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. “Past Life” is not a complete reset of the show but it does start to take things in a slightly different direction by centering itself on the kids and their ongoing problems with PRIDE instead of directly Jonah related matters. Let’s jump into this, but be warned, there will be spoilers throughout.
1. There Were Other Bodies
“Past Life” starts by literally showing us a past life, specifically the one of Jonah, or at least that’s his name now. First we see him as an old preacher in 1932 preaching what seems to be an early version of what would become the Church of Gibborim. Later, in the 50’s, he’s dying and he’s met by Dr. Jonah, the body he would then take over. Before Jonah was Jonah, he would just take over other bodies and that explains all those different voices we probably heard last week when he died. We’re then taken to the late 1970’s when Jonah finds David Ellerh, who’s in bed with a very young Aura and Frances. Jonah tells him that everything he believes is right and that he’s the light David has been waiting for. Then, the very, very young Leslie Dean walks in and they meet for the first time. This is presumably where The Church of Gibborim as we know it is born and by this point, it’s probably likely that the technology Jonah needed to live forever was viable but not perfected. This flashback does provide some context for what Jonah has been doing all these years but the whole thing with him and Leslie is now super, super weird and is basically “grooming.” I’ve grown to absolutely despite the relationship between the two because it’s so damn weird. It’s like in Twilight when Jacob imprinted on Bella and Edward’s baby. It’s weird for a grown man to be this invested in a child that isn’t related to him and sleeping with her when she’s an adult is definitely bad. I hate it.
2. Day Off
Everything back at the mansion is very bad. The two couples that are living in the house have basically imploded. Chase and Gert are barely talking and Karolina wants nothing to do with Nico after Nico killed her father. Molly and Alex aren’t as stressed out but there is something in the air that’s just messing with everyone. Chase says the place is getting claustrophobic and he’s right. Everyone has the same thing on their mind, what comes next? Do they keep going after their parents or do they try to go home and try again? Karolina decides that she needs a day off from everyone and all that’s going on so she leaves. Alex agrees with the idea of taking a day off and in theory, that’s what they do, until some stuff goes down later, which we’ll get into. The stuff at the mansion is very interesting because it does signal a slight change for the show. The mutual threat is gone. What comes now? The core conflict still exists, villain parents versus kids who want nothing to do with that. However, with Jonah in the picture, things were very complicated. They had a common interest but that conflict still exists. How the show addresses that going forward with the last part of this season will be very interesting.
3. Livvie Enters The Fray
Livvie, Darius’s sister in law, is back and she’s more a part of this story than she was before. We first see her walking to the district attorney’s office because she has finally found proof that Darius did not kill Destiny Gonzalez. We all know he didn’t but she has a visual alibi that puts him at a party and not anywhere near Destiny. Catherine Wilder and her friends on the force, Flores and AWOL, find out about what Livvie did and Catherine decides that a message has to be sent. Anything we think of Geoffrey Wilder, times it by 10, because Catherine is the real ruthless one in this relationship. Alex, taking advantage of his day off, goes to the hospital to see Tamar, the new baby and Livvie because she hasn’t answered his texts. He’s there when all hell breaks loose and AWOL unloads a machine gun on their car. Alex then tells her and Tamar about his parents and PRIDE and how he knows that Darius was innocent. Alex has the rest of the group, minus Karolina, meet at Livvie’s grandmother’s home and they bring her into the group and tell her everything they can and come up with a plan to get evidence that it was Geoffrey who killed Darius. Eventually Darius’s death was going to come up again and I really like how it’s coming back into play. I like that this storyline has been merged with the rest of the cast and I wonder if this is how PRIDE truly ends up going down.
Continued below4. Frank Stages A Hostile Takeover
Over the last couple of episodes, we’ve seen Frank Dean kind of unravel. Karolina’s light show seemed to awaken some kind of fundamentalist in him when it comes to this religion and what happened last week has seemingly begun to unravel him even more. Destiny’s brother came looking for Frank last week and that whole thing resulted in Frank shooting him. I’m still not convinced that wasn’t on purpose but here we are anyway. Frank goes to Leslie about this and she starts talking about dismantling this whole thing because it was all made up by Jonah anyway. Frank is not happy about this and tells her about Oscar. She helps him out by getting Flores involved but Frank turns the tables on her by photographing the two of them with the body. He then goes to Aura and Frances to get their help and now things are getting crazy at the church. Leslie isn’t wrong about the religion as a whole but something like the Church of Gibborim can’t just be dismantled. It’s like when people try to go after Scientology and end up dead. You just don’t do it and now clearly Frank feels that he’s the head of all of this so he’s not going down quietly. There’s a lot happening here and I’m super excited to see how this plays out.
5. Sins Of The Mother
At the end of the episode, the kids go to the hotel that Darius died in and they go to a penthouse to try and get access to the surveillance tapes so they can prove that Geoffrey Wilder did this. At the hotel, Molly has too much energy and ends up going off with Nico, who’s at the complete opposite level because of what happened. Alex and Livvie keep bonding while they wait for the tapes to load but the real drama is between Chase and Gert. Gert has decided that it might be time to move on from all this and is looking at going to a college in Massachusetts. Of course, she didn’t tell Chase and he found out about it. When one of the hotel workers comes to the room, they pretend to be a married couple but immediately fight in front of her and it’s hilarious. Once she leaves though, it becomes clear that Chase feels betrayed again and he has a good reason. She keeps not telling him things and he’s angry and over it. Chase clearly wants to go home and it feels like he’s looking for any exit and maybe breaking up with Gert is his exit. When they get access to the tapes, they all quickly see that it’s actually Catherine Wilder who was the hotel but as soon as that happens, they have to escape. Everyone gets away but Molly gives herself up because she’s the strongest but that quickly goes badly when Flores and AWOL get to her and that’s how it ends. I’m not sure what Alex plans to do about his mom but this is a big revelation for him. He always knew his mom was bad but most of his anger was directed at his father and now I wonder where this leaves him. Yet again, the episode ends with a very good cliffhanger and it’s good this is a streaming show and it’s all available because I am worried about my girl Molly.
