Marvel And Hulu's 'Runaways' Episode 6 Review: 'Metamorphosis' Is The Weakest Episode So Far, But Still Great!

8.4/10

Marvel’s Runaways has been really successful so far. The opening five episodes have done a fantastic job at building the characters, exploring the relationships between them, and establishing the world that they live in. The season’s sixth episode while far from a bad outing for the show, was definitely the show’s most inconsistent so far.

The episode started off very strong, with a flashback to the arrival of Jonah, the mysterious figure from the end of the last episode, and the first ever sacrifice committed by PRIDE. The scene explained that, as expected, all members of PRIDE is in some way indebted to Jonah, and the sacrifices, which we discovered turned matter into energy, were done as a way of repaying him, and that they have been taking place for the last 15 years.

Most of the parents' stuff in this episode was pretty solid. The episode used a gala held by PRIDE to bring every character together in one location, and for the most part, it was an effective narrative device. The parents were really put through it though; Victor Stein revealed the affair between his wife Janet and Robert to a shocked audience before collapsing due to his tumour moments later and the episode ended with Katherine Wilder realising that Molly and possibly the rest of the teens knows what the group have been up to all these years, a moment which will have huge ramifications in the coming four episodes.

Jonah was also ever present here and he looks like he could be one of the show’s best characters. Little is still known about him, but this episode we did see him cure Victor of his cancer, though, the effects this will have on Victor remain unclear. Victor is one of the more interesting parents in the show, and the title of this episode implies that he may well be changed forever after the events of this episode.

What lets this episode down, though, was the Runaways themselves, as the episode opted to focus on their romantic relationships instead of actually doing much useful with them. While the parents were all busy airing their dirty laundry, the kids were busy snooping around stealing data from Mrs Minoru.

‘Metamorphosis’ was still a good episode of Runaways, it just felt it would have benefited from not focusing so much on the romances in the group. The PRIDE storyline made some serious developments here, though, and I look forward to seeing more and more of Jonah in the coming weeks.