REVIEW -- Marvel's Runaways (Hulu Plus Exclusive; Season One - Episodes 1-10)

Marvel's Runaways, or simply Runaways, is an American web television series created for Hulu by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), sharing continuity with the films and other television series of the franchise. The series is produced by ABC Signature Studios, Marvel Television and Fake Empire Productions, with Schwartz and Savage serving as showrunners.

Rhenzy Feliz, Lyrica Okano, Virginia Gardner, Ariela Barer, Gregg Sulkin, and Allegra Acosta star as the Runaways, six teenagers from different backgrounds who unite against their parents, the Pride, portrayed by Angel Parker, Ryan Sands, Annie Wersching, Kip Pardue, Ever Carradine, James Marsters, Brigid Brannagh, Kevin Weisman, Brittany Ishibashi, and James Yaegashi. A film from Marvel Studios based on the Runaways began development in May 2008, before being shelved in 2013 due to the success of The Avengers. In August 2016, Marvel Television announced that Runaways had received a pilot order from Hulu, after being developed and written by Schwartz and Savage. Casting for the Runaways and the Pride were revealed in February 2017. Filming on the pilot began in Los Angeles in February 2017. The series was officially ordered by Hulu in May 2017.

The first season was released from November 21, 2017, to January 9, 2018. In January 2018, Runaways was renewed for a 13-episode second season.

Premise

Six teenagers from different backgrounds unite against a common enemy — their criminal parents, collectively known as the Pride.

Cast

Main

Rhenzy Feliz as Alex Wilder: A nerd who longs to reunite with his childhood friends and a member of the Runaways.
Lyrica Okano as Nico Minoru:
A Wiccan who isolates herself with her gothic appearance and a member of the Runaways. Unlike the comics, Nico does not summon the Staff of One through self-harm. Okano said this was tweaked, "for good reason" as there would be "a lot of young teenagers watching the show and we don't want to promote anything like self-harm because that's serious." She added that an element of drawing blood would still be involved.
Virginia Gardner as Karolina Dean:
An alien passing as a human model, who is burdened by her religious upbringing and wants to pursue her own desires and a member of the Runaways instead of following in her mother's footsteps. She can fly and glow with rainbow-colored light.
Ariela Barer as Gert Yorkes: A riot grrrl, social activist, and a Runaway.
Gregg Sulkin as Chase Stein:
A high school lacrosse player who is often dismissed as a dumb jock but displays brilliance in engineering and a member of the Runaways. Sulkin and the writers wanted the character to be "more layered" than the comics, and Sulkin felt that Chase was the most changed of the Runaways from the source material. The character is depicted as having the potential to be as much of a genius as his father is, and builds gadgets such as the weaponized gauntlets called "fistigons". Connor Falk portrays a young Chase
Allegra Acosta as Molly Hernandez: The youngest member of the Runaways who is characterized by her positive attitude. Early on she discovers she is a mutant capable of incredible strength when endangered.  Evelyn Angelos portrays a young Molly.
Angel Parker as Catherine Wilder: Alex's mother, a successful lawyer, and a member of the Pride.
Ryan Sands as Geoffrey Wilder: Alex's father and a self-made business man who had a grueling path to his success who is a member of the Pride.
Annie Wersching as Leslie Dean: Karolina's mother and one of the leaders of the cult-like religious group the Church of Gibborim who is a member of the Pride.
Kip Pardue as Frank Dean: Karolina's father, a former teen star who is struggling in his professional acting career, who is one of the leaders of the Church of Gibborim.
Ever Carradine as Janet Stein: Chase's mother who has a brilliant mind, is "a perfect PTA mom", and a member of the Pride. Sorel Carradine portrays a young Janet.
James Marsters as Victor Stein:
Chase's father, an engineering genius, and a member of Pride. Marsters was inspired by Vincent D'Onofrio's portrayal of Wilson Fisk in Daredevil, saying it was "exactly opposite of what I was expecting", and also looked for common ground with Victor, saying, "I'm not an abusive parent but I’m not a perfect parent. I don’t think anyone is." He added that Victor just wants Chase to live up to his potential. Tim Pocock portrays a young Victor.
Brigid Brannagh as Stacey Yorkes: Gert's mother, a bioengineer, and a member of Pride.
Kevin Weisman as Dale Yorkes: Gert's father, a bioengineer, and a member of Pride.
Brittany Ishibashi as Tina Minoru:
Nico's mother who is a brilliant innovator, ruthless CEO, and perfectionist "tiger mom" who is a member of Pride. The character previously appeared in the film Doctor Strange, in a minor role as a Master of the Mystic Arts, portrayed by Linda Louise Duan. The producers felt free to recast the role and create a different version of Tina Minoru since Duan was not named as the character in the film.
James Yaegashi as Robert Minoru: Nico's father and a member of Pride.

Recurring

Danielle Campbell as Eiffel: A girl who attends Atlas Academy and looks down on Karolina.
Pat Lentz as Aura: A member of the Church of Gibborim who works for the Deans.
Heather Olt as Frances: A member of the Church of Gibborim who works for the Deans.
DeVaughn Nixon as Darius Davis: An old associate of Geoffrey's who holds a grudge against him.
Cody Mayo as Vaughn: Leslie Dean's assistant at the Church of Gibborim.
Julian McMahon as Jonah:
Leader of Pride and Karolina's biological father. McMahon described Jonah as "the wealthy guy who's pretty ego-driven and mission-driven... who's trying to accomplish certain things and if something were to get in his way he'd plow through it", which he felt was similar to Victor von Doom, who he portrayed in Fantastic Four and its sequel. He also revealed that he did not appear in the earlier episodes as the character in his near-death state, as he had been cast after the first four episodes had been completed. Ric Sarabia portrayed the character in this state, which McMahon stated took five hours of make up application to achieve.



Old Lace, a genetically engineered Deinonychus telepathically linked with Gert Yorkes, appears in the series. The character is portrayed by a puppet that was operated by six people, including one person pumping air through the puppet to show the dinosaur breathing. Barer called the puppet "incredible ... You see her emotions. We don’t not make use of that."

Guest

Zayne Emory as Brandon: A member of Chase's lacrosse team.
Timothy Granaderos as Lucas: A member of Chase's lacrosse team.
Nicole Wolf as Destiny Gonzalez: A young woman who joins the Church of Gibborim and is sacrificed soon after by the Pride.
Nathan Davis Jr. as Andre: An associate of Darius' who is used as a sacrifice for the Pride.
Alex Fernandez as Flores: An LAPD lieutenant who works under the Pride.
Ryan Doom as Alphona: Chase's lacrosse coach.
Devan Chandler Long as Kincaid: A man hired by Tina Minoru for devious purposes.
Kimmy Shields as a supporter of Gert's club.
Anjelika Washington as a supporter of Gert's club.
Cooper Mothersbaugh as a supporter of Gert's club.
Amanda Suk as Amy Minoru: Nico's sister and Tina and Robert's daughter who died prior to the beginning of the series. Chandler Shen portrays a young Amy.
Vladimir Caamaño as Gene Hernandez: Molly's father and a former member of the Pride who died in a fire.
Carmen Serano as Alice Hernandez: Molly's mother and a former member of the Pride who died in a fire.
Marlene Forte as Graciela Aguirre: A distant relative of Molly's.


Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance as a limo driver.

Episode Summaries

Episode 1 "Reunion"

A girl named Destiny is "rescued" by the Church of Gibborim from two muggers, who were actually trying to save her. Six months later, friends Alex Wilder, Nico Minoru, Chase Stein, Gert Yorkes, Karolina Dean, and Molly Hernandez have grown apart since the death of Nico's sister, Amy, two years earlier. Alex uses a meeting for their parents' group the Pride to reach out to the others, but they turn him down. They later change their minds: Karolina removes her Church of Gibborim bracelet at a party, sees her hands glowing, and loses consciousness—Chase rescues her from being raped; because of this, Chase stands Gert up for a study session, and she picks up her adopted sister Molly who has discovered that she has super strength and that their parents have a creature in the basement; and Nico arrives after failing to contact Amy's spirit in a ritual. The gathering is awkward, but they soon discover a secret passage in the house that leads to their parents sacrificing Destiny in a ritual. Molly's camera flash is seen by the parents.

Episode 2 "Rewind"

Before the ritual, Geoffrey Wilder had confronted an old associate from his time as a criminal, threatening him against interfering with the Pride's construction project; Victor Stein was having issues testing the container used in the ritual; Leslie Dean convinced Destiny not to leave the Church of Gibborim until she reaches the stage of "Ultra", which involves the then upcoming secret ritual; her husband Frank, an actor who is not a member of the Pride, lost his agent due to his role as the co-founder of the Church. The group are all reluctant to sacrifice someone the same age as their children, but go ahead anyway. When they see the flash, they race to investigate, but are convinced by the children that there was an electrical problem in the house. Geoffrey later finds Molly's hairpin outside the entrance to the secret passage, while Victor realizes that his container malfunctioned and Destiny is still alive inside it. Meanwhile, Frank unsuccessfully attempts to enter Leslie's private study, where a decrepit figure lies on another of Victor's containers.

Episode 3 "Destiny"

Karolina is told that Destiny is officially in London for a Church trip. Nico investigates the Staff of One, but is unable to control its power and calls Alex for help. Chase and Gert use some of Victor's inventions to search for Destiny in the Steins' house, and then discover that the creature in the Yorkes' house is a dinosaur genetically engineered by Gert's parents. Tina and Robert Minoru attempt to deal with their deteriorating marriage, due to Amy's death, but it ends with Robert continuing a secret affair with Janet Stein, and Tina returning home to find Nico and Alex (pretending to be romantically involved to avoid suspicion). Catherine Wilder confronts Molly, but the latter lies that she had been sneaking around to steal alcohol for the other children. Catherine promises to tell Molly about her parents, who died in a fire when Molly was young (members of the Pride blamed each other for doing this). The Yorkes plan to move with Gert, Molly, and their dinosaur to a remote ranch in Yucatan now that the Pride is over, but then Destiny's body is found.

Episode 4 "Fifteen"

The Pride holds an emergency meeting, though the Yorkes are out searching for their missing dinosaur. Victor accepts responsibility for the failed sacrifice; he and Robert go to find a new one. They attempt to kidnap a homeless man, but they bungle the act and are arrested. Karolina is shunned at school as a slut, and Chase is told to apologize to his lacrosse teammates who he injured when he stopped them from raping her. He instead quits the team. Karolina reveals to Chase how her body glows without her bracelet. She and Gert also look for proof of their parents' innocence, but with Alex's help they realise that Leslie has been selecting people from her church to sacrifice for years. This does not include Amy, who appeared to commit suicide but Nico believes was murdered by the Pride. She goes to the police, but leaves when she sees Victor and Robert talking with a policeman apparently on their payroll. The Yorkes find the dinosaur, doing what Gert tells her to do, and are then threatened by Tina who knows about Yucatan. Alex is kidnapped.

Episode 5 "Kingdom"

In flashback, Geoffrey makes a deal with the mysterious Jonah to buy up land and has to convince his cellmate Darius to take the blame for shooting someone to get out of prison. In the present, Darius has kidnapped Alex as ransom for Geoffrey to pay one million dollars. Nico gets Karolina, Gert, Molly and Chase to come to the rescue, using the staff to find Alex. Geoffrey shows up with LAPD to take out Darius and his men, Alex shoots Andre, one of Darius' goons, but he gets taken again. Alex's friends show up and using their newfound abilities cause Darius to run. Alex makes it back to Geoffrey who tells him to go home while he preps Andre for a sacrifice. The kids all barge into the secret room only to realize that the Pride has moved the sacrifice somewhere else. Tina reveals that she knows Nico used the staff, but allows her to use it and Victor's time machine shows Los Angeles crumbling in the future. Frank fails going Ultra and the sacrifice works revealing that the man the Pride was reviving is Jonah who demands to see Karolina.

Episode 6 "Metamorphosis"

Jonah has all the parents recorded during their first sacrifice so as to keep them in check and to prevent them from leaving the Pride. The Pride hosts their annual gala and the kids use the time to download footage of the previous sacrifices from the Minoru's servers. Gert deduces that Karolina is lesbian, but she gets mad at her for not being honest with Chase. While drunk on the roof, Karolina discovers she can fly and Chase kisses her which she is placid to. Alex and Nico break into Tina's office to get the footage causing Nico to become suspicious of him as he knew the password rather easily. During the Pride members speech, Victor reveals his knowledge of Robert and Janet's tryst and collapses from his brain tumor. Jonah uses his experimental medicine to revive him, making him happily euphoric with his family. Frank appears to know about Leslie and Jonah's secret relationship, but keeps this information to himself. Molly, in an effort to know more about her parents, accidentally lets slip to Catherine about her knowledge of the Pride.

Episode 7 "Refraction"

Victor sees a message from Chase from the future telling him not to pick up the fistigons. Frank gets healing gloves from Jonah causing Leslie to become suspicious. Molly becomes distant from the others and tries joining the cheerleaders who disregard her and finds solace with Karolina. Dale and Stacy discover that Jonah's cure makes people hyperactive and euphoric, but gives them a drawn hangover. At the open house, Leslie gets Janet to break up with Robert who agrees due to Victor's changing behavior and has Tina take Robert back. Geoffrey and Catherine tell Dale and Stacy that they must do something about Molly as she knows about the Pride's activities. They tell Molly she is going to be sent away which angers her and Gert comforts her. Frank discovers that Jonah has been living for a long time and finally confronts Leslie about what she and Jonah have been doing. Nico forces Alex to reveal how he knew Tina's password. Victor suddenly becomes violent again and attacks his son with the fistigons only to get shot by Janet.

Episode 8 "Tsunami"

Victor bleeds out as the Pride members arrive to try and patch him up, though this proves to be inefficient. Leslie has Frank arrive to use his healing gloves, but it sends Victor into a coma. Tina contacts Jonah who instructs them to have Janet be sacrificed for Victor causing the Pride to argue. Robert decides to sacrifice himself instead, but Tina destroys the pod reaffirming her devotion to him. Victor is carried away to be revived later. Karolina decides to tell Frank everything she knows about Pride, getting him to her side. Alex reveals to an angry Nico that he was aware of Amy's snooping and was told to keep her information secret. Molly is living with her relative, Graciela, who gives Molly a letter containing a key. It leads her to a locker that holds a VHS tape. Nico finds Amy's things and Alex successfully gets the footage of their parents, but his laptop is destroyed by a sympathetic Chase. In flashback, Amy learns from Alex that her laptop was hacked and confides her findings to Kincaid. Upon "him" finding out, Amy tries to runaway from home, but is caught.

Episode 9 "Doomsday"

Ten years prior, Leslie murders Gene and Alice Hernandez with a bomb while Tina listens on the phone. Molly survives due to strange glowing rocks giving her powers. In the present, Janet covers for Victor's absence to the public as Jonah tasks the remaining Pride members with his current plan; to use Geoffrey's drilling company to dig a hole underneath Los Angeles. Darius monitors the area and voices his suspicions to his wife. Molly returns to the group with the VHS tape which contains a video from her parents warning her about the Pride's activities. The kids decide to use the school dance as a cover to infiltrate the drilling site. Before leaving, Gert and Chase have sex while Karolina kisses Nico, revealing her feelings to her. Frank reveals everything he knows to Jonah who relays the fact that the kids know everything to their parents. The kids arrive at the drilling site and manage to stop the drill. The Pride arrive to confront their kids who have all decided to finally take a stand. The kids reveal their powers and the Pride is shocked.

Episode 10 "Hostile"

Karolina is kidnapped by Jonah while the rest of the Runaways hide. They make it to the woods outside L.A. and Gert is forced to let her dinosaur, now named Old Lace, go. Finding new disguises, Chase and Molly sneak into the Church of Gibborim to rescue Karolina while Alex waits outside and overhears his parents announcing their intent to find him by themselves. Leslie and the Yorkes discover that Jonah is digging for something that is "alive". Leslie reveals that she was indirectly responsible for Amy's death and that she is unsure of Frank's loyalty. She manages to convince the Yorkes, the Minorus and Janet to join with her in killing Jonah. Alex makes a deal with Darius by telling him everything about the Pride. In return, Darius gives Alex hundreds of dollars for him and his friends and a gun. Jonah plans his next move with Frank over Victor's body and reveals that he needs another sacrifice. The Runaways make it to a bus stop and are reunited with Old Lace, but are forced to run upon seeing that they have been framed for Destiny's murder.

The Verdict (SPOILERS... You've been warned)

For the most part, I have kept quiet about this show on the most part, outside of comments I have made to friends here and there, citing it as my favorite new superhero TV drama to date, alongside FOX's The Gifted based in the X-Men universe. Going into this show, I have had no prior knowledge of the Runaways as I never bothered to read that comic book, despite hearing positive things about it over the years. The trailers for this series never really peaked my interest, but during the downtime of multiple television shows going on holiday break between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I had a lot of free time on my hands to invest into watching something new when I was bingewatching One Piece (FINALLY up to the time skip...). To my pleasant surprise, this was nothing like the typical teen angst drama that I was expecting on the lines of everything that The CW churns out for their DC Comics-based TV dramas.

Characters & Casting

From top to bottom, I have literally no issues with the casting for this series. Even going back to glance at photos from the comics, the kids look just like their comic book counterparts and even are well-written to shine from their source material. I had to go back to research these characters after watching the first few episodes and I was pleasantly surprised that this series honors the source material for the most part. The thing that I found amusing that all of the kids fit into common stereotypes for a lot of these teen angst TV dramas, but change them in subtle, yet slight ways. On the surface, Chase Stein is your typical dumb high school sports jock, but he reveals that he has a brilliant mind for robotics, much like his abusive father. Nico is the typical girl who starts wearing all black clothes and make-up with the gothic influence as her way of mourning her dead sister. Karolina is the squeaky clean "perfect" Catholic school girl archetype, but she discovers her sexual identity as lesbian over the course of the season. (Whistles) The Catholic church would have a field day scorning her if they knew about that... Unlike other shows (specifically the CW's DC Comics' based shows handles the treatment of this subject manner very poorly in my opinion...), this was done as a natural progression over the course of the season instead of making it feel forced. Karolina tried to satisfy her affections for settling for Chase out of spite to Gert, but it didn't feel right so she gave up that "chase" and found herself caving to her hidden affections for Nico.

That being said, you don't need any prior knowledge going into this. The kids that consist of the team that they "jokingly" refer to themselves as the Runaways before dismissing the moniker completely before regarding it in bad taste are interesting enough on their own, but this series does a stellar job of making the viewers care about the kids' parents as well. James Marsters (Angel and Buffy alumni - most are well aware of his acting chops) impresses as Victor Stein in roughly every scene he's in. It's easy to sell him onto viewers as being a vile villain from the first few episodes. I didn't even notice it until episode 9 or 10, but Jonah (Julian McMahon) is the same actor that played Doctor Doom in the first two Fantastic Four films by FOX. The dead giveaway is his mannerisms and demeanor that he gives to Jonah's character. In his regard, most people probably remember him from Nip/Tuck than those movies anyway. Out of the parents, I found myself liking the Yorkes (played by Brigid Brannagh as Stacey Yorkes and Kevin Weisman as Dale Yorkes) the most from their quirkiness antics. They seemed like the "ideal parents" with a maniacal edge to them Dexter had on that one episode of Dexter's Laboratory where he accidentally swapped parents with some other kid at the grocery store. Both are Angel and Buffy alumni as well, much like Marsters but played minor characters on their tenure of those shows. Brannagh is possibly more recognized from her lead role in Army Wives though. They are the easiest parents to identify with where they aren't necessarily bad people, they just caught up into a bad situation without the means to get out of it.

If I had any gripe about the characters on this show, it's how the Wilders - the three titular black characters are written. Don't get me wrong here, but I nitpicked about this when I watched Stranger Things and saw the token black family in that series as well. I can't be surprised given the source material, but there's moments here where I busted out laughing from how estranged from black culture or my own upbringing for that matter that this family falls well away from that tree. These three actors do a superb job with the material that they are given, but I wish they weren't given such stereotypical material to work with. Geoffrey (Ryan Sands) falls into the harden businessman with a shady criminal past cliché while his wife Catherine (Angela Parker) is a lawyer, who seems more like a side piece with a resting bitch face. At least their son turned out alright. He's just your typical black nerd.

On the surface, we're expected to see the parents all as heartless villains, but as the show goes on, it's a lot more than that as the kids and the viewers themselves are thrown head-first into the depth of their acts. Even by the end of this first season, we don't get all of the answers, but that's the beauty of this show. They spread enough bread crumbs from episode to episode that keeps you engaged and eager for the next episode's set of revelations and possible answers to this ongoing array of questions.

Narrative

While we're on the subject of how this show seems to keep viewers hooked in, let's move onto the narrative itself. The first episode follows the kids accidentally stumbling onto the scene of their parents, collectively part of an exclusive fraternity called Pride, who are in the middle of sacrificing an individual as part of some cannibalistic ritual. The kids were former childhood friends who found themselves growing apart in their teenage years after the murder/disappearance of Nico's older sister, Amy. Witnessing this possible murder forces them to reunite in a different set of circumstances as they attempt to uncover the truth to their parents' actions. The second episode acts as a recap as the narrative revisits the events of the previous episode, but sheds the light on the background of the kids' parents in flashbacks. That leads up to the reveal that their ritual wasn't successful and their "tribute" (a runaway named Destiny... there's far too much irony in both her name and her situation that I cannot make enough jokes about here...) was still alive. With the victim still alive, the kids are put into a false sense of security that "OK, maybe our parents aren't supervillains?" That belief proves to be false as their tribute winds up dead anyway. With that ritual gone awry, Pride are left with no choice but to find another unwilling host. On a side note, we are treated to Nico's parents on a date where Tina just flat out shows how nasty she is by putting her panties on the table while they were eating with her husband Robert not taking the hint in the slightest. That's such an obvious sign of foreshadowing Robert's infidelity that even Ray Charles saw it coming...

The kids have problems of their own as they continue to uncover the truth about what their parents are really up to, while at the same time they are discovering secrets about themselves. Molly somehow has superhuman strength that manifests during the first episode. Throughout the rest of these episodes she undergoes a quest of self-discovery as she merely wants to find out more about her birth parents, even going as far as potentially revealing to Alex's mother that she knew about what happened during their failed ritual. Her "sister" Gert is able to speak to and command a biologically reproduced dinosaur that she names "Old Lace". Karolina able to glow with some bizarre energy (making her glow like a disco ball in the process) when she removes her bracelet. When she does this during the first time at a party, she blacks out and nearly raped by her high school peers at a party. Fortunately, Chase "chases" them off and takes her home to safety. When he's not looking from his abrasive father, Chase develops a set of cybernetic gauntlets that he dubs the "Fistigons" and Nico discovers that she is able to perform witchcraft with her mother's scepter. Strange enough, Alex doesn't develop any special powers (he's already a naturally gifted hacker and technology wiz), but winds up in over his head as Darius, one of his father's old criminal associates want payback for taking the fall for his previous imprisonment. Darius ends up kidnapping Alex in an attempt to blackmail Geoffrey (Alex's father) into paying for his ransom. The plan is foiled as this episode turns into an exhibition of all of Alex's friends' newfound abilities on display. The build up to this moment was perfect as there was a genuine surprise by all of the Runaways as each of them displayed what they brought to the table. Alex found himself even more detached from his parents after learning about his dad's shady criminal background and motivated him even further into uniting his friends together towards exposing the truth about Pride's unsavory actions.

That was the plan at the Pride's upcoming publicity function, but Chase's father (Victor Stein) exposes the affair between his wife and Nico's father before collapsing from his brain tumor. Frank (Karolina's father) seems to get the idea of what is really going on between Jonah (the vegetable that Leslie has been seen caring for throughout the series to this point) and Leslie (Karolina's mother) as it's not rocket science to figure out that she's been "faking" her marriage to him but that's not revealed until later that Jonah is Karolina's "real" father, due to their similar powers. Jonah treats Victor's brain tumor with some kind of a miracle drug that allows him to instantly recover, but with a kinder demeanor before devolving back into a much more hostile personality that causes him to almost kill his own son with the Fistigons. In response, Janet shoots Victor to save her son from any further harm, leaving Victor bleeding out in their garage in the process. Nico and Alex sneak into her mother's office to download the past Pride meetings from the computer servers, with Alex already knowing her mother's password. This in turn creates a subplot where Nico wants answers on how Alex knew her mother's password.

The truth of the matter ends up being that Alex knew about Amy (Nico's sister) snooping into her mother's files and the fact that she got way in over her head, but didn't tell her. Among the members of Pride, they are forced to resort to Jonah to somehow revive Victor but needing another sacrifice with everyone arguing about who should be sacrificed among them to correct this mistake. Everyone points fingers at Janet, but Robert volunteers to sacrifice himself to add even more strikes in his case of infidelity to Tina. Tina destroys the pod before Robert is sacrifice to show that she loves him regardless of what he's done. Sheesh, the parents are pretty multi-layered huh? Glad that this show went this route instead of making them bland, generic Saturday morning cartoon-level supervillains.

Karolina and Chase found themselves confiding in their parents on their Pride dealings: Chase with his mother Janet for Pride can save his father and Karolina with her stepdad to have her back in what the Runaways are planning against the members of Pride. After Alex cracks the files on Tina's servers to acquire the evidence they need to send their parents to jail, Chase destroys the laptop out of desperation as he needs the Pride to save his father's life. In a flashback, it's revealed that Molly's parents were killed by Leslie that resulted in Molly acquiring her powers from exposure to the mysterious rocks that they were researching on. That was an obvious change from her origin in the comics, whereas Molly was simply a mutant like the X-Men. Marvel Studios didn't have the rights to mutants and the X-Men properties at this point, so it's a natural decision to change things here. Things come to a head and the kids plan to use the upcoming school dance as a cover to confront their parents and stop whatever they have planned to unearth at Geoffrey's dig site. The dance itself was interesting for a lot of levels as we got four out of the six teens hooking up - first Gert and Chase then Nico and Karolina, with the latter really catching me off-guard as I thought Nico was into Alex, but whatever. I joked about this with a friend after the fact, but it was something that reminds me that just about everything in Hollywood does with sexual scenes like this. You don't see anyone clean up or anything but they got on the same damn clothes on in the next scene(s) sitting in an overcrowded car. (Busts out laughing) C'mon, you got to know that car smelled like jock strap and hot nut/cum, yet not a single one of them cleaned up or changed clothes afterwards. The only thing we got afterwards was the awkward silence in the car for the duration of the ride to the dig site. Anywho... that's besides the point... When they get to the dig site, what we get here is an awesome visual of all of the kids' abilities on display to the chagrin to their parents. I honestly pictured that scene as a rehash of the intro to the opening of the X-Men cartoon. There were no if's, and's, or but's... the cat was out of the bag now about their kids knowing about their Pride activities. What they didn't expect was the arrival of Jonah, whose powers are completely identical to Karolina's. She sacrifices herself by holding him off while the other Runaways make their escape, much to the disapproval of Nico.

The last episode of this season follows the Runaways as they escape from the dig site, but find some disguises to use to aid Chase and Molly in rescuing Karolina, who managed to survive her battle with Jonah and was recovering at the Church of Gibborim. Leslie (after confessing that she was indirectly responsible for Amy's death), Janet, the Yorkes, and the Minoru's all agree to join forces in killing Jonah while Alex makes a deal with Darius to exchange all of his information on Pride for money (to help the Runaways get by on the road) and a gun. This is all well and good until they find out that they were framed for Destiny's murder as the season comes to an end.

At this point, it seems like the show is going to mirror the source material more closely. I even managed to spoil a thing or two to myself while researching some of that material online and on Wikipedia. I'll say this much, if they do that then it's a going to be one hell of a ride, that's for sure. The parents don't know if they can trust Frank (Karolina's stepdad and Leslie's current "husband") since he's been brown-nosing with Jonah, Karolina and Nico seem to be getting closer in their intimacy at the expense of Alex's emotions (I'm sure this is going to blow up in their faces down the road), and the Runaways (collectively have to answer to that name literally now after that hilarious moment in one of the earlier episodes of the season had them point out how stupid that name sounds...) have the added heat of the authorities on their backs as they are now being framed for the murder of Destiny.

Watch It or Don't Bother?

Go out of your way to check this out. I wouldn't say that it's worth the price of paying for a Hulu Plus account, but it's definitely a welcome addition on their growing line of exclusive content on their streaming service. I just applaud Marvel taking a chance like this and doing something new and fresh. I definitely had a blast watching it over the holidays - filling in that gap that the rest of my regular TV programming normally took up during the week.