Marvel's Runaways Premiere - Review
This post will contain major spoilers for Episode 1 of Marvel's Runaways, for spoiler free thoughts check out paragraph one, and the score at the bottom.
For those that know me, I'm a huge superhero fan. I don't read comic books, but I watch nearly every possible show and movie about these characters. But secretly, I've been experiencing the same superhero fatigue facing many people in the world today. With all of the superhero content coming out ever day it's hard to find enjoyment in new content. Marvel's Runaways, while not necessarily creating a new area of the superhero TV world, does just enough to create interesting television while battling the constant tropes in this market.
With Runaways premiering three episodes in week one there's plenty of content to digest, but to keep spoilers at a minimum the discussion will focus on episode one. The pilot episode tackles creating a world filled with this group of six high school aged kids, and their parents who are a member of a charity foundation known as Pride. A lot of time is spent exploring the backstories of the kids, each of which seems to fit into a more generic archetype that you expect from a series of this kind: the dumb jock, the goth girl, the pretty girl with a secret, the outcast, the nerd, and the lost one. While these archetypes are explored wholeheartedly, the pilot does a lot to show that these kids really do care about one another. After going through traumatic events a few years ago they have all drifted apart.
Alex (the nerd) wishes to reconnect the group for old times. After everyone ends up going through a night of bad choices resulting in one girl passing out, and another being left at a coffee shop by another guy they end up together at Alex's lavish home. Coincidentally so are their parents: holding their yearly Pride meeting. After deciding to workout their issues, they stumble upon a secret room in Alex's father's study. Investigating the room, they find their family appearing to sacrifice a young girl for unknown reasons. As this occurs, Molly, the young girl of the group screws up and takes a picture which catches the attention of the parents. My problem with this episode was the leaning into the teen drama genre to create angst among the characters. One thing left unmentioned is that Molly and Karolina have some sort of abilities that aren't explored yet. The result though of this pilot, was an intriguing series start with a few flaws.
The next two episodes of deal with the repercussions of this discovery by the kids, and how the parents deal with the potential of their kids knowing about the true purpose of their Pride group. The result are two episodes that are much better than the first in my humble opinion, and help to establish the lines of good and evil in the series. You can see some of the family members involved in Pride are involved for their own agendas, and the truth behind that human sacrifice is revealed but not explained. Along with this the kids begin to reconnect over the revelation that their parents may be very bad people and seeing the interplay between them is a plus, as the actors all have great chemistry with one another.
Moving forward, my hope for this series to continue to create a different area in the superhero genre, avoiding tropes of the villain of the week frequented by the CW-verse and the no end in sight story of The Gifted. While I'm not saying that any of those shows are bad, I just believe that in such a saturated landscape as this it is important to create your own theme and not just follow in the footsteps of those before. Regardless, Marvel's Runaways is off to good start, while managing to avoid following in the footsteps of a poor but necessary pilot.
