Liam Hoofe reviews the eighth episode of Marvel’s Runaways…
First of all, let me apologise for the lateness of this review this week. I’ve been enjoying some lovely family time and have spent the last two days sat on my sofa looking like a stuffed turkey and nursing my head after one too many over-priced British pints.
After the last two episodes of Runaways have used a social event to bring all the characters into one place, this week’s episode, ‘Tsunami’ utilises another age-old narrative device to bring everyone together – a crisis. Following the shocking climax of last week’s episode, which saw Victor Stein shot down by his own wife, Janet, the members of PRIDE were also summoned to the Stein residence to attempt to deal with the situation.
Like the last few episodes, Tsunami spent the majority of its time focused on PRIDE and their internal strife. What this week’s episode did, though, that the other two didn’t, was offer us an insight into the hierarchy within the group. As it turns out, Victor is fairly essential for PRIDE to finish their ‘mission’ and the group must now decide which member of the group is the most dispensable, and therefore eligible to be sacrificed to save Victor. This, of course, leads to several tense confrontations and exposes several weaknesses within the group. Several members hold a clear disdain for others, and just what will happen to the group after the fall out of this, remains to be seen.
Once again, though, the Runaways themselves were forced to play second fiddle to their parents in this week’s episode, and while I find PRIDE thrilling to watch, I can’t help but feel that the central group need a little more development. Chase was present for a lot of the episode, while we saw Molly start her new life away from the group. The biggest development, though, was between Alex and Nico, as Alex revealed that he knew a little more about Amy’s death than he has been letting on. We were given more insight into Amy’s life this episode as we discovered that she may have been on the way to finding out about her parents, only to discover that her mother knew what she was doing, potentially forcing her to take her own life. The episode ended with the revelation that perhaps she didn’t take her own life at all, with a mysterious man showing up in her bedroom just before the end credits rolled. While the Amy storyline does add some intrigue, it does feel a little contrived and is really just a way of giving the teens something to do before they really get involved in the final few episodes. Their relationships are well-developed but they lack the bite that their parents have.
With Victor’s crisis and the Amy mystery dominating the episode, you could be forgiven for thinking that this might be quite a dark episode of the show but thankfully, Old Lace makes another appearance this week to lighten the mood. Gert’s relationship with her dinosaur is one of the show’s funnier elements and watching her train him this week, then Chase and the group’s reaction to him sitting in the car made for some nice, light-hearted moments.
‘Tsunami’ was a solid outing for the show. While it didn’t have any of the big revelations that have dominated the previous two outings, it did a great job at further building the inner politics of PRIDE and also putting some stakes on the table for the group. The situation with Victor will no doubt dominate the next few episodes, especially with Jonah revealing that a sacrifice will be necessary to save him. The central characters themselves weren’t given a great deal to do but the growing tensions and Molly finding a VHS at the end of the episode indicates that the titular act of running away could be just over the horizon.
What did you think of ‘Tsunami’? Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter @liamhoofe
