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Five Thoughts On Runaways‘s “Tsunami”

By | December 27th, 2017
Posted in Television | % Comments

Let’s jump into this but be warned, there are spoilers throughout.

1. Tsunami

What a perfect title. Absolutely perfect and on the nose for an episode that is literally just one thing after another crashing down upon these characters. It’s also, as every single comic book website has pointed out, a reference to a former Marvel imprint. After Janet shoots down Victor when she sees him attacking Chase, chaos ensues. All of the Pride are called in by a single text that reads “tsunami.” The last time anyone got this text, they found out about the fire that killed Molly’s parents. When they all get together, they leave out Leslie because of her connection with Jonah and it comes down to the Yorkes to try and save Victor. They are doctors but not those kinds of doctors so this goes fairly badly as Victor ends up in a coma. Leslie ends up on the scene and Frank does too and things get even worse from here. Frank makes an attempt to use the gloves that Jonah gave him but that does the complete opposite and actually kills Victor. Jonah finally arrives after Tina (a little twist) calls him and he forces them to make an impossible choice.

Elsewhere, the kids are dealing with their own problems. Chase doesn’t want his dad to die and he turns to Gert first and then Karolina when she doesn’t answer her phone. Gert is a bit preoccupied with her sister being sent away so Karolina ends up at Chase’s house where she talks to her dad and he makes her believe the Pride are helping Victor. Chase also goes along with this (we’ll come back to this) but as this goes on, Alex and Nico get closer to a lot of truths including what happened to Amy.

Like I said, this is a tsunami in every sense.

2. Every Person For Themselves

This was by far the strongest part of this episode and I loved every second of it. When Jonah goes to Victor and Janet’s home, he sees that Victor is gone. Jonah tells them that he can use the same boxes they use for sacrifices to save Victor but they are running out of time to do so. Obviously you can see what this means – they need a body and Jonah tells them it has to be one of them. Initially he declares it to be Janet because she shot Victor and thus, this is her fault in his eyes. Very quickly Robert jumps in and says that’s not going to happen and Janet begins to defend her life to all of them. At this point, chaos ensues because the entire Pride start to yell at each other about who’s more worthy to live and who isn’t. What’s so amazing about this scene is that there’s a level of comedy within it, particularly when Frank’s name is brought up and Leslie responds with “not the worst idea.” In what is really the darkest thing to happen yet, there’s this bizarre comedy element to it that really works and I can’t quite explain why. Robert decides (out of love for Janet) that he will go into the box and die and Jonah goes along with it because in his eyes, he’s not all that valuable anyway. Tina objects and uses the staff to destroy the box, thus ending this whole thing and forcing Jonah to put Victor on ice. He can keep his cells alive and that will make it possible to bring him back. They just have to figure out how to build a new box. Tina Minoru’s decision here initially frustrated me because I can’t believe she’d want to save him but I think her choice is rooted in just not wanting to lose anyone else for her sake and especially for Nico. They just lost Amy and now they’d have to go through losing Robert too. I can empathize with this decision but please do not take him back. He was about to die for another woman. Drop him immediately, Tina.

3. Amy’s Last Moments

Speaking of Amy’s death, Amy comes up quite a bit this week as Alex is forced to tell Nico exactly what went on with her. After being pressured about this, Alex tells Nico that he knew Tina’s password because of Amy. In flashbacks, we see that Amy is freaking out because someone has hacked her and has been watching every thing she does on her computer. That person is Tina and they end up in this weird cat and mouse thing with Amy becoming increasingly scared and paranoid. This is all Alex knows and it doesn’t convince Nico. She feels that something else had to happen because this wouldn’t have been enough for Amy to kill herself so she goes back home and searches Amy’s room. She finds a phone and plugs it in to charge and leaves. What we are left to see is when the phone turns on, there is a text message from an unknown person telling Amy to get out of the house and run. In another flashback we see Amy panicking in her room to pack and get her hard drive erased. She’s suddenly surprised by a unknown person to us because we never see them. I’m sure it was Jonah and I’m sure he’s responsible for her death and the deaths of Molly’s parents. Amy must have found something out and that’s what got her killed. My biggest problem with this episode is that it feels really overstuffed and these flashbacks with Amy are a bit confusing and incomplete in a bad way. This is a big mystery but I would have rather seen something more completely feeling instead of something so scattered or something that felt like a second or third thought.

Continued below

4. Molly, That’s a VHS Tape

I’m 26 and in this week’s episode I was made to feel ancient. Thanks a lot, Molly. Molly is sent to a distant relatives house and her farewell with her parents goes horribly. Molly is understandably angry with her adoptive parents and when they leave, she makes sure they remember it. At this relatives home, she is given a letter from her parents that tells her to find her stuffed elephant. This letter also has a key that opens a locker at what appears to be a bus depot. When gets that locker open, she discovers a VHS tape and that completely baffles her because she doesn’t know what it is. I guess it has been that long since VHS was a thing??? I guess I’m old now. Molly is a little bit of an afterthought in this episode but in her scenes with Graciela, she’s adorable. She’s not happy to be here but she’s getting more in touch with who her parents were and her heritage and I really love to hear other languages spoken (especially Spanish) on American tv shows.

5. The Non-Runaway Runaways

No, they still haven’t run away and ultimately they decide not to. Once the information Alex stole decrypts, he discovers what it is actually is. It is all the videos of the sacrifices the Pride has made. All their murders are right there on video tape. When they all get together, Chase tells Alex that they can’t do this anymore because Pride is going to help his dad and he can’t risk that right now. Karolina goes along with this and even says that her dad could be an ally for them. Alex and Nico are shocked and this all ends up being a brawl between Alex and Chase and Chase ends up destroying the computer the videos were on. It’s really pretty shocking because the comic moves so fast. These kids are out the door in the first arc and we’re very much not at that point right now. Chase and Karolina are determined to not go public which means there will be no running away just yet.

 


//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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