Leslie finds that dismantling the church may not be as easy as she had assumed. Gert and Old Lace get worse. The gang find themselves the subject of AWOL and his team’s attentions.

If there’s one lesson that’s being rammed home to the PRIDE parents, it’s that going legit (or at least slightly more legit than before) after years of running a massive criminal organisation is really not as simple as they might like. Leslie in particular is finding this out the hard way – she wants the Church of Gibborim to be dismantled now that Jonah is no longer there to require the lie perpetuating. Turns out though, when you’ve built up a faithful church of strong believers, just telling them it’s all rot and they can go home now doesn’t cut it, especially when you have a ruthless husband who’s finally found the attention he craves from being a big part of it.

Elsewhere, Tina and Victor are both behaving unusually – that hint there seemed to be of Jonah’s essence hanging around the place in the last episode is still there in the behaviour that each of them exhibits, and here unfortunately it’s poor Janet who’s on the receiving end of both doses of weirdness. Odds are she has to be the one who’s going to work out what’s going on soon, and then maybe – being the smartest person in the show – she can explain to us as well.

Meanwhile the Runaways have the small problem of AWOL and his lethally armed and vicious bunch of crooked cops to deal with. Here we reach a definitive line for the gang – they’re faced with an opponent who has no issue with putting blood on his own hands to get what he wants and who isn’t just going to walk away. Their choice is suddenly less about black and white, good and evil, and more about what they are prepared to do to ensure the safety of themselves and those they care about. It’s murky territory for kids, especially kids with parents like theirs, and it’s interesting to watch that dynamic play out over the course of proceedings here. Perhaps the most intriguing bit of all revolves around Nico, and the first visual link I recall seeing in this entire show that ties back to the MCU movies.

And there’s Gert and Old Lace in the midst of all this trouble, both still desperately ill. Chase ends up making a bold choice in an effort to try to save them both (and it’s actually fascinating how that choice mirrors an earlier one and how certain people’s responses exactly don’t). It also leads to the revelation of exactly what that was that Old Lace wolfed down from that drone, and more importantly who was responsible for it. The influence of Jonah (if him it be) isn’t confined merely to Tina and Victor, it would seem.

It’s really interesting to see the change of dynamics here. The PRIDE parents are straight up bad people in various ways, but the way things are starting to play out it’s getting easier to sympathise with at least some of them in terms of what they’re trying to do and how they want to rescue their kids. On the other hand, the kids, who were always simply just the good guys, are now starting to explore the sort of moral grey areas that come from them having the abilities they have and trying to do the things that they do. Let’s not pretend their enemies are good guys, but let’s also not pretend that makes the use of lethal or potentially lethal force against them something that’s just ok.

Verdict: Pleasingly complex and offering more twists on its themes and characters without overdoing it. Thoroughly entertaining stuff. 9/10

Greg D. Smith