Marvel’s Runaways - S1E8 - Tsunami

Previously on Marvel’s Runaways, “Refraction”

Drawback

“Tsunami” picks up right where “Refraction” left off: Victor’s life hangs in the balance, Nico is trying to get Alex to tell her the truth about how he knew her mom’s password and Molly is on her way to live with a cousin she’s never met. Tina and Robert are the first to arrive to help; Robert because he’s still holding a torch for Janet and Tina because if they don’t figure this out, they’ll have to deal with Jonah. The Wilders aren’t far behind and Geoffrey brings along his gun citing Tina’s stone-cold bitchiness as the reason to strap up.

Nico wants to know how Alex knew her mom’s password and it goes back to Amy’s death. Two years ago, Alex was besties with Amy and while they were playing games in the coffee shop, Alex ran a check on Amy’s computer and discovered that Tina was spying on her because Amy was trying to hack into Wizard. In her teenage hubris, Amy wanted to best her mom and she got caught by one of Tina’s henchmen. He gave her the opportunity to come clean to her mom and Alex believes that she killed herself instead. Nico doesn’t believe her sister would kill herself and she thinks Amy was going to run away (*ding ding ding*) but Tina got to her first. If I was Tina I’d be concerned that everyone thinks I’m the devil, but that’s also part of her brand. 

Mitigation

Stacey and Dale drop off Molly at her cousin’s house. They truly believe they are doing their best to protect her but they are also doing it in the worst way. They get the call from Janet about Victor and head over to the Steins. Molly’s cousin, Graciela, gives her a letter from her parents that tells her to “Find Elàn” with a key. Elàn is Molly’s toy elephant and despite those weak clues, she figures out that her parents left something for her at the train station because once she left Elàn on the train.

While the adults are trying to figure out what to do, Chase reaches out to Karolina and asks her to come over. She can tell he’s in trouble so she calls Nico (who’s with Alex), Molly (sent away), and finally Gert, who’s very offended she was the last one called but rightly guesses that it’s because Karolina doesn’t want to be alone with Chase and give him the wrong impression after their kiss at the gala. Karolina also lets it slip to her mom that something happened to Chase’s dad so now Leslie knows something is happening with PRIDE.

Leslie actually brings in Frank because she doesn’t want Jonah to know they’re in trouble either. Catherine asks if Frank is “back” in. Very interesting. Frank now has glowing hand powers similar to Victor’s sacrifice boxes, but he isn’t able to fully revive Victor.

Of course, Jonah shows up anyway and tells them that the only thing that will definitely work is putting Victor in his machine and doing a sacrifice, and he suggests Janet as the candidate. What follows is all the parents basically being their best ain’t-shit selves, nominating each other for sacrifice due to their various transgressions. And when everyone tries to pile on Janet for her lack of contribution to PRIDE, she points out that she was busy managing Victor’s brilliance and dodging his abuse which everyone turned a blind eye. Ever Carradine really showed off her acting this episode. Janet is both timid and fierce and sometimes weary.

When it looks like Janet may go through with the sacrifice, Robert strips down to his underwear (don’t ask me why) and offers himself up as tribute. Despite how he’s humiliated her, and even that he’s willing to martyr himself for Janet, Tina uses the staff to destroy the boxes and save Robert’s life.

Seismic Shift

The adults are in disarray. While Tina and Robert may have reconciled, Victor is basically in a stasis and they’re all even more distrustful than they were to begin with. Karolina and Gert show up at Chase’s with her pet dino in tow and once the kids hear that Alex has decrypted the files on PRIDE, they all meet up to decide what to do with them. Everyone wants to go to the cops except Karolina and Chase, who wants to protect PRIDE since they are taking care of his dad. Alex is the only one asking the question of why their parents make these sacrifices, especially since they seem to hate what they’re doing. Chase destroys Alex’s laptop and it seems like their hope of turning in their parents is lost. The episode ends with a flashback of Amy getting a text telling her that he knows and that she should leave the house immediately right before a menacing shadow darkens her door.

For some reason I cannot fathom, Chase still wants to make nice with his father. I re-watched last week’s scene of Victor knocking little Chase’s head into that car window and there is nothing redeeming about him. Chase had two days where his dad wasn’t horrible and he’s living off that. The next big questions are who warned Amy and who stopped her? Tina’s henchman seems incredibly close and I doubt he hurt her. And given that Tina always snitches to Jonah, I think she may be indirectly responsible for her daughter’s death. Although this wasn’t my favorite episode, the strong performances from Ever Carradine (Janet) and Brittany Ishibashi (Tina) were highlights. This episode was also directed by one of my favorite directors, Millicent Shelton.