In Runaways episode 8, Tsunami, the cast plays Survivor: Pride edition, while Victor Stein bleeds out on the floor. They prove to be as inept at life saving as they are at parenting and loyalty. The kids are also confronted with life and death issues, as Chase faces losing his father, Nico and Alex explore Amy’s death, Molly receives a message from her long dead parents, and Gert and Karolina try to help Chase while dealing with their own messed up families.
The episode picks up right where episode 7 left off, with Victor having been shot in the chest moments before by Janet , who managed to wear fabulous shoes to the occasion, because a woman has to some talents, and chic but understated dressing is one of hers. You’ll never catch her coming to the murder party underdressed, even if she was just lying around her bedroom when she heard her husband firing the fistigons at her son. We can also add stepping up when it matters to her list of talents, and pretty good aim with a handgun.
Robert suddenly appears in the workshop, quickly followed by Tina. Chase bristles at seeing his mother’s lover in his father’s sacred space, but Tina acts as the voice of reason and draws the attention back to Victor. She also realizes that Victor was shot with Robert’s gun.
The Wilders show up next, assuming that Tina has done something terrible again. The Pride members have all received a one word text: Tsunami, their code for a terrible emergency. The last time it was used, the Hernandez’ were dead. Geoffrey brings the only accessory he ever needs, his handgun. Catherine tries to keep him calm.
Nico pressures Alex into sharing what he knows about Amy’s death. He got a phone message from her the night she died apologizing for missing the kids’ Pride gathering and asking to talk, since he was “the only person who knows.” Nico wants to know what Amy meant.
Alex says that the kids hanging out during Pride meetings was tradition, but it was also lame. Since Amy was older than the rest of them, it made sense that at some point she’d stop wanting to come. Nico says that he knows that isn’t the reason she didn’t come. She gets angry with him for withholding information from her for two years, when she was terribly depressed and blaming herself.
Alex says he’s the one to blame, the one that should have seen something and stopped Amy. Nico tells him to continue his story and she’ll let him know if she agrees when he’s finished.
The first time Alex noticed something was wrong, they were at the coffee shop playing Battlefront. Amy’s computer was glitchy, so Alex ran antivirus software on it. He discovered that Tina had hacked her computer and was listening in on her every action. Amy got very upset and rushed out.
Amy met with Kincaid, Tina’s henchman, and told him that she had hacked into Wizard because she wanted to beat her mother at something. Kincaid told Amy that she had to go to Tina, turn herself in, and explain the situation, because her breach had set off alarms, but Amy was too intimidated by her mother to face her.
Nico and Alex assume that Amy killed herself because she couldn’t face Tina. She called him, freaking out, and he tried to talk her down, but he didn’t think she was suicidal. Nico is still angry with Alex. She realizes that Tina has known the reason for Amy’s death all along.
They keep talking, and deduce that their parents were probably afraid that Amy had discovered too much about Pride. Her parents acted very strangely the morning of Amy’s death, sealing the house, calling their police detective friend. Amy’s laptop was wiped clean, but her phone and backpack were never found. Nico leaves to go search Amy’s room again, without Alex.
When the Wilders reach Victor’s workshop, they see Victor still on the floor and assume Tina shot him. Once everyone calms down, Geoffrey intimidates Chase out of the room so that the Pride can talk freely, but they mostly just stand around and complain about each other while Victor bleeds to death.
Stacy and Dale are dropping Molly off at her distant cousin Graciela’s, her parents’ backup choice as guardian. Graciela seems like a warm, lovely person. Molly is angry about being left. Dale and Stacy get the Tsunami message and rush out, after not being very understanding about Molly’s feelings.
Janet and Chase have a drink in the kitchen. Chase is worried about Victor. He feels like Victor’s actions were due to the brain tumor or the Jonah juice.
Stacy and Dale arrive at the Steins and begin emergency surgery on Victor, but they aren’t surgeons and his situation is dire. He might lose his arm, at the very least, because they need to tie off an artery.
Chase tries to call Gert to ask her to come over and sit with him, but she’s down in the dinosaur habitat without her phone, so he calls Karolina. Karolina calls Nico, and Leslie overhears her telling Nico that something’s wrong with Victor. The Pride had been keeping Leslie and Jonah out of the situation up until then.
Leslie shows up in Victor’s workshop just as Stacy and Dale finish their surgery, leaving Victor alive but in a coma. She calls Frank and his magic gloves to work on Victor. Frank works on Victor, but the gloves are too strong, or not nuanced enough, or something. They leave Victor dead on the table, anyway. Oops.
Karolina calls Gert so that they can go to Chase’s house together. Gert is in the middle of getting Old Lace settled in her bedroom. Gert says she’ll drive.
The Pride are trying to move Victor’s body somewhere, who knows where (to hide it?), when Jonah shows up like a disapproving father. Disapproving of everyone but Tina, who he praises for always doing the right thing, since she’s the one who called him when Frank’s “magic mittens” failed.
Jonah pulls a wooden case from the trunk of his car, and explains that he intends to revive Victor the way that he gets revived. Robert notes that they’ll need another body to convert and everyone looks extremely uncomfortable. Jonah agrees, and wants to use the person who caused all of the trouble in the first place: Janet. He places his hands on the wooden case to activate it, and it unfolds itself to reveal one of the two energy transfer boxes used in the Pride’s sacrifices.
Molly’s parents left a note and a mysterious key with Graciela for her. The note says, “Find Elian,” her stuffed elephant. Elian isn’t lost, but Molly remembers that she lost him on a train once. They drove to the next train station and met the train there, finding Elian right where she’d left him. Molly asks Graciela if there’s a train station nearby.
Once Graciela has gone to bed, Molly sneaks out of the house and finds the lockers at the nearest metro station. The key opens one of them. Molly finds a videotape from her parents inside.
Chase tries to get back into the workshop, but Frank is standing guard, and laughably brags about his movie martial arts skills. Karolina finds them and sends Chase back to his room, where Gert is waiting for him, while she explains what Pride is really about to Frank.
Meanwhile, inside the workshop, everyone turns on each other, ending with Jonah threatening everyone, a brief foray into the mommy wars, a shot fired at the workshop glass wall (way too much glass in that place), Robert trying to take Janet’s place, Tina using her staff to save Robert and destroy one of the boxes, and Victor remaining in stasis inside the second box. Jonah isn’t as angry as you’d expect, since he was sincere about Andre being the last sacrifice.
Nico’s search of Amy’s room is successful, as she finds the backpack and phone. She plugs the phone in to charge. Alex’s computer finishes decrypting the Pride video, and he calls everyone to meet. Nico arrives first. He tells her that it’s the worst thing he’s ever watched. All of the sacrifices start off different, but end the same. But he doesn’t understand why their parents do it. They don’t like it, that’s obvious, but they keep going.
Janet tells Chase that Victor is under Jonah’s care. Chase says that he really wants another chance with his dad. Janet says Victor would love that. Gert thinks that Chase is fronting to his mom, but he’s not.
Gert, Karolina, and Chase pull up to Nico and Alex in the Timely Coffee parking lot. Chase tells the group that he doesn’t want the video to get out, because if something happens to Pride, his dad will die. Karolina agrees. She talked to her dad, and she thinks he could help them. The others are still committed to turning in the video to the authorities.
Chase and Alex physically fight over the laptop. Chase ends up stomping on it until it’s destroyed. Alex is devastated. They’re all devastated.
Amy’s phone finishes charging, and we see the last text she received: He found out. Leave the house now!!!
Amy frantically packs as if to run away from home, while urging her hard drive to finish erasing itself. She stops when a shadowy figure appears in her doorway.
If only we could all go live with Graciela, but Catherine Wilder knows about her existence, so she’s not safe.
Stomping out Alex’s beloved laptop was truly cruel and unusual punishment, but there was no way that the video was going to the police at this point in the series. Chase hoping for redemption for his dying father was as good a reason as any. The white father-son bond is a powerful comic book motivator, especially when there are mad scientists and superheroes involved.
Amy encouraged Alex to ask Nico out, because he’s liked her since he was 11.
Molly’s parents would have had a hard time finding a VCR to record their message on when she was a baby. How did they think she was going to play it back while on the run many years later? Plus, videotapes start to deteriorate within a few years, especially in the heat of an outdoor locker.
Geoffrey waves his gun around a lot for someone who’s always accusing Tina of murder. He’s the one who was in jail for murder, the one who opportunistically doomed Andre, and the one who threatened his former best friend’s sick grandmother. Not to mention that Catherine was going to wipe Molly’s memory.
Metawitches 
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