Putting aside the jokes about how the title characters in Marvel’s Runaways didn’t actually run away from home until the end of the first season, it felt from the beginning like the show had all of the pieces it needed to make something truly special—pieces that never quite cohered. The cast is great, fleshing out some compelling teen characters. The dinosaur is a lot of fun. Even the parents are interesting. So why does watching Runaways feel, to put it poorly, like running in place?
Part of the trouble is that the show shouldn’t move as quickly as it does, or at least not in the same way. Creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage are known for frothy, rapid plotting on shows like Gossip Girl and The O.C., and Runaways follows that blueprint—plots that you think will take a whole season are wrapped up by episode four, while an entirely new arc kicks off. But Runaways has been at its best, and remains at its best, when it’s able to slow down and fully explore the intersection of teen drama and superhero show.
It’s especially unfortunate that Runaways is ending, because in its third and final season, it feels like the show is finally ready to put the past away. This season pits the protagonists’ makeshift family, which has expanded to incorporate the pregnant Leslie Dean and newly-arrived shapeshifting alien Xavin, against the just-released family of series heel The Magistrate, a.k.a. Jonah, aka Victor Stein. This shakeup is useful partly in giving Jonah even less-human foils, but it also allows some of the cast to play very different characters. (In particular, Brittany Ishibashi is very funny as The Magistrate’s Daughter, now in the body of Tina Minoru.)
Turning Runaways into a full-on Family Feud is cool, in theory. But there are already a bunch of families on Runaways. The result is overstuffed—the pacing is a little off, while information gets dropped into the audience’s lap, then ignored in favor of new things happening. And the fact that The Magistrate’s Son’s identity is unknown at the beginning of the season means that, yes, there’s yet another hunt for yet another mole among the Runaways. Still, Runaways continues to crackle when it focuses on its central relationships. Gregg Sulkin and Ariela Barer still have excellent chemistry as Chase and Gert (hopefully, in a decade or two, they’ll get to play a cranky married couple). Allegra Acosta, who didn’t get much to do in season two as mutant Molly Hernandez, is effectively paired with Clarissa Thibeaux’s blank-slate Xavin. And Virginia Gardner continues to keep the entire ensemble stable as Karolina, even if she’s largely supporting the fantastic Lyrica Okano.
Okano’s Nico is also the show’s primary link between its old form and the one it could have taken in future seasons, exemplified by the presence of an entirely new villain—Elizabeth Hurley, playing a mysterious sorceress who can turn into birds and has been, in the trades, identified as Marvel villain Morgan Le Fay (like the King Arthur character). Hurley’s poised, menacing presence has a totally different energy from Jonah, and suggests what could have been possible without bouncing the Runaways against the same characters over and over.
Focusing more on magic also highlights the way this season has clearly stepped up Runaways’ action game, making greater use of everything from Chase’s Fistigons to the Minoru family’s martial arts prowess to, yes, Elizabeth Hurley turning into a bunch of birds. With more action and more finality comes a greater sense of stakes: More than a few people die in this season of Runaways, in a manner that suggests they probably aren’t coming back. By the end of episode four, it’s unclear what Morgan’s plan is. But she cuts a striking figure, suggesting the actual shape of the hallucinatory version of Runaways we’ve been waiting for: one that would allow the Runaways to fight other people’s demons, and not just their own.
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Not sure I would have published an explicit spoiler of that magnitude, even though the specific people it refers to aren’t mentioned. Looking forward to this, anyway. Will hopefully serve as a post-election relaxation technique.
I think the headline of this piece says a lot. These days no show can afford to spend two full seasons before becoming “what the series could/should be”. Yes the Marvel consolidation of their TV is probably the main reason why this show is going away, but nobody has time for TV shows that “get interesting” after a 10-plus hour time investment.
Are they releasing all the episodes at once, like in past years? Or are they going with the “Drop 3, then 1 per week” bullshit they’ve taken to recently?
The show’s Wikipedia page says all 10 episodes will drop on December 13th, and it even lists the titles and writers for all of them.
Haven’t checked in on this in awhile but have they finally, actually run away at this point?
its stated they ran away at the end of the first season.
SPOILERS
Yes at the end of Season 2.
They ran away at the end of season 1. Granted, that was still 8 episodes later than they should’ve run away, but still.
Just started watching this show on account of Disney+. Any indication if Season 3 will remain on Hulu or come over to Disney or both considering the Hulu bundle offer?
Last I checked Season 2 wasn’t on Disney+ yet, nor are they releasing Season 2 episodes of Star Wars: Resistance currently on that platform (since it’s still running with releases on DisneyXD/DisneyNow.
There’s a good bet that these shows will eventually make their way over to Disney+, but only after they’ve run their course on their release platform. For example, Netflix would get Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seasons about 6 months after the season finale, while you could watch the episodes the next day on Hulu or live on ABC.go. Disney+ is the substitute for Netflix in this case.
Last I checked Season 2 wasn’t on Disney+ yet, nor are they releasing
Season 2 episodes of Star Wars: Resistance currently on that platform
(since it’s still running with releases on DisneyXD/DisneyNow.
There’s
a good bet that these shows will eventually make their way over to
Disney+, but only after they’ve run their course on their release
platform. For example, Netflix would get Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seasons
about 6 months after the season finale, while you could watch the
episodes the next day on Hulu or live on ABC.go. Disney+ is the
substitute for Netflix in this case.
I too wish this show had been better. But I disagree that it needs to move SLOWER….
Glad to hear it goes out on solid footing at least. Really bummed that we’re losing this and Cloak and Dagger. They weren’t amazing but they were both solid enough to be a fun watch and the casts had good energy. Here’s hoping both had enough notice that this season and the crossover can give them both a proper goodbye.
Maybe there’ll be an episode of She-Hulk where she defends the dinosaur in court or something.
Will you guys recap this?
Maybe it’s just me or Peak TV, but I started the first episode of the third season twice, then paused within the first couple of minutes to go back and use the Hul indicator line to make certain I had actually watched all of the previous episodes.If you find yourself in in a similar boat, you can do as I did on the third try and just stick with it until you remember, or it’d probably be better to go back and watch the last episode of the second season. I didn’t do that, but I did read through the little sentence synopses as a reminder before diving-in.