Review: Hulu’s RUNAWAYS ✭✭✭✭✩
Ready to add another superhero drama to your schedule?
This one’s even part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which is suffering bloat thanks to the mixed success of its TV division. I’m not even convinced the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D breathe the same air as Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, let alone the Inhumans. It feels like each show is individually tethered to the success of Marvel’s movies, but not each other, hoping to achieve glow by association. It’s like being Brad Pitt’s wingman at a party.
Runaways doesn’t need to be affiliated to anything else to justify its existence, so let is stand apart as its own thing. It was made by Marvel, sure, but the moment someone mentions Iron Man or Captain America, I’ll scream. Thankfully, there are no early signs of that happening and this show has a sophisticate style and modern attitude that sets it apart from what’s happening elsewhere in the “universe”.
If you’re unaware, Runaways is an adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s comic-book series that published from 2003 until 2009, but has been revived this year. It was poised to become a movie, but the idea never got off the ground, so in some ways it’s followed the same development path as Marvel’s Inhumans (a comic-book turned TV series, thanks to an aborted movie). Thankfully, it’s a whole lot better than Inhumans. Of course.
Josh Schwartz (Chuck) and Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl) have shepherded Runaways to the small-screen for Hulu, which is suddenly making headway with its original programming (this has debuted the same month as their sci-fi comedy Future Man).
I’m going to outline the premise now, but fair warning: if you don’t know anything about Runaways, the first hour is a far better experience going in blind, because a lot of its power comes from teasing the mystery of what’s going on. Knowing the concept tarnishes the joy of discovery, slightly, but it may also give you a bit of added clarity that “Reunion” steers too strongly away from at times.
Ready? Okay, deep breath…
The series concerns a group of rich teenagers living in Malibu, who used to be friends when they were kids, but have since drifted apart. There’s nerd Alex Wilder (Rhenzy Feliz); model and cult member Karolina Dean (Virginia Gardner), feminist punk Gert Yorkes (Ariela Barer), genius jock Chase Stein (Gregg Sulkin), upbeat Molly Hernandez (Allegra Acosta), and Wiccan goth Nico Minoru (Lyrica Okano). As you can tell from the actors’ names, they’re an eclectic mix of faces and personalities. But if you’re thinking the concept sounds like an update of Schwartz’s previous show, The O.C, don’t worry: these teens also have superpowers they’re unaware of, which the first episode barely even gets around to revealing.
More importantly for Runaways, the unique slant of the show is that the six super-teens have no idea they’re the offspring of dangerous supervillain parents, collectively known as “The Pride”. There’s Alex’s lawyer mother Catherine (Angel Parker) and businessman father Geoffrey (The Wire’s Ryan Sands); Karolina’s cult leader mother Leslie (24’s Annie Wesching) and former teen star father Frank (Kip Pardue); Chase’s mother Jane (Ever Carradine) and engineer father Victor (Buffy’s James Marsters); Gert’s bioengineering mother Stacey (Brigid Brannagh) and father Dale (Kevin Wesiman); and Nico’s CEO mother Tina (Brittany Ishibashi¹) and father Robert (James Yaegashi).
¹ A character who apparently appeared unnamed in Doctor Strange (2016), but was played by Linda Louise Duan.
The first episode of this 13-part season doesn’t rush things, to put it mildly. This is probably for the best considering there are 6 main characters to be introduced, and technically 16 with some bearing on the story.
It would’ve been overwhelming to try and get newcomers up to speed within an hour, but one could also be forgiven for thinking Runaways plays its cards a little too close to its chest. It’s almost 30-minutes before we even get a hint that Runaways isn’t just a teen drama about estranged and gorgeous looking teenagers, and by the end of the first instalment you’ve only learned that one of them’s super-strong, one’s seen The Craft (1996) too many times, and that their parents like getting together to wear red sacrificial robes.
Exactly how weird things get is to be discovered, but the premiere does a decent job getting you interested enough to find out. Perhaps there could’ve been a more interesting way to keep you on the hook, as there are certainly periods where you’re starting to doubt why this has Marvel in the title, but luckily the characters and performances are excellent. You find yourself less intrigued by the promise of superhero fisticuffs (which we get enough of these days), and more by what the hell happened to make these childhood buddies lose touch and be so passive-aggressive to each other.
The second episode, “Rewind”, is almost a replay of the premiere, but told from the perspective of the adults characters, which was a nice touch. It helps broaden your understanding of everything, but still retains a lot of mystery about what is going on and why. It’s a wise move to watch watch both and treat them as a movie.
The third episode, “Destiny”, moves the story forward into new terrain, but Runaways is still in no rush to shows its hands. It poses a lot of questions, and answers aren’t forthcoming. That’s interesting for the genre it’s working in, which is normally in a rush to explain the powers, reveal the origins, then setup goals and conflicts. But I can imagine a lot of people feeling shortchanged because it doesn’t quite feel like Beverly Hills 9010-meets-Heroes.
I haven’t read the Runaways comics, but I’ve heard this TV series is markedly slower compared to the source material. That’s a wise move for a show that could run five years or mow, but I hope there’s clarity coming just around the corner. The parents don’t seem particularly “evil” just yet (as it seems very feasible they’re doing creepy things for a misunderstood but noble reason), and there’s no real sense of when or how the kids are going to rebel and use their powers to fight the older generation. In this day and age, with so much vying for your attention across many different platforms, you have to make yourself feel unmissable a lot sooner.
Runaways makes a great first impression thanks to a talented ensemble of actors unencumbered by baggage from previous roles, plenty of interesting characters to bounce between if a subplot begins to lose its appeal, hummable music cues by Siddhartha Khosla (This Is Us, The Royals), and there’s a real sense of precision to how things are being handled. Hopefully there’s a killer episode around the corner, where something happens to make this series snap into focus and get me truly excited.
The dinosaur didn’t quite do it…
Cast & Crew
writers: Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage (1.1 & 1.2) & Kalinda Vazquez (1.3).
directors: Brett Morgen (1.1), Roxann Dawson (1.2) & Nina Lopez-Corrado (1.3).
starring: Rhenzy Feliz, Lyrica Okano, Virginia Gardner, Ariela Barer, Gregg Sulkin, Allegra Acosta, Angel Parker, Ryan Sands, Annie Wersching, Kip Pardue, Ever Carradine, James Marsters, Brigid Brannagh, Kevin Weisman, Brittany Ishibashi & James Yaegashi.
