NS: Thoughts on the first three episodes of Runaways

[lucean]

The first three episodes of the Runaways show hit Hulu this week and I was so excited about them that I decided to make a discussion post here about them with some thoughts of those episodes. As a slight warning naturally this has spoilers for the episodes, but I will also refer to the original comic book series it is based on. That won't be as big of a spoiler as one might think as the show runners have told that they are going to change a lot of things from that story, but there are a couple of significant plot points to discuss.

-Naturally I loved the first three episodes and especially the casting as I think the actors for all characters have been superbly chosen. In addition I like how they've taken a much slower approach than the comic and tried to give all the characters,, both the kids and the adults, much more depth here. I also think it's a really smart to choice to expand on the parents this much for two reasons. First it of course fills out a lot of time and second the Runaways comic start at 2003, so majority of its original audience is probably closer to the parents age now than the kids. This doesn't mean that we can't relate with the kids anymore, but I feel there's also much more connections with the parents and their issues now.

-Two characters specially deserve a lot of credit from my perspective. Molly was always going to be a tricky character for this show as they had to age her, which automatically made her journey in the story much more challenging as she was always the kid character in the comics. However here I feel they've succeeded in giving her range beyond just being the cute kid who is ridiculously strong and the decision to have her be adopted really opens up good storylines. The second character, to my great surprise, is Gert. I've always felt that Gert was much a character of her time as there weren't really any one like her in popular culture when the original comics came out, which made it easier to deal with how utterly insufferable she was at times. However, I don't think that version would translate as well to today and that made me really worried going in to the show. Yet I feel the writers and actress have really succeeded in softening Gert a bit while still staying true to the original character which is a major achievement.

-The addition of poor dead Amy was a brilliant for me as it does inherently change the dynamics and motivations for the story while making it instantly clear that this will go to different places. The showrunners have, naturally and smartly, made it clear that this is a different story with the same characters while refusing to state what those changes. Amusingly they are holding back on details so much that they even refuse to confirm if Karo is still gay in this series even though it would seem insane to degay a character going to the show, unless that rainbow flag in Molly's room was supposed to tell us something.

-The big question, though, is the mole the traitor and if he remains the same. The showrunners have kind of confirmed, I think, that one of them will still betray the kids, but have not gone into any details. They have, though, indicated that there are subtle hints in the first episodes which made me instantly think of a certain scene when Chase confronted Alex about not being at Amy's funeral after which Nico comforts Alex by telling him that its not like him being there would have brought Amy back. I just thought at that point thought that was when Alex made a deal with the devil.

-This actually brings me to my big concern for the show as it does feel natural that they might change the traitor, and in a way I can see it being anyone expect Molly and Karo, but I genuine don't know how I would feel if it wasn't Alex. The difficulty with the character was that he was always written to be the traitor, so it felt like a great surprise when it was reveal because even if it caught people off-guard, it still felt sensical. So I'm not certain how you could remaing true to the character on the show without him being the traitor. That Nico kiss was a great example of that to me as it was really fitting if Alex was meant to be this heartless manipulator, but that was kind of a skeezy move if he was meant to be a genuine good guy.

I will stop here and I would love to hear others thoughts on the first three episodes.

Comments

[informationgeek]

Don't have Hulu so I haven't seen it. However, it doesn't sound particularly good from how people describe it who are big fans of the original comic:


Tell me about it. Runaways feels like a show made by people who didn't have any faith in the source material. We're three episodes in and nobody's actually run away yet.
It's baffling that Runaways has already relied so heavily on flashbacks, but didn't go in media res and kick the show off with the kids already on the run.

They're 3 episodes in, and the 2nd episode was a flashback to the 1st! I mean, the hell?


Runaways spent more time concerned which of the kids' parents were sleeping around than it did with a FUCKING DINOSAUR.

Come on!

So far, Runaways is not enough Marvel and a little too much Veronica Mars.

That's not bad, per say. I like Veronica Mars.

But Runaways was never primarily a young adult mystery story.


It sounds like an angsty CW channel show with the humor yanked out and replace with more and more teen drama.

[icon_uk]

Giving the parents something to do is prety much self explanatory. In the comic they can ignore the parents for as long as required, but when you're paying for actors, you give them something to so.

And since Episode 1 gave us the kids POV for most of it, Episode 2 being the same scenes (and subsequent) from the parents POV tells us more about them as people, and the family dynamic they operate within.

[lucean]

Pretty much this. I actually thought it was a really smart way to expand on the story and referring it as a flashback to the first episode is missing the point so very hard.

[cyberghostface]

“Runaways feels like a show made by people who didn't have any faith in the source material.”

I liked the first season of Daredevil (haven’t seen the second) but I got this feeling as well, like they were ashamed of the superhero aspect. Jessica Jones as well to an extent.

[laughing_tree]

I haven't seen the series, but those comments have a very strong of whiff of judging something by its faithfulness rather than how well it works in its own right.

[cyberghostface]

Well it depends on what you mean by faithful. I think Gotham is a great Batman show because it embraces the different elements of the mythos and isn’t afraid to say “this is based on a comic book”. But it’s still a very loose adaptation in the end.

[alschroeder3]

I have very much enjoyed the three episodes so far of RUNAWAYS, although the addition of dead Amy confused me initially. As far as I can tell they don't seem to exist in any of the Marvel cinematic/TV universes, no mention of Avengers or X-Men, so explaining the adults and where the kids will derive their abilities and devices is much more of a challenge. If the pace is slower, the only one who seemed different was Molly---although still the youngest, she seemed a little older to me than how I would envision a live-action adaption of her. Still, one of the most enjoyable comic adaptions out there. I didn't read RUNAWAYS when it first came out, but I read several collected graphic novels of their first adventures a year and a half ago, and I'm satisfied. It works well--in its own right.

[thezmage]

I’m starting to think we won’t get any actual running away. I like what I’ve seen but every little change irks me.

I like that the adults are more fleshed out. The addition of a dead older sister for Nico makes it seem like the Pride’s plan must have been changed from the comics, since originally it was pretty dependent on all the families only having one kid each.

[grapeweasel]

I'm going to be pretty unhappy if Ned Stark makes it to Season 2.