Everyone comes clean in a tense, suspiciously uneventful Runaways

This feels like where we should be closer to the end of the season, right? Jonah is basically on full tilt, sick and desperate to the point of trying to kidnap Geoffrey Wilder as a sacrifice. Chase and Gert’s relationship is on the rocks. And Karolina has come clean about her meetings with Jonah. Like Darius’ murder, these are all things I could have imagined happening in a finale, but I’m not complaining: The rate at which this season of Runaways is intensely, confidently burning through plot is one of my favorite things about it.

For example: Jonah is now straight-up yelling about his ship in front of Pride without even masking his plan, having either dropped his mystery man act or committed to a bit so deep none of us can even see it. He’s frustrated and just wants to get off of Earth, which is frankly one of the more relatable things anyone has said this season. He also claims that there won’t be an earthquake (this part is up for debate), which leads Stacey, somewhat naively, to want to believe him—if Pride can get The Abstract, get Jonah off the planet without causing an earthquake, and use his research to help people, it might do “enough good” to convince the kids to come home.

That’s pretty unlikely though, since Gert takes extraordinary measures to avoid having to interact with her parents. She pretends to be Chase in order to get her medication, which doesn’t quite make sense (Chase doesn’t have her prescriptions, and would definitely need to see a psych to get them), but does lead to a fantastic, ongoing fight between Chase and Gert throughout the rest of the episode. It’s not just the lying: Chase, after coming to pick Gert up, has to confront his mother, who assures him yet again that his father has changed. Gregg Sulkin absolutely kills the annoyed teen line delivery when he tells Janet, “Yeah, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that. And it’s not even the five hundredth time.”

Later on, Chase says what we’re all thinking—Gert could’ve asked him to help her get her meds, but her selfishness (and, partly, her anxiety) made it impossible for her to conceive of acquiring them as a group project. (Ariela Barer’s face as Gert realizes that Chase is absolutely correct is also great, one of several excellent moments in this episode that are just people reacting to new information.) Chase has basically stopped giving a fuck entirely, to the point where, when Gert asks him to keep their hospital adventure quiet, he immediately, coldly tells Molly what happened. By the end of the episode, it’s unclear whether or not they’re still together. And honestly, these two are cute together, but they might be even more fun as increasingly bitter exes.

At least Karolina and Nico are solid, relatively speaking, even though they fight early in the episode. Karolina confronts Leslie to ask if she should trust Jonah, only for her mother to tell her that Jonah killed Amy—information that Karolina just can’t keep hidden from her girlfriend.

Karolina confessing everything to Nico is easily the most thrilling development in this episode, partly because I’d resigned myself to her tragically revealing herself as Jonah’s mole toward the end of the season. I continue to deeply appreciate the extent to which the kids are, genuinely, believable and mostly good teens—I absolutely buy that Karolina would be too ashamed and intrigued to tell Nico immediately after meeting Jonah for the first time, but I also buy that her guilt and commitment to Nico would ultimately win out, keeping her (for now) as a stable, mostly-honest member of the team.

And things are about to come to a head with Karolina’s father, as Jonah takes steps to ensure his launch goes off without a hitch. He claims that all he’s trying to do is rescue the other aliens, which won’t cause an earthquake—but can we believe him? Will Karolina? If his conduct in this episode is any indication, she probably shouldn’t. Jonah tells the Wilders they’re no longer needed in Pride, only to attempt to use Geoffrey as his sacrifice in a distinctly unsettling sequence that makes the large, powerful Geoffrey the victim of a straight-up horror movie shower scene, from the slow pan revealing the body of his trainer to the way Jonah lurches into the room, his hands transformed into glowing claws of light.

Yet again, it appears as if Jonah has murdered one of our team dads—but instead, he drags Geoffrey into one of the revitalization boxes in order to cure himself of his illness. Alex and the rest of the Runaways retrieve Geoffrey after a raid at the church, but not before Jonah is at least partially healed. (And, more importantly, not before discovering Victor, which makes Chase even angrier.)

By the end of “Bury Another,” we’ve hit a few key reversals. Geoffrey is trapped in a straitjacket, held captive by an angry, determined Alex who seems ready to go full Training Day on his dad. Catherine is now the Wilder freaking out, as Geoffrey fails to show for their scheduled date-fight. And Nico is now the one keeping something hidden from Karolina. Lyrica Okano is, again, just marvelous as Nico slowly processes the news that Jonah killed her sister, her face moving in quick, jagged bursts like a computer program trying to adjust to new information. Karolina is relieved, having unburdened herself of guilt. For Nico, staring numbly over her girlfriend’s shoulder, the pain is just beginning.

Stray observations

• “Bury Another” is written by Ashley Wigfield and directed by Ami Canaan Mann.
• Alex describes himself as an NPC to Karolina when she asks for Nico advice. I really hope he isn’t spending time in the corners of the internet where people think that meme is funny.
• It’s a smaller part of the episode, but the sequence when Nico thinks Molly has run off and goes shouting after her, only to find her hanging out with Old Lace, is one of my favorite moments in the show’s ongoing attempt to show how Nico is becoming a younger version of her mom.
• Stacey’s voice just tumbles throughout this line, like she’s trying to find a parenting life raft that she knows isn’t coming: “They’re strong girls, and thank God they have each other, but who knows what they’re going through or how they’re coping?” I haven’t talked enough about Brigid Brannagh in these reviews, but this is a great delivery and she’s one of the better members of the ensemble.
• When Chase says he’s moving into his own room, Gert responds by agreeing that it’s “super unhealthy” that they’re living together after dating for all of five minutes, which is both true and a very funny and very Gert way of dealing with Chase leaving.
• Victory is finally back! He seems pretty psyched to see Janet/generally be able to move, but she’s keeping her distance.
• Runaways Dad Of The Day: Frank Dean. Kip Pardue is still bad, but he’s the only dad I haven’t done for these yet, and he does have one perfect moment in this episode. Leslie correctly tells him that the bright lights decorating the church aren’t coming from them (it’s Karolina, causing a distraction so the kids can investigate the church), he blithely replies, “It definitely is.” So congrats, I guess.