Runaways: “Rewind” / “Destiny”

Hijinks With Mom’s Jarvis

There’s something very compelling about Runaways that I can’t quite place, given some of the weaknesses in execution (some clunky writing and acting in the early going).


I mean, “Rewind” goes for the Rashomon trick very early on - episode 2 of a G10 episode run. It basically retells the events of the first episode from the parents’ point of view, which should have annoyed me, but it works. We get to know a bit about the dynamics of the parents - one of them is having an affair with another one, for example - and some of the building blocks about their secret plan, which isn’t working because Evil Scientist Dad’s equipment isn’t working properly and thus not sending the various young girls they’re sacrificing wherever they’re supposed to go.

With the status quo established for two large groups of characters, “Destiny” can finally move the plot forward. We learn that Cult Mom is fucking Magic Dad, we learn that the Evil Parents have a serum that messes with people’s memories and they used it on Cult Dad, and two of our characters start getting their powers, as Nico has her first experiment with the Staff of One and Gert meets her dinosaur. And we end with the news, and the rest of PRIDE, discovering that their latest sacrifice didn’t dematerialize, but instead washed up on the beach as a corpse. Fun stuff.