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Five Thoughts On Runaways‘s “Rock Bottom”

By | January 28th, 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. In “Rock Bottom” a character literally hits rock bottom and Robert Minoru makes a huge move. Let’s jump into this but be warned, there will be spoilers.

1. What Lies Beneath

“Rock Bottom” picks up with the cliffhanger from last week with Karolina and Jonah going down into the dig site. He’s fully ready to show her everything as he’s dying (she doesn’t know that) and this is the start of that. She gets the answers she wants. She is Jonah’s daughter and they are aliens. Jonah has been here literally forever. He says that he’s been here since the beginning, before recorded history. His ship crashed and it’s only now that he’s finally been able to find it. There are more of their people in the ship and Jonah shows Karolina that and she puts her hand down and ends up meeting her brother…sort of. At this point, Karolina is entirely on board with Jonah because she just sees him as someone trying to save his family and people. That’s what she’s told and that’s what she believes. She goes back to the house without telling anyone what she’s seen and she spends the whole episode slightly obsessed with the dig site and keeps acting weird every time it comes up.

2. Parental Drama

Two things happen with two separate sets of parents in this episode that aren’t huge but still notable. Frank and Leslie talk again because Jonah has asked Frank to get him a sacrifice, the job Leslie used to do. She tells him what she used to do and how she basically looked at it as a circle of life and not wasting the energy of the body. She’s just basically justifying murder but sides with him when he decides to not do it. They bond over Karolina being gone and bonding with Jonah and it’s interesting to see Leslie go back to Frank like this. I don’t trust her so I do think there’s something else here but I don’t think she’s aiding Jonah. I think she wants her power in the church back more than rekindling anything with Frank. Elsewhere, Janet goes to Victor because she knows what’s at the dig site and knows that it has some kind of gravitational wave energy which basically changes everything people know about space travel…I guess. Victor initially doesn’t want to do anything to it because it’s such a discovery but she convinces him otherwise because they all live in California, including their son and they need to stop this from happening. I still don’t entirely have a guess on what is going to happen with Victor and Janet but I hate this pairing and I hate them trying to make me root for them. Victor is an abuser and he doesn’t deserve any of this love or consideration. Let him rot, I say.

3. Rock Bottom

Topher gets interrogated by the group after Nico takes his vial away and he makes up a whole story for them all about how he was kicked out of his house by his horrible parents and stumbled upon some glowing rocks that give him abilities. He took the rocks, ground them up and uses the power. Topher is basically a junkie and is addicted to this dust. They take the story as is and he ends up talking to Molly about the dig site and PRIDE and he leaves the house and goes to the dig site to get those rocks. He is an addict after all. They go after him and can’t stop him from getting the rocks. He’s high as high can get and his powered up and he carjacks a guy and they have to chase after him. They find him at a house and it turns out his whole backstory was made up. What really happened was that Topher worked at the lab Molly’s parents worked at. He was a security guard when the building blew up and killed Molly’s parents. That’s how he found the rocks and started using them as drugs. He was then abusive and angry towards his family (because he’s a drug addict) and they cut ties with him. Molly is absolutely heartbroken but Topher is a rage and they all fight him. He tosses a dumpster at the group after Nico hits him with the staff and so Chase has no choice but to turn it around with the fistigons and it almost costs Gert her life but Topher moves the car in a moment of clarity and takes the whole hit. I took that last scene with him and Molly as him dying. I think it’s pretty heavily implied that he’s dead. What comes from all this is just a decimation of Molly emotionally. Nico was trying her hardest to help her with this. She doesn’t understand that he is a drug addict and even though he might be a good person, he’s sick and that sickness has taken him over and ruined his life and makes him do really awful things. Molly blames Nico for all of this and even says she’s exactly like her mom but Nico takes it. This is Molly being forced to grow up and it’s rough and it’s too soon but this is their life now. The inclusion of Topher maybe wasn’t the most amazing thing for all of us to take in but I think he served a purpose here.

Continued below

4. Watch The Quiet Ones

Robert Minoru is a lot of things. He’s a tech genius, he’s a mourning father and also a cheater. He’s not thought of as clever or tough or someone you’d let go against Jonah alone. However, that’s exactly what he does because no one would expect it. After another tense meeting, PRIDE decides they have to do something and Robert volunteers himself. He says Jonah wouldn’t expect it and that he has been working on something. Tina gives him the green light and says she believes in him which is a very big deal for this struggling couple. Robert goes to see Jonah and he traps him in a genius little trap. Remember when Karolina, Nico and Molly were at the house and they fought Tina? Karolina lost her bracelet there and Robert played around with it and realized it was an inhibitor. He made it bigger and has trapped Jonah in it which is accelerating whatever is going wrong with his body. Robert has him and it’s not even a contest until Jonah’s extremely loyal assistants hit Robert and maybe kill him? It’s not entirely clear when Jonah brings Robert’s body back to PRIDE like a bag of trash. He might be dead but I think Jonah will try to leverage them into giving him Robert back as his sacrifice if Frank fails to do it.

5. A Twisty Final Shot

The very end of this episode is really something because two major things come out of it. Gert is having an incredibly tough time with everything. Gert has issues that she takes medication for and she doesn’t have any of that anymore. She also doesn’t have all the shelter that comes with being rich and living an extremely privileged life. Despite where her heart is and all the social justice warrior energy she has is not enough to get her through all of this. She grabs her jacket and we see her in the hospital getting treated and the nurse tells her that her parents are on their way. It looks like Gert has given up and I can’t totally hate her for this. Her whole journey this season has been her struggle to get through the stress and chaos of all of this and it’s not entirely something to hate her for if she completely gives up. I just wonder if she has some other plan here, which I think is where this is going. Then there’s Karolina, who goes to see her mom and wants to know the truth about her dad. She’s got a lot of questions she wants answered and she’s aware that maybe Jonah is not who she should place her trust in. I am now convinced that Karolina will not betray the group after this. This is a lot of awareness that I think the character needed. It’s a perfect ending for a damn near perfect episode.


//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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