Runaways in back for season 3! It’s bigger! It’s bolder! It’s…ending. But that won’t hold us back from having a great time watching. This show has been one of Marvel’s strongest for two years now and this season seems like it’ll be bonkers in all the best ways. So watch with us! We’ve got high peaks, low valleys, and family drama to spare.
1. From Dreamworld to Torture Chamber
So Chase, Janet, and Karolina are still in the Algorithm and it’s glitching out like crazy. Chase has been reliving the same scenario over and over again (an incredibly unrealistic one based on the fact that Gert hasn’t mentioned micro-aggressions) but realizes that he can will the whole situation away. It’s a fake science domino that leads to the walls between Chase and Janet being reunited. Karolina, meanwhile, gets a visit from the Magistrate who tells her he’ll save her friends if she joins him. Honestly, the whole algorithm thing is a bit tedious. It’s nice to imagine a world where the trio got thrown into scenarios that required them to learn about themselves and grow in some way but instead it mostly feels like a tool to sideline people in a semi-interesting setting.
2. Here Comes the Bride
After Gert and Dale’s father-daughter bonding last episode, Gert is ready to head out and find Molly. Just as Dale gives finishes his prolonged goodbye, though, Stacey shows up. She’s still fighting off the Bride and she needs to share the Magistrate’s plan before her clock runs out. The scene finds a fun midpoint between zaniness and tension in Gert and Dale keeping their guard up as Stacey manically explains the Magistrate’s plot to take his family back to their planet and destroy Earth in the process. When the Bride inevitably comes back (a turn played wonderfully by Brigid Brannagh), it’s fun watching Dale throw things at her to no avail and AWESOME when Old Lace intervenes. The whole sequence is a strong indicator of the smart decision this series made keeping the parents around. As great as the comics are, seeing the dynamics of the Runaways and the Pride get more complex and dynamic as time goes by is equal parts fun and compelling.
3. A House Divided
It turns out, last week’s Bride drama was more than a matter of pettiness. As the Magistrate and the Daughter have their own father-daughter moment, their very toxic family dynamics become clear. The Daughter says that the Bride is scheming against the Magistrate. He wants loyalty from his Daughter but she’ll only give it if the Son is stripped of his powers and she is made the Magistrate’s successor. It’s definitely intriguing to watch these family power plays happen, especially since don’t have a Son in the mix quite yet. He’s a specter in the story and it’s exciting to imagine where things will go once he makes himself know.
4. Angst and Espionage
The main event this episode revolves around breaking Chase, Janet, and Karolina out of the Algorithm. The whole Molly/Xavin unintended detour with the Daughter is loads of fun, especially when Xavin tries (and horribly fails) to drive. Her transformation into Tina Minoru further drives home that Brittany Ishibashi is the MVP of Runaways as she knocks out yet another performance that requires her to be so contrary to Tina’s straight-laced persona. It’s not nearly as fun to watch Alex and Nico try to get access to the Algorithm’s controls while Nico deals with her fear of her own powers. As great of a job as Lyrica Okano does playing Nico, the Morgan le Fey interludes are too shoehorned in to make Nico’s beats feel like they fit in with the rest of the show. Inside of the Algorithm, Karolina leaves her world and meets up with Chase and Janet and they all find a door to the real world that Karolina’s powers can access because fake science is fake. The catch is that Janet needs to hold the door open and that’s going to kill her because, again, this science is very fake. It’s a whole lot happening at once and all of these worlds collide when Jonah finds out that Alex and Nico are in the facility and goes to kill Chase. Luckily, Molly and Xavin show up just in time for Molly to fulfill her dream of straight up trounding (no this is not a real word, yes it is the only proper way to describe this) the Magistrate and Xavin throws some power dampeners on him. Then we get a Chase/Janet goodbye; it would be more touching if Janet was a more dynamic character but instead it’s a cent that just makes me feel bad for Chase which is fine I guess since he’s the one sticking around. There’s a bit too much plot going on in all of this so it’s very exciting to see the show move into a space where the storytelling can be a bit more focused.
Continued below5. Reunited and it Feels So… Complicated
Once team is back together, the glow of victory fades pretty quickly. Gert and Alex want Chase to move out of the hostel after one night. Molly tries to defend him, giving a nice speech about refusing to lose more family but the one-night rule stays. The show doesn’t seem to take sides in this debate which is nice given how genuinely complicated the whole situation is. Sure, we as an audience might be in Chase’s corner having watched him deal with loads of inner-turmoil but as far as Alex and Gert can see it, he’s responsible for quite a bit of collective trauma. Yet another wrench gets thrown into things as the group is about to head to bed. Xavin points out that they still haven’t found the Son and says that Karolina isn’t safe with Nico. It’s clearly a move driven out of envy but it also gets at Nico’s deep insecurity around her abilities. She tells everyone about her visions and agrees that she’s a danger to everyone. It’s not the most interesting way to end an episode, especially seeing as the Son is clearly, y’know, a guy and her visions have been of a magic woman. But still, Nico is afraid of herself right now and it makes sense that she’d do what she did. What everyone’s reactions are, only episode 3 can tell us. See ya there!
