent here to keep her away from Leslie and by proxy Jonah and whatever interests he had in Leslie. This entire saga with Leslie is proving to be the most interesting plot going for me. I don’t know how it will tie to everything else but I’m really enjoying this plot because of all the moving pieces and unpredictability of it.

2. Truth Serums Are…Kind Of Funny?

Gert and Chase are still at the Yorkes’s home but they’re basically prisoners. Stacey, who is clearly one of the aliens from Jonah’s ship, is still acting weird but has these moments where she’s normal again. Stacey and Dale talk to Gert and Chase about how they just want them home and they want to help but they drug Chase and bring him upstairs tied up to get the truth of where they’ve been hiding. I said that Molly giving sass to the cop was the best thing about this show but now this scene has taken that spot. Chase tells the Yorkes lots of things that you don’t tell your girlfriend’s parents, such as, the kind of bed they sleep in, what they do in that bed and lots of other fine details that they never need to know. It’s absolutely hilarious because Gregg Sulkin just kills it in all of this. He’s so dazed and giddy and it’s hysterical. Things get even funnier when Tina Minoru shows up and we get the best line of the whole series delivered by Stacey. Tina gets tough with her and Stacey says “You think because I’m wearing a tunic I won’t drop your skinny ass?” That nearly broke me and this whole thing with all five of these characters proves to be the biggest highlight of the season thus far. It’s kind of this build up of all these moving parts and relationships that have been built up and it works so well. Toss in the fact that Tina is acting like a teenager and it gets even better. Alien possessed Tina is my new favorite person and I love her. Ultimately the rest of the group figures out where they are and they go to get them but in the fight, Old Lace gets angry and goes after all the grown ups and the kids are forced to leave her behind. It’s an emotional scene and I don’t know exactly where things are going to go in regards to Old Lace.

Continued below

3. Something Normal

After Gert and Chase are saved and Nico gives up the Staff of One, the group settles down a little bit and realizes that they have been through a hell of a lot of stuff and oh, it’s also Molly’s 15th birthday. Molly talks about having a quinceanera and how it would have gone in her head and Alex decides that they should do that and so, they decide to throw her a huge bash and it’s utterly beautiful. A quinceanera is not like a sweet sixteen. It’s a right of passage steeped latinx culture and marks the time that a young girl comes of age. It’s a big deal for a lot of girls and for Molly, it would serve as a connection the a side of her that died when her parents did. It’s also a totally normal thing that none of these kids have experienced in a long time and so, they get to have that now. Gert gives an absolutely tear-jerking speech which is capped off by a bunch of dancing and emotion from this makeshift family that only have each other. It’s really a beautiful sequence and it reminds you how young these kids really are and how fragile they still are.

4. Oh Hi Xavin

An important character to the lore of Runaways is Xavin. In the comics, Xavin is a shapeshifting super Skrull (who is referred to as “they” for reference) and is directly tied to Karolina. They are betrothed to Karolina because in the comics both her parents are aliens and there’s a whole war and everything and their marriage was supposed to fix this. It’s unclear what Xavin’s role in Karolina’s life is going to be but it’s clearly extremely important because we get to see Xavin (presenting a female for most of the time) looking and ultimately finding Karolina. They see Karolina at the shopping bazaar that they go to for Molly’s birthday party stuff and Xavin just tells her that they are happy to see her. It’s not a whole lot to go on but I can’t imagine the show will stray too far away from the comics. The show already has to great success but I think with Jonah’s whole past being so shady, I could see the whole engagement bit staying put. It’ll be interesting for sure.

5. Going Home

Everything seems to finally be going the way of the kids until Victor Stein comes up with a plan using landlines and not surprising anyone it works. Victor is able to get in touch with Chase with the mansion’s landline and he lies to Chase and tells him that he’s dying. We know he’s not and we know he’s not even Victor at this point but Chase doesn’t know this. He gathers his things and leaves at the end of the party, basically ruining the whole thing for everyone and it’s heartbreaking. Chase was the easiest to manipulate because of what he’s gone through. He desperately wants his family to be okay after all the abuse he and his mother suffered and he sees this as his way of having it when there isn’t much time left. Chase leaves the group and it leaves them shaken and a lot of things are very unknown now.


//TAGS | runaways

Jess Camacho

Jess is from New Jersey. She loves comic books, pizza, wrestling and the Mets. She can be seen talking comics here and at Geeked Out Nation. Follow her on Twitter @JessCamNJ for the hottest pro wrestling takes.

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