Amph Marvel's Runaways [Hulu/D+]

They were filming season 2 as of June so that would track if they released the second season around Nov. Keep in mind that we didn't even get an official teaser trailer for the first season until about a month before it premiered.

 

Season 2 hits December 21st.

 

Season 2 trailer:



Will probably end up binging both seasons together sometime next year.

 

New trailer:

 

Minor timeline question for those who watched season 2: I see that the first season ends around xmas. Does the second season pick up right where the first ends? Or does there seem to a passage of time of a week or more? And, if there isn't a passage of time between seasons, does it seem like a week's worth of events has taken place during the course of the 2nd season?

Just trying to figure out if I should classify the second season as 2017 or 2018 events.

 

Well, we officially have more seasons of Runaways than Agent Carter .

 

Decided to finally to start this one. Figure I'll balance things out by chipping away at this between TFATWS episodes. Eventually want to hit Helstrom's single season as well, just to see if it still fits inside the MCU or not, since it's status is kind of borderline. Anyways, keeping expectations in-check and mainly looking forward to the Cloak & Dagger cross over in the final season and how the Darkhold factors into things so I can better mentally place its journey from AOS to WV. Side note: weird that Season 2 is three episodes longer than Seasons 1 and 3, no?

So far have only watched the first episode and it's pretty stereotypical teenage stuff for the most part, but there's certainly a mutants-but-not-mutants aspect to some of the characters that lets some of that slide a little (and the girl getting super strength at puberty and her joyous reaction to discovering her powers is flat-out an X-Men concept). It being sort of a Breakfast Club-like group of friends that knew each other first, before separating into their isolated cliques following a tragedy and then having to come back together isn't a bad angle, either.

However, as it is so far, it definitely feels the least mature of all the Marvel TV projects (and certainly of all the so-called "Marvel Knights" subset of street-level shows)- below the far-more nuanced and mature Cloak & Dagger. I never read the original run of Runaways comics (though I am aware of the general storyline and inciting premise) but did read the run from when Whedon took over, so I am curious to see if any of that ends up making its way into the series.


EDIT 1- Episode 2 was a big improvement. The change in POV and the focus on the parents' conspiracy gave the proceedings some much needed weight. Looking forward to the next episode and can at least say that one should not judge the series based on the first episode alone and that one should, instead, give the series at least this second episode before deciding on whether to continue on or not. Though I am open to extending that determination to additional episodes.

Timeline-wise, though I was aware of some of these details before when working on the first version of my timeline that I uploaded, it's interesting to see these details fall into place that lock the series into December 2017:

-For starters, one of the main characters is seen playing Battlefront (a game that came out towards the end of 2015) and his playing log shows that his friend has not been online for 2 years (thus, late 2017 is the earliest it could have been set, with early/mid-2018 being the latest due to the Snap).

-The church lady's appointment calendar that her husband skims through shows "today" as December 8th (which would make both episodes 1 & 2 set on that date), and the month's formatting of what dates fall on which days conforms to the calendar of December 2017. Though, weirdly, the final line seems to have a graphics error in it: the final line shows the 30th, 31st, (Jan) 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 29th.

 

Onto Episode 5 and I'm really enjoying the series so far. As much I love the trance-like feel of Cloak and Dagger more, I think this series, so far, has been more snappier. The bullet-stopping scene was also much cooler than the similar scene in WandaVision.

I do hope they do more with that cocoon mask in the future though- it going completely away right away following the total rejuvenation was a little anti-climactic. Especially since the design holds such potential for a villain mask.

Also worth noting that this show, in the span of 3 episodes, has given us more dinosaur than all of Iron Fist gave us dragon. Hell, technically, any one episode of the last three episodes of Runaways has given us more Dino than IF did dragon.

I was happy to find out there were score and soundtrack releases for the show, too. The one thing CAD was missing was a title theme.


EDIT- Episode 6- Stan! What a nice surprise. I think that's only the third Marvel TV cameo he's done in person. CAD had only a painting on the wall and the Defenders only used him in one of their promos.


EDIT 2- So, the last stretch of the season has a lot of good and some bad. I like how they’ve been developing/unwinding the Pride (though some more than others). There was a sense of some water treading with the kids (waiting for the laptop to decode the video, then having to wait for the phone to charge) even as it moves other elements forward.

There was a nice “assemble” moment confronting the parents at the dig site, but then the finale kinda just goes nowhere. I mean, I get that it’s them coming to terms with having to become the titular runaways and that we also kinda get the breaking of the Pride, but the rescue mission seemed unnecessary and the final moments feel more like a penultimate episode rather than a finale.

If I didn’t know that there wasn’t already a second season, I’d find it very disappointing (especially after really enjoying the rest of the season). Thankfully there is snd hopefully the 1st & 2nd will pair together well as a whole.

 

And I'm back! Jumping back in where I left off last spring with episode 3 of Season 2. So far the structure of the show has made accommodating the long gaps between viewings fairly easy. I'm liking the overall details of the season, with the new "base", them expanding their powers, etc. Some threads are dragging a little (the romance with the daughter of his father's former associate, for instance) but I like that we're getting a more balanced, active look at what the parents are doing and that they're not being left distant to maintain the mystery of their threat, or kept minimized to give the kids more time.

Trying to make this a background show to track at times- something that is very difficult as I seemingly lost the ability to let shows be background sometime around 2003-2004. I blame the advent of Tivo for that.

EDIT- Episode 4, "It's gonna work."
"How do you know?"
"Because it has to."

Some Endgame vibes there, coincidental though it may be.

Not digging the Topher subplot or how he was introduced.

 

Looks like it has been taken care of!

And, yeah, this is not a place I would have expected them to get a Stan cameo in, given that he's only done ones for 2.5 other TV shows.