Liam Hoofe reviews the sixth episode of Marvel’s Runaways…
Marvel’s Runaways has been fairly successful so far. The opening five episodes have done an excellent job at building the characters, exploring the relationships between them, and establishing the world that they live in. The season’s sixth episode ‘Metamorphosis’ while far from a bad outing for the show, was definitely the show’s most inconsistent so far.
The episode started off very strong, with a flashback to the arrival of Jonah, the mysterious figure from the end of the last episode, and the first ever sacrifice committed by PRIDE. The scene explained that, as expected, every member of PRIDE is in some way indebted to Jonah, and the sacrifices, which we discovered turned matter into energy, were done as a way of repaying him, and that they have been taking place for 15 years. Jump forward to the present day and the episode hit us with its biggest reveal – that Jonah is actually Karolina’s father. Just what this will mean for Karolina remains uncertain but you can guarantee she will definitely be finding out come the season finale.
In fact, most of the parents’ stuff in this episode was solid. The episode used a gala held by PRIDE to bring all the characters together in one location, and for the most part, it was an effective narrative device. The parents were really put through the mill though; Victor Stein revealed the affair between his wife Janet and Robert Minoru to a shocked audience before collapsing due to his cancer moments later and the episode ended with Katherine Wilder realising that Molly knows what the group have been up to all these years, a moment which will have huge ramifications in the coming four episodes. Jonah was also ever present here and he looks like he could be one of the show’s best characters. Little is still known about him, but this episode we did see him cure Victor of his cancer, though, the effects this will have on Victor remain unclear. Victor is one of the more interesting parents in the show, and the title of this episode implies that he may well be changed forever after the events of this episode.
What lets this episode down, though, was the Runaways themselves, as the episode opted to focus on their romantic relationships instead of actually doing much useful with them. While the parents were all busy airing their dirty laundry, the kids were busy snooping around stealing data from Mrs Minoru. Alex and Nico’s relationship looks as though it could already be on the rocks, as the two teased tension towards the episode, while the ongoing Gurt/Chase/Karolina romance continued to escalate here. The group were given very little of interest to do here, with the only really memorable moment being when Karolina accidentally fell off a roof and learnt she could fly.
‘Metamorphosis’ was still a good episode of Runaways, it just felt it would have benefited from not focusing so much on the romances in the group. The PRIDE storyline made some serious developments here, though, and I look forward to seeing more and more of Jonah in the coming weeks.
What did you think of ‘Metamorphosis’? Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter @liamhoofe
