The gang try to decide whether they can trust Topher, which isn’t a decision on which everyone is easily able to agree. The PRIDE group are struggling among themselves as much as ever, with secrets and lies defining their interactions as usual, and Jonah is getting desperate as his physical condition starts to deteriorate.

Picking up straight where the last episode left off, the gang have a new friend, and his name is Topher. He’s street smart, friendly, and seems to be a real potential asset to the group. There’s just the small matter of whether they can trust him or not.

Molly is all for trusting him, for a number of reasons not the least of which is his easy charm and habit of dropping Spanish into his speech. The others are less convinced. For all the good that he does for them, from foraging to hooking them up with various things that they need, there’s a feeling amongst them that there’s something a little too good to be true about him.

Meanwhile, the PRIDE parents are about as united and friendly as ever. Geoffrey is not happy at all with Catherine for shooting Darius without even having consulted him. The whole group are not especially happy that Tina just gave the staff to Nico or that Geoffrey let the kids get away. The Yorkeses are, as usual, unhappy about having anything to do with any of them and Janet doesn’t seem in a hurry to let the others know she’s made a breakthrough with Jonah’s source code, despite the one thing supposedly uniting them other than the need to get their kids back being the destruction of their erstwhile leader and benefactor.

And Jonah – well Jonah’s health seems to be deteriorating at a fairly rapid rate, prompting him to reach out to one of the few people he still trusts. That meeting is fraught with its own tensions, made worse by a sudden event caused by the Yorkeses and which has an equally significant impact on the escapades of our heroes. As the dust settles, certain things are pulled into focus, and trust becomes the central issue as the credits roll.

Still so much going on, so many balls in the air and the writers balance it all very well. There’s never a sense with this show that you can’t keep up with what’s going on, even when there’s a lot, and that’s credit to the creators and the performances of the cast. Mostly it’s in the little moments of interaction – a look, a brief exchange of words. Our gang are on mission, and that mission is still stopping whatever is in that hole they threw a truck down last season, but mixed in with that is so much interpersonal conflict on all sides that it just can’t help but be fascinating to watch.

Verdict: Sleek, slick and still juggling all of it’s many plates with an ease bordering on insouciance. Genre TV really feels like it’s spoiling us right now, and Runaways is a big part of that. 9/10

Greg D. Smith