Entertainment
‘Marvel’s Runaways’ bosses Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage talk final season: ‘We’re going for it’
Get ready to run away one last time. The third season of Marvel’s Runaways drops this weekend on Hulu, but just last month fans were dealt the shocking blow when it was announced that it would, unfortunately, be the final season. And while executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage didn’t know during production of…
Get ready to run away one last time. The third season of Marvel’s Runaways drops this weekend on Hulu, but just last month fans were dealt the shocking blow when it was announced that it would, unfortunately, be the final season. And while executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage didn’t know during production of season 3 that it would the last 10 episodes they would get to make of this show, they didn’t hold anything back just in case that would end up happening.
“This season is the biggest season we’ve done of the show yet,” Schwartz told EW and a small group of reporters on set while filming season 3. “And I think we’ve really embraced the fact that our kids are superheroes and that this is a superhero show.”
Schwartz acknowledges how the first two seasons operated on more of a slow burn as Alex (Rhenzy Feliz), Nico (Lyrica Okano), Karolina (Virginia Gardner), Gert (Ariela Barer), Chase (Gregg Sulkin), and Molly (Allegra Acosta) learned their parents were evil, discovered their fledgling powers, and eventually actually ran away. But now, season 3 will fulfill all the promise of the comic book source material that fans have been patiently (or in some cases, decidedly not so patiently) waiting to see unfold onscreen. “Now we have body-snatching aliens and a coven of witches and dark dimensions, and we’re going for it,” Schwartz reveals.
When Runaways picks up in season 3, the superpowered teens are still searching for Chase, Gert, and Karolina, who were captured at the end of season 2 by Jonah (first played by Julian McMahon but now played by James Marsters) and his Gib alien family possessing the bodies of some of their parents. And while the final season is ultimately split into two major story arcs, the first half follows the runaways as they try to figure out who the fourth Gib alien has taken over. “It’s going to tear the runaways apart, because they’re not sure who they can trust, even from within,” Schwartz says. “And that’s going to be a great source of conflict for them.”
Savage loves how they’ve been able to plant seeds of the alien takeover storyline since the very beginning of the series, taking their time to “really build it out” until the payoff in season 3. “It comes to an amazing conclusion this season,” she says. “At the same time, we’ve been planting the seeds of Nico’s power, and what is the staff, and how does that work, and where did it come from? And what’s the deal with ‘dark’ Nico and her purple eyes and the dark energy of the staff? And where did she send the strike team when they just disappeared and their clothes fell to the ground? So that’s all stuff we’ve been setting up previously that you’re going to really learn the whole story of this year.”
“And it ties into the introduction of Morgan le Fay [played by Elizabeth Hurley],” Schwartz adds, referencing the second major story arc of the season. “And ties into the Cloak and Dagger crossover.”
Cloak and Dagger is the other Marvel teen drama that got canceled this year, but the two titular characters will show up for one last adventure at the end of Runaways season 3 for the crossover fans have been wanting for years.
“When Cloak and Dagger show up in the comics, the stakes were pretty high, and they needed Cloak and Dagger in order to complete that mission,” Schwartz teases of the highly-anticipated episode. “And that is definitely true here as well. It just made sense for us that we have these young adults who have powers living in Los Angeles, and they have these young adults with powers living in New Orleans and they should meet up and know that they’re not all alone.”
The reason for the crossover? Cloak aka Tyrone (Aubrey Joseph) feels a disturbance in the Dark Dimension caused by Nico, so he and Dagger aka Tandy (Olivia Holt) travel to LA to investigate, bringing them face-to-face with the runaways. While they start out thinking they’re on opposite sides, they quickly come together to battle an even bigger threat.
“It’s always fun to have two people just drop into your world and be like, ‘Wait, what? You live in an underground mansion and you have a dinosaur?’” Schwartz says with a laugh. “And the idea of Cloak having to listen to Gert and Chase bicker and have a romantic squabble? So it was the opportunity for them not just to save the day, but also to really help our characters on an emotional level as well and save some relationships. The fun of watching everybody bounce off of each other was something we were really looking forward to.”
Plus, Savage teases, “the mission that they’re on, Cloak and Dagger have some experience with these elements that they’re able to impart to the runaways.”
What really excited both Schwartz and Savage about the crossover was getting to experiment and combine the two very different tones from each show into one episode. “We loved bringing those characters, they’re a little bit heavier and more gritty and earnest in their concerns, into our world where there’s a lot of sarcasm and talking under your breath and throwing things away,” Savage says, “to see them react to our characters, but also live in our world, and then our characters to kind of get the message from them that this is actually really serious and the stakes are very high.”
All 10 episodes of the third and final season of Marvel’s Runaways begin streaming Friday, Dec. 13 on Hulu.
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