Runaways

Bad day, today, aside from a very satisfactory lesson held for a client. So I’ll write about comics and tv: that usually helps.

Just a little preface, before I tell you whether I liked this second season of Runaways or not: we really don’t know what the fuck is going on with Disney and the Marvel series. All the series that were on Netflix have been cancelled (Daredevil being the last, following The Punisher, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones will likely be the next in line), we don’t know what will happen on this one, what was on Hulu, but there has been a lot of turmoil revolving around the new streaming platform that Disney will launch somewhere around this year. Now, the thing is, we might wish to see some of our favorite Marvel series on that platform, Disney+, but I honestly don’t see how series like The Punisher, or a first season of Jessica Jones that involved rape, might land on a Disney platform. So, there have been rumors of the “adult” series being moved to Hulu. Now, this begs the question: is Runaways an “adult” serie? I would say no: there’s a little sex involved (mostly talking about it and showing foreplay) but violence is down to a minimum and you never ever see any nudity. So what is the issue? The issue is that Runaways features a lesbian relationship. And this begs a question I really don’t want to ask (but I will): what if a boy and a girl kissing are ok and two girls kissing are “adult” material? I’ll leave it there.

Now, going back to the series. As I already wrote before, I kind of liked season 1. It wasn’t a masterpiece and I probably wouldn’t have gone to the end of it if it didn’t feature a couple of actors I really liked, but it was enjoyable enough.

Season 2 is more extreme, meaning that its good peaks are definitely higher than the good peaks of season 1. Unfortunately, that also goes for the low points. We go from good writing to really bad. From epic peaks to low, cheap plot twists. From good character development to characters going bananas for no apparent reason.

Among the things I liked and aside from the obvious (if you know me, you are bound to know who I mean), I have to list what they did with Sister Grimm (Nico) and, at least at the beginning, Tina. The whole witch staff stuff (sorry, not sorry) might be a little too much if you have issues with the supernatural, but I felt I needed something spectacular that was not glittery and in the colors of a cartoon unicorn.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not necessarily against Karolina (might be the name, that reminds me of a person I was fond of) and I am totally cool with her relationship with Nico. It was about time we saw two girls get together without any issue being raised about it. I mean, it is Los Angeles after all and I can really appreciate the setting after my visit this summer. The LA depicted there is precisely the same my friend Jay showed me and I am grateful for that enriching experience. But I digress. As usual. Karolina, I was saying, is not a bad character per se, but I really didn’t like the fact that she has seen a guy for a week and all of a sudden he’s her father. Is family really that shallow? Father is who the father does: not some random guy, who incidentally murdered your girlfriend’s sister. Ok, he glows. And he’s handsome as hell, alright, but that is not the fucking point.

I appreciate the attempt in providing Alex with a little depth and it was partially successful too, but in providing him with some character I feel like we lost track of reality. There are things, as a writer, you can’t come back from. They tried that with Alex and his parents, but I feel like they failed to do the same with everybody else and the result is that the level of empathy the public feels towards the other runaways is backfiring on the only one who’s proving to be reasonable. You do not forgive murder. You just don’t. You might, in time, when amends are made and the debt with society has been paid but really… does anybody finds reasonable that Chase goes back to his father who tried to kill him and his mother who shot his father to defend him? As much as you might wish for things to go back the way they were, there is no going back from that. And that’s life. Any different depiction is way above science fiction: it is plained messed up. And that upsets me.

Another things I don’t really approve of, is they way writers dealt with Molly. In the comics she’s ten years old. For reasons that I don’t want to make assumptions about, they decided to make her 14. Now, the problem is that she’s still behaving as if she’s a child. And of course that’s annoying as hell. Come on.

On the bright side, we might see some individual development now that they split up the characters. On the down side, the series might be cancelled altogether. So, it’s really your choice.