Runaways: Season 3
December 26, 2019 12:28 PM - Season 3 (Full Season) - Subscribe

The final season of Marvel's Runaways. The Runaways frantically search for their captured friends Chase Stein, Gert Yorkes, and Karolina Dean. The kids go head to head with an unstoppable enemy who has targeted Leslie — or more accurately, the child she's carrying. Nico Minoru draws them all into a dark realm where its ruler Morgan le Fay is much more nefarious than anyone the kids have yet to face.
posted by numaner (7 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I just binged the last 6 episodes yesterday. I was really impressed with how everything was tied together. I wanted Xavin to return, but alas that couldn't happen. And although Morgan le Fay was a good villain, I felt like her takedown was too quick, although I don't see what else they could do to drag it out without changing how all the superpowers we've seen already worked.

Gert's death was really dramatic and well done, but I knew they wouldn't leave her dead, but the whole "evil Alex from the future" thing was hard to believe. Future Chase was fun, and a good call back to that time a different future's Chase contacted Victor. They hinted at a mystery left unsolved, with a bomb that turned future Alex against the group, but maybe they'll leave that for if and when the show makes it to Disney+.

The greatest thing, of course, was the crossover with Cloak & Dagger! Tandy and Ty were a great addition, and the fact that they're all teenagers really helped the two teams mesh. Although it reminded me that Cloak & Dagger was cancelled and that stung.
posted by numaner at 12:37 PM on December 26, 2019


I started this and got about halfway through and then [holidays ensued] and I just got around to finishing it. As it turns out the way this season was structured, stopping halfway through was basically fine. Reminded me of the shorter "pods" that Agents of SHIELD took to doing with its seasons, and kept the season moving along at a nice clip.

Overall, a great season to close out with. I wish the Cloak and Dagger crossover had been a little more seamless - both their entrance and exit were a little...perfunctory - but it was still a ton of fun and it was great to see the characters play off each other.

I wasn't overwhelmed with Morgan le Fay as a villain; partly I wasn't in love with the performance by the actress playing her (she went a very conventional "gloating villain" route and I think there was room there to make some more interesting, unexpected choices with the part), but partly, after two and a half seasons fighting their own parents, or aliens possessing their parents, fighting Morgan may have had higher stakes in terms of the fate of the world but there wasn't as much emotional connection/emotional baggage there, by comparison. And honestly Morgan's motivations could've used a little more fleshing out, she was just sorta gloatingly evil for the sake of power which...isn't as interesting as any of the previous villains.

I really liked the last episode though. Time-travel shenanigans, knowing in advance that Gert's life was on the line, and dealing with "evil Alex" all helped raise the stakes of the final showdown and give it that personal touch that Morgana didn't quite add enough of. And showing us future versions of them functioned in sort of the same emotional way that an epilogue would, even if that future ultimately got overwritten with a (hopefully) better one.
posted by mstokes650 at 7:28 PM on January 1, 2020 [3 favorites]


Wow, they really just do not stop going back to the creepy headfuck fakeoutworld trick, do they?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:30 PM on January 5, 2020


If you've seen most of her work, "gloating villain" is basically the only way I can see Elizabeth Hurley playing that role.
posted by numaner at 2:25 PM on January 23, 2020


I think it was a huge weird switch to suddenly go from the Gibborim plot (which was pretty good) to Morgan le Fay, which was cracktastically weird.

But yeah, I really did like the last episode, for the reasons mstokes650 said.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:39 PM on January 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


I was less enamored with the last episode, but mostly because they seemed uncertain what to do with the Near Future Alex versus Bad Future Alex. It wasn't bad, but it felt like a weird appendix to the season.

Otherwise, yeah, solid good season. It was nice to see the Darkhold show up as the ne plus ultra book o' magic again and Marvel going with a consistent sort of visual style for magic casting. It was a treat to see Ty and Tandy in a better written show - the second season of C&D was just too much internal demons and no clear story line for far too long, while Runaways was BANG out of the gate with the Gibs plot and then Morgan making her way out.

If I had one complaint it's that the writers basically nerfed the team every chance they got. Like, there are only 3 of them with inherent abilities - Nico's magic (although it was on again / off again without the staff), Karolina's Gib Powers, and Molly's strength - Chase/Gert/Alex depend on gadgets/Old Lace/nerdery and every time they went to the Dark Dimension oops, no powers, we're just a buncha teens oh shit. It just sort of felt like the writers never gave them the opportunity to be a team this season.

That said, the slow reconciliation with the parents in Jonah's absence felt like it was earned. I half expected them to get to the midpoint of the season and kind of kill off all the remaining parents one way or another to really cut the kids loose. In the end they just lost Mr. Minoru and Mrs. Wilder (and sorta Mrs. Stein), but for a bit there in the Gib plot we stood to lose 3 more, and that would've just left Geoffrey, Leslie and Dale? I'm kind of glad getting banished to the dark dimension just sort of dealt with the Gib family, though, because it was a better result.

The Morgan storyline was mildly frustrating that a lot of it boiled down to "Nico, don't be fooled by Morgan like I was!" "like what now?" "I can't tell you" "you're not exactly selling this, mom." I mean I know that's sort of a standard YA trope, but yeesh.

And the last episode kind of... I dunno. Ok, you know this is gonna happen, move the chandelier? Use a light blast to keep Gert from smacking it? Put foam bumperguards on all sharp objects? Oh no, just have Future Chase go out and do his thing instead. I guess it makes for better speechifyin'.

What's left? Another 13 episodes of Agents of Shield at some point this year? Otherwise all the existing extended MCU TV series are wrapped up and shut down, right? (yeah yeah, there's a bunch of new stuff coming out on Disney+ for Phase Four but those are all new properties...)
posted by Kyol at 7:51 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


(Which, don't get me wrong, I'm sort of OK with? The Marvel Decade has been getting a bit annoying towards the end here after 23 movies and 11 TV shows. Maybe something different for the 2020's?)
posted by Kyol at 7:59 AM on February 5, 2020


« Older Movie: Little Women (2019)...   |  Movie: The Final Year... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster