Who would have guessed that the biggest accomplishment of the second season of Runaways would be humanizing its villain? “Last Rites” is a big episode, and easily could have been the season finale. The kids confront their parents again, Jonah attempts to launch the ship, and there’s a bunch of exciting action—but the most compelling part of the episode is the way it makes Jonah’s apparent death feel at least somewhat sad, rather than triumphant.
The events of “Last Rites” are, in large part, centered on Jonah’s relationship with the Dean women. The episode opens with a flashback to Leslie’s father’s death, establishing her commitment to Jonah and clarifying how much of a break it is for her to betray him. (Quick question, why does Leslie even want to go with Jonah when he leaves Earth?) It’s honestly still a little unclear to me how Leslie feels about Jonah—though she’s told Karolina about Jonah’s crimes and appears to be putting up a unified front with Frank, she calls attention to her daughter’s deception when it becomes clear that Karolina is lying to Jonah rather than helping her delay the launch. Annie Wersching is mostly a cipher in these scenes, which I think is a good thing—for now.
Karolina, meanwhile, manages to weaponize her relationship with Jonah, telling him to meet her at their usual spot as a distraction while she and the other Runaways attempt to free the aliens from the ship. This is a good turn of events, and it leads to the very funny scene in which Jonah realizes that his teenaged daughter might actually lie to him, even though they have a “connection.” It’s also an excellent use of the earlier scenes, which set up the possibility that Karolina might betray the other Runaways. Instead, those Jonah-Karolina scenes lay the groundwork for this plan. But it all goes wrong when, not only is Chase unable to free the rest of Karolina’s “family” with the Fistigons, her father gets apparently murdered—by her girlfriend.
I’m assuming, or at least hoping, that Julian McMahon will stick around the show in some capacity, because he is great in this episode. His sputtering confusion when he realizes that Karolina might have taken advantage of their “connection” is equally sad and hilarious. He gets to do some good, old-fashioned villainy when he caustically admits that he lied about the earthquake. And when the Yorkes and Steins succeed in blowing up the ship, he’s a raw, wounded nerve. His malicious preening even gets deployed for comedic purposes when he muses, “Who wouldn’t want Geoffrey Wilder inside of them?”
The non-Jonah parts of “Last Rites” are, for the most part, good and goofy still. I’m increasingly interested in a Runaways episode that’s just about Frank trying (and failing) to run the church, because the writers have gotten bolder about making the Gibborim religion the butt of the joke. There’s the scene where everyone working “security” at the launch is told to follow their light or whatever while being handed massive guns. There’s the very good gag where Alex hacks their cars and sends them to the desert Gibborim being led to the desert, thinking that self-driving cars are a miracle. And, of course, Frank continues to be a total idiot and accidentally kills Destiny Gonzalez’s brother. But all of that is setup for stuff that will happen later in the season, because Frank aside, the rest of the parents converge on the dig site to confront Jonah and their kids.
He blasts away at the outside of the ship, but Chase isn’t able to make a dent, and the rescue mission is a failure. The kids need to get out of the hole before Jonah launches the ship, and Karolina is forced to leave Nico behind—leading to a tender kiss between them, which (somewhat) crystalizes their relationship as one of the emotional backbones of the season. It briefly seems like Nico might be a sacrificial lamb for Karolina’s character development—only for her to blast out of the hole using the staff to create a whirlwind in an incredibly good and well-done teen superhero moment.
Eventually, Jonah orders someone named Xavin to launch the ship (which might be meaningful if you’ve read the Runaways comic), which turns out to be an enormous ball of bisexual lighting. Not even the Staff Of One can stop the ship, but the combination of the Steins’ device and the Yorkes’ poison gets the job done. The ship explodes into glittering light. It’s impressive that this is only a partially triumphant moment—the ship itself is quite beautiful, and we don’t have a sense that the other aliens on board have really done anything wrong.
Nico dips the staff into the Yorkes’ weapon and stabs Jonah in the back with it, seemingly killing him. The intercut with a flashback of Nico finding her sister dead could have been a little much, but everything else about the end of the episode is so confident and on-point in maintaining and building tension that I was totally down with it. (It helps that this comes just a few minutes after Nico’s dramatic emergence from the hole.) Except that Karolina, of course, is upset, and the episode ends both with the suggestion that Jonah might not actually be dead (he mutters “Now we’re gonna have to take it all” before the light leaves his body, returning Julian McMahon to his original Australian accent) and with an impending fight between Karolina and Nico.
I mean, look—all of this is is extremely over the top. Karolina literally screams “No!” as her girlfriend kills her father. But that’s what Runaways does best, especially when it’s this confident about being able to pull off the cheesier beats. I’m excited to see where it goes.
Stray observations
- “Last Rites” is written by Quinton Peeples and directed by James Madigan.
- Dale had a panic attack when Gert was born, and forgot the whole thing.
- Gert’s line “I always have had a soft spot for the disenfranchised” is something Veronica would say on Riverdale, which I mean as a compliment to both shows.
- When the kids try to see if Gert texted them, Molly notes: “Guys, I think we should have factored into our plan that we’re underneath the earth and our phone costs $8.99.”
- Victor seems to get a message from a future version of Chase, telling him not to pick up the Fistigons.
- Every reaction shot of Tina is incredible, like Brittany Ishibashi is on the verge of doing a full “Yes, padawan, feel the power of the dark side” smirk.
- Runaways Dad Of The Day: Jonah. Victor awkwardly hugging Chase and Geoffrey actually helping the kids make for strong contenders, but this has gotta be a Jonah episode.
18 Comments
The most over-the-top bit was that this episode starts with flashes from the climax. The in media res thing is pretty good at establishing urgency in a show where you only get one episode a week, but it’s just annoying and unnecessary in something released altogether, if you’re binging it. Really glad they didn’t draw out the “thing at the bottom of the big hole” plot any longer. Pretty bummed they didn’t play up Jonah’s life-long manipulation of Leslie more. Some of the parents made their own choices and some were manipulated, and I wish this difference played more into their relationships with the various kids.
The Pride… just committed genocide. Holy shit.
Eh, only if this was a Krypton/Argo City-type situation. For all we know, Jonah’s ship could have been forward scouts for a massive invasion force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_lighting
Google Image search “bisexual lighting.” It’s delightful.
It really felt like the Aliens in the ship didn’t die. This is my theory having just seen this episode and not watched ahead.
The way Jonah died you could see particles leaving him like the light inside controlling him died. And I think those motes of light that scattered to the wind are members of Jonahs race leaving to possess bodies like he did. This would explain why his last words seemed to be spoken by another person.
“Now we’re going to have to take it all.”
—- Jonah dies.
“Where am I? Why are you crying? Who are you?”
—- Jonah’s host dies.
Given the sacrifices to maintain the host, I assume once the light has chosen a host it can’t leave.
Both of your comments perfectly summarize my thoughts on this episode. The show seems content on things being exactly what they expect (i.e. Topher being a drug user and betraying everyone just like we were led to think) but I’m kind of hoping it isn’t so cut and dry. I feel like random alien spirits controlling human hosts is too overdone (anyone getting ‘The Host’ vibes?)
Yeah, started suspecting the same as watching that final scene. I think it a masterful misdirection in that they thought they had killed them all instead of setting them free. It is also a pretty smart way to set up the conflict for Karoline when the time comes.Another smart indication that things aren’t that good was Victor watching future Chase’s message and saying how it was an indication everything was going to work out. The problem was that he missed the second message that showed Los Angeles being destroyed. Furthermore, Victor still went for the Fistigons, so there hasn’t been a change in timeline yet. It was really good relying on seeds planted in the first season without making it blatant.
The scene where Nico killed Jonah, between the cuts, music, reaction-shots, ramifications, all of it. Damn. That makes this a show worth recommending. Lyrica Okano is amazing.
I’m really loving this show. Come one Nico arose from an underground tunnel with a whirlwind and hopped out with a staff. You’ve got to love this stuff
The message from the future was about last season. Chase was telling Victor not to pick up the guantlets. But Victor did pick them up and attack Chase. That’s why his wife shot him. Future Chase was trying to prevent that.
Wow…. definitely my favorite episode of the whole series so far. After finishing it, I wasn’t really sure where they’re heading next, and I was NOT expecting to feel that when I started watching season 2. Again, Lyrica Okano KILLING. IT. After having some issues (like a lot of people) with Karolina and Nico’s chemistry, that last kiss at the bottom of the dig site was amazing. And it totally made what followed even more heartbreaking. While I do understand Karolina’s reaction, I still feel like it’s a little too much. The dude murdered your girlfriend’s sister IN COLD BLOOD. And he admitted to lying about the earthquake… so basically a full-on wants-to-end-a-city-supervillain!! Yes, I get that he was her father and only connection to really knowing the truth about herself (or is he???), but sometimes you have to check your priorities. Overall a solid episode, though. Also Eric, bisexual lighting ftw.
Also, I forgot… Julian McMahon is Australian?!?!?! I’ve seen that guy on my tv since I was like 10 years old and I’m just finding out about that now.
Julian McMahon was really sublime in this season and I’m sad to see him leave. To add another great line to the ones listed in the review, when Jonas told the parents that he might have been lying about the quakes even he was rolling his eyes at them still believing him.Another surprising performance this season has been Gregg Sulkin’s Chase Stein, especially after the first season. He wasn’t bad there, but it just felt like such a bizarre choice to focus most on his secretly savant white guy jock with daddy issues after introducing such a diverse cast of kids. Here, when they’ve allowed him to be a more part of the ensemble, Chase has really come to his own and revealed that Sulkin has a brilliant sense of comedic timing. The Chase lines of the episode for me were ‘Leaving Karolina behind is kind of your thing’ and ‘Not the weirdest thing I’ve heard today.’
Three small notes on the episode:-I literally had the same thought about the phone issue before Molly called it out. That was actually pretty smart plotting for the show.-Having Karo call out Nico about not using the Sleep spell on Jonah was also really smart as it avoided making Karo seem unreasonable and arguing they should have let Jonah kill the rest of the parents.-The show desperately needs to get an action scene coordinator. As much as they’ve improved on the other aspects, every time they hit an action sequence, things get ridiculously clunky.
I’m not surprised by Leslie being conflicted about how she feels about Jonah. We already knew that she has known Jonah since she was a child. The scene at her father’s death had undertones, and overtones of him “grooming” her to be devoted to him. There were some serious predator vibes for me, both sexual and just plain controlling. That’s hard to break away from.
….All they had to do was wait for season 3, & they could’ve done Xavin completely faithfully; the Fantastic Four license would’ve been fair game by then, & she doesn’t even appear in the Pride arc anyway! But no, they made Xavin into a flying glowing sperm instead. What the crap is this show?
I don’t think the ship was Xavin. I haven’t watched ahead, but Xavin appears to be outside the ship, controlling it offscreen. The ship itself is filled with a whole bunch of rainbow aliens like Karolina and Jonah. The ship is organic, made of living material, but I don’t think it has real consciousness, so I’m pretty sure it isn’t Xavin
“Quick question, why does Leslie even want to go with Jonah when he leaves Earth?”Umm, she doesn’t. She wants to be there when he leaves, so she can make sure he doesn’t take Karolina with him.