Runaways recap: 'Destiny'

The episode’s named after the Pride’s poor victim, but it’s really all about Molly, the most powerful yet overlooked member of the Runaways so far. The youngest of the kids, Molly had been left orphaned a decade ago after her parents died in a fire, and as we find out in the flashback that begins the hour, Stacey and Dale were particularly affected by the loss of the Hernandezes, which is why they offer Molly a place in their family.

PREVIOUSLY: Runaways recap: ‘Rewind’

But could there be something else underneath their sympathy? From the sound of Janet and Catherine’s conversation, the fire may not have been an accident after all. Geoffrey also confronts Robert about Tina covering up something on her hand, but Robert brushes the insinuation away, saying that the Pride doesn’t keep secrets from each other. And Stacey and Dale, it seems, had seen Molly’s parents that night before the incident.

Who knows what really happened? In present day, Molly’s most concerned about her changes and her missing kitty pin, which her mom had given her. It’s two more stressors on top of everything else the kids are facing, and Molly can barely contain her frustration when the six meet at the beach that morning to talk about Destiny, who has posted a new photo of herself in London, saying she went on a church trip abroad. It all feels wrong, and after Alex asks the team to break up and do some PI work, Molly tries to bring up the fact that the Yorkes have a creature in their basement, but gets dismissed. She stalks off first from the meeting, annoyed.

She’s not the only one. Earlier that morning, Karolina received a few texts showing the battered faces of the jocks who had tried to take advantage of her the night before — not that she remembers anything about it — and when she asks Chase, he just brushes it off, promising to call her later.

In fact, it looks everyone’s now hiding something. Victor is having hallucinations of a badly scarred Destiny asking to be set free, Dale and Stacey try not to look too annoyed that their latest invention, a serum that erases memories, has been invested in largely by the insufferable Tina Minoru, and Robert and Janet are carrying on an affair. It’s a relationship born out of how much each of them can’t stand their respective spouses: Janet is never not cowering away from an aggressive Victor, while Robert’s been pushed away by Tina for years because of what happened to their daughter. And now, even when Tina takes him out on a date and pulls a Fifty Shades on him in the middle of the restaurant, he can’t meet her halfway. “You shoved me out for two years, and then you show up tonight 100 miles an hour,” he tells Tina. “It’s too confusing.”

The Wilders, too, are baffled, but for a completely different reason: Molly’s pin, found in Geoffrey’s study. Geoffrey tries to tell his wife not to go all in on interrogating Molly, but Catherine says there’s no other way around it. Instead, she preps some of the Yorkes’ Synnergy serum — the one that’ll make people forget — which Geoffrey warns could cause too much harm. They had used it on Frank Dean, he points out, and he’s never been the same. But Catherine says it’s a necessary evil, and she sets out to question poor Molly. (NEXT: Much ado about Destiny…)

Catherine makes for a formidable enemy, but Molly manages to find a way out — literally. She mumbles something about “puberty-type stuff,” heads to the bathroom, and tears off a section of the wall just to make her way out. “Awesome,” she says to herself when she destroys much of the room. Molly may be destructive, but at least she’s having fun with her abilities.

Until she passes out after using them, that is. Catherine finds her asleep just outside the cafe, takes her to her car, and questions Molly as she wakes up. Molly, though, is just quick enough to stay ahead of Catherine, appealing to her maternal instincts as she lies about how the older kids made her go into the study to try to steal some liquor. She lays it on pretty thick, explaining that the older kids have always seen her as someone everybody got stuck with, so she didn’t want to try to get out of it, and at that, Catherine sympathizes, putting the serum down and telling Molly that she would be happy to tell her about her parents when she’s ready. Aww.

It’s one crisis averted, with several more in play. Alex has a close call with Geoffrey when he tries to investigate the study, only to realize his dad’s home, too. Nico faces a similar issue: With her mom and dad out on the worst date of their lives, she pries into Tina’s home office, finding Amy’s diary and opening the case for the Staff of One in the process. When she picks it up, it pricks her finger — a notable difference from the way Nico has to activate the staff in the comics — and recognizes her as a Minoru, allowing her to control it. And so she does: When she rifles through Amy’s diary, she lands on a paper snowflake her sister had made, and as she thinks about it, the staff causes it to snow, right inside her mother’s office.

Too bad it snows too much. By the time Alex arrives to help her solve the situation, the office is blanketed in white, and Tina’s already on her way home. And so they quickly sweep and melt as much of it as possible, before stumbling into Nico’s bedroom and putting on a show for Tina of teenage libido. Tina’s convinced, and Alex gets kicked out… but he’s more than happy to have helped. As they say goodbye, he kisses Nico, and though she reminds him it was all an act for Tina, he’s not convinced. He smiles as he walks away — and so does Nico.

Over at the Steins’, Gert and Chase have also been doing some PI work. She picks up goggles that allow the user to see through anything — Chase should keep those and get cracking on those fistigons glove things again — and sneaks a peek at Chase’s junk, because, well, teens. They also find Victor’s box and, with the help of the goggles, discover that Destiny isn’t inside. Chase is thrilled at the news, but Gert’s not so sure. She convinces him that they need to do some poking around at her house as well, because the Yorkes could have also taken Destiny for use in their own experiments.

The Yorkes, it turns out, are also out of the house. They’re grabbing tons of food from a food truck for their pet downstairs, and they speak about moving away to a remote ranch now that the Pride is over. Not so fast, Dale and Stacey: Gert and Chase have entered the basement — this time, Chase wears the goggles, while Gert keeps a lead vest on — and, ignoring the “Keep Out” sign, opened the door to Old Lace’s lair. The dino crashes out of her pen, darts around the basement, and corners Chase and Gert. Gert pleads for it to be over, but just as she does so, the dinosaur quiets down and appears to listen to her. She only scampers away when a car honks outside — which means a dinosaur is now loose in LA.

That’s not the only problem the adults have now. Leslie learns from the dying man that nothing happened after the ritual, and she’s worried about why it’s taking so long for whatever it is that’s supposed to happen to happen. She gets her answer quickly enough, at least: Tina gives her a call right after she leaves “private meditation,” telling her to watch the local news. Half an hour ago, Destiny’s body washed ashore, and now Victor isn’t picking up his phone, and neither is Janet or Robert. Leslie looks dismayed. “We’re going to need another sacrifice,” she sighs.