In episode 2 of the Runaways, aptly titled Rewind, we spend most of the episode within the same time frame covered by episode 1, Reunion. This time around, we spend more time with the parents, who are full of secrets. Every family is keeping more secrets from their kids, and each other, than just the true nature of the PRIDE.
The episode opens on the moment when Molly takes her photo of the Pride ritual. The kids and parents all try not to panic. Tina suggests that the flash may have been light from the staff bouncing off the sound barrier she created.
The kids run upstairs and try to escape, but the secret passageway door has automatically closed and locked. Molly uses her new super strength to force it open. None of the other kids realize what she did.
They race outside toward the guesthouse and safety. Alex veers off to flip the breaker switches, so that his parents will think the flash was caused by a short circuit. The rest try to make sense of what they just saw. Nico, who already has a dead sister, is the only one willing to face that Destiny might be dead.
Flashback to that morning.
The first check in is with the Wilders, who continue to worry about Alex as he leaves for school. Geoffrey tells Catherine, “He’s a Wilder. We don’t let our past define our future. You taught me that.” She notes that Geoffrey was in jail when she said it.
Next, Chase and Janet chat as Chase collects his things for school. He tells her that he can’t wait to graduate and get out of the house so that he never has to see his father’s “smug dickface” again. Janet excuses and minimizes Victor’s abuse because he’s a genius. Chase notes that Victor no longer physically harms him because Chase is the stronger of the two now, and could retaliate.
Chase is surprised when Janet gets a phone call, since his father doesn’t let her have friends. When she answers the call after Chase leaves, it’s obvious that she’s having an affair. Janet is playing with fire.
Victor has been up all night in his lab, trying to figure out what went wrong with the box during the ritual. He lashes out at Janet when she suggests that he ask someone for help, then apologizes. She visibly flinches away from him.
Leslie is told by her cultbots that there’s a problem with Destiny. Frank is fired by his agent. His acting career appears to be over, and the church belongs to Leslie. Frank is about to have a midlife crisis.
Tina and Robert are still in a deadly but quiet argument about Amy’s death, Nico and the bedroom. I suspect that everything Tina does is quiet but deadly. In this case, Robert wants her to actually be Nico’s mother, while she’s only interested in preserving Amy’s room exactly as it was 2 years ago, at the moment of Amy’s death. She goes so far as to seal Robert in the room, using a magical barrier. He calmly talks her down, clearly having experience with her temper, but it was a horror show for a moment there.
Stacy and Dale are driving their quirky, counterculture selves home, kvetching about life. Dale has forgotten that there’s a Pride meeting that night and tries to get out of it, but Stacy informs him that there’s no way she’s facing Tina’s insults alone. Stacy looks at a video of her dinosaur on a tablet and coos over it.
Cut to loud construction sounds and sights at the scene of the school project. The rock crushing sounds overlap with the dinosaur video just enough to be foreshadowing for both storylines.
Several gang members pull up to the site. They intimidate the workers into leaving and giving a message to Geoffrey. The leader is Darius Davis, a man Geoffrey knows from his own time in a gang. Geoffrey and Catherine agree that it’s imperative for Geoffrey to solve this quickly and quietly, so that construction isn’t delayed.
Leslie finds Destiny at the bus station. Destiny has a 3 year old daughter who’s with Destiny’s mom. Leslie asks Destiny why she said that she didn’t have anyone. Destiny says that she didn’t, after she left them. She couldn’t take care of her daughter and didn’t deserve her. Now, thanks to Leslie, she’s ready to go back to her family.
Leslie asks Destiny to wait a few days to go home. She wants Destiny to go Ultra, tonight. It was going to be a surprise. Destiny goes back to the church with Leslie and the cultbots.
Geoffrey meets Darius at the construction site. Darius has his associate Andre search Geoffrey and take his phone. Geoffrey has brought a briefcase, since Darius asked for $50k. When it’s opened, Geoffrey takes out a tablet showing Darius’ grandmother’s house. Geoffrey makes a threatening speech toward Darius and his grandmother, then asks for his phone back and sends them on their way. As they leave, Darius checks with Andre to make sure that he had enough time to download all of the data from Geoffrey’s phone. That won’t end well.
Frank begins his campaign to gain a piece of the church. He joins Leslie in her private meditation and asks to go Ultra. Is going Ultra a real thing beyond the sacrifices? Leslie has to leave for a Pride meeting. Frank accuses her of putting a bunch of billionaires first. She explains to him that the billionaires legitimize the church.
At the Pride meeting, Leslie hands out Destiny’s dossier. Everyone is uncomfortable about doing another sacrifice. Leslie reminds them that the kids are down and out when she finds them, likely to be dead before long anyway. They all expect that this will be the last sacrifice that’s needed.
They prepare for the ritual by removing their clothes and putting on red robes, having the old man at the Church of Gibborim placed in a second black box, and bringing Destiny in. Tina uses her magic staff to create the force field in the ritual chamber.
Destiny becomes alarmed when she’s brought into a strange room, full of people she’s never met, for a church ritual that’s supposed to take place in the desert. She begs for the Pride to stop as she’s drugged and forced into the box. Most of the Pride are sad or upset. Catherine and Tina are steely.
Jump forward to the kids in the guesthouse trying to cover up that they were in the secret passage. By the time that Geoffrey and Catherine check on them, they appear to be in the middle of a game of Twister. The Pride assume that all is well, for now. The kids continue to argue about what they saw.
Victor discovers that Destiny is still in the box. The dematerialization didn’t work. He hides it from everyone else.
Nico hides in the bathroom while the others socialize before going home. She misses Amy desperately, particularly at times like this, when she doesn’t want to be with her parents. Alex tells her she’s not alone.
Frank skulks around the private areas of the church. Many are sealed with palm scanner locks, and a hovering assistant to enforce the rules. He’s chased out of the area without finding anything new.
Molly is scared, and goes in to sleep with Gert. She tries to tell Gert about her super strength, but can’t get it out. Gert sings her to sleep, and we get a montage. The dinosaur in the basement responds to Gert’s singing.
Nico breaks Tina’s rule, and crawls onto Amy’s bed to sleep. Karolina contemplates her bracelet, and texts Destiny, who doesn’t respond. Alex texts the group that they should meet tomorrow at 10:00 to begin investigating.
Geoffrey sits in his study and drinks, contemplating the fact that even though he got out of the gangs, he’s still involved in murder. Catherine consoles him. As Geoffrey walks past the secret passageway, he steps on Molly’s pink cat barrette. He stops to pick it up, recognizing it immediately, and wondering why it would be in that room.
Leslie chooses runaways with no family ties for the Pride sacrifices, but she must not do electronic background checks, since those could be traced. That backfired on her this time, when her definition of “not having anyone” differed from Destiny’s. Maybe’s Frank’s new role can be to get his PI license and do the background checks the old-fashioned way.
Geoffrey has a past with the Crips gang that he hasn’t been able to totally leave behind. Whatever happened between him and Darius, he just made it worse by threatening the grandmother. The question is, does Darius want the data from Geoffrey’s phone for his own purposes, or did someone else pay him to collect it? And just how incriminating is the evidence on the phone?
Tina, Victor and Leslie are super villainous, but complex, characters so far. Each has at least one trait that makes them relatable. Catherine, on the other hand, remains, stiff and one dimensional, the perfect wealthy wife and lawyer while also being unflinching about the work of the Pride. The closest thing she has to human flaws are being a tiger mom, and pressuring Geoffrey about the construction schedule. Hopefully she’ll be more humanized at some point, too. Right now, I have no idea why someone as calculating her would have taken a chance on a gangbanger with a prison record for a husband, unless the Pride ordered her to bring Geoffrey into the group.
Janet speaks intelligently about various scientific concepts during the episode, suggesting that she has scientific training, and probably gave it up for Victor.
Metawitches 
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