mardi 28 novembre 2017

Marvel's Runaways: "Fifteen" Review


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The Parents Are Not All Right.

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

"Fifteen" continued to carefully unravel the mystery of the show while bringing the teen heroes closer together. All the while too, the parents' Pride faction started ripping apart at the seams - so much so that the Yorkes almost up and left, in a blink, in an attempt to escape the craziness.

It was already made clear on the series that the parents here, the Pride minions, aren't exactly harsh one-note characters bent on world domination. They're not "supervillains." They're morally questionable people who got roped into some sort of really twisted sacrificial pyramid scheme and are now, finally, fifteen years later, experiencing the consequences.

To be fair, there've been some consequences already. It's been alluded to that the death of Molly's parents and, now, the suicide of Amy have direct ties to the dastardly deeds the moms and dads have been committing. Lives have been lost in the journey, and not just those of the sacrificial lambs provided by Leslie's church. Now though, what with all the kids knowing and with Victor's machine not working properly, Pride is on the verge of collapse. The fact that it's all happening so close to the end, to the finish line, is what's giving everything a fun, taut ticking clock vibe.

But yeah - Pride's an absolute train wreck right now and it's great. Victor's a murdering mental case whose now failed twice at trying to capture a new victim for his box. Just the fact that he's willing to head out, even on his own without consulting the others, and bash some poor vagrant's head in, speaks volumes to not only his coldness but also his shame over his mechanism not functioning. Meanwhile, Robert wants to run away with Janet, the Yorkes just want to run away (even though the serum sale hasn't gone through) and Leslie's just full-on offering up her body to whoever the decrepit demon man is inside her private meditation chamber. What all of this parental chaos does, story-wise, is provide an opportunity for the children to snoop around and catch the Pride with their proverbial pants down.

That is if they can all get on the same page, of course. A lot happened this week on the teen front, including Molly battling Old Lace (until Gert calmed the dino down), Karolina taking off her bracelet and showing Chase her glow, and Nico crumbing under the knowledge that something strange and sinister was up with Amy's death. Really, it was Nico, her guilt, and the drastic measures she was willing to take that drove this episode. Of the original friends, she's the most constantly tormented and it's going to take this kind of darkness and distrust to fully crack open the conspiracy. There's plenty of fun bickering to be had, with regards to how different the teens all are and which kid thinks what about their parents, but Nico's no-nonsense morbidity is absolutely necessary to push the story forward.

It's awesome that the parents all come in different shades and flavors, but you do need those two or three really devious and corrupt ones - like Tina, Victor, and Leslie - to give us, as viewers, a real reason to want to see Pride hit a wall. And you need those parents to have kids that, for lack of a better term, hate them. And not just like a normal teenager would resent and lash out - they need a real, concrete reason. Nico's got that. And, in turn, Alex's creepy desire to perhaps use this catastrophe as a way to get closer o Nico provides an extra layer of intrigue.

The Verdict

Runaways continued to engage and entice with a cool long-form mystery, Nico's dark drive to uncover the truth, and the slow implosion of Pride.

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