【cure for eroticized rage】

Marvel's RunawaysSeason 2 just premiered on cure for eroticized rageHulu, and while it's not exactly prestige television, we can't resist the love bonding its core characters.

Like the comics, Runawaysis about six friends on the run from their supervillain parents...but we'd be fine if the show skipped that part and just let them navigate their superhero hormones in peace.

Runawaysis not a brilliant show, but it fits nicely into the television landscape of superhero shows. The dialogue can be clunky, the plotting questionable, but like its older Netflix siblings and CW/DC cousins, that's not what we're here for. The show gives us cartoonishly evil villains (both superpowered and not), magical tech, mysterious murder – and also some quality teen romance.

Season 1 introduced our runaways (though they hadn't run away just yet): Gert (Ariela Barer), Molly (Allegra Acosta), Chase (Greg Sulkin), Alex (Rhenzy Feliz), Nico (Lyrica Okano), and Karolina (Virginia Gardner). They grew up close friends by proximity because of their parents, but lost touch after the sudden death of Nico's sister, an integral part of the group. As the runaways rebuild their relationships, we see the fragile infrastructure of this group; Alex as a reluctant leader, Gert as Molly's protector, Chase and Karolina following a predetermined path to power couple-dom, Nico trying to ignore her feelings.

At the climax of Season 1, we got pivotal kisses from not one but two runaway couples, and it was awesome. Season 2 sets these relationships loose in the world, with the kids living together while they avoid their parents and having to face some very adult circumstances for their very young relationships.

Somewhere in the first few episodes, between Gert and Chase's bedroom banter and Nico and Karolina casually bringing up their attraction in front of a squeamish Alex, I realized that the teen romance was all I cared about on Runaways. I want to see these guys holding hands in a high school hallways and then shooting off sparks just to mess with their mortal classmates. I want for Chase to stand up to the jocks and feed Gert's pet dinosaur during lunch breaks, for Nico and Karolina to fight homophobia with alien abilities.

This investment is only compounded by the recent rise of rom-coms, particularly on streaming. Chase does his best Peter Kavinsky in RunawaysSeason 2, and it's just lovely. Every time Gert revs up her feminist firepower, he doesn't roll his eyes or shut her down – nor does he pretend to know more than he does. He's always there to snap back at their opponents, to offer a few words that show his support for a girl who constantly challenges heteronormative thinking and patriarchal norms.

Basically he thinks she's rad, and that's rad.

Even Alex gets a left-field romance (13 Reasons Why's Ajiona Alexus) while getting over Nico, one which manages to be both semi-forbidden (he's working for her dad!) and a classic we-can't-be-together-for-your-safety situation. This romantic conundrum has plagued superheroes since the dawn of time, and Alex deserves a chance at it!

Non-superhero TV shows have no problem hyping their teen characters up on hormones and feelings. Can't we get a little of that Riverdalejuju out here? Or what about The Magicians, in which supernatural abilities are regularly part of flirting and sex?

Being superpowered fugitives puts our kids in a lot of adult situations, from sharing a bed with a new boyfriend to figuring out how to salvage the relationship when one of you kills the other's dad. Navigating relationships is hard enough for humans ad adults – for the heroes of Runawaysit becomes another burden to shoulder in the new world they find themselves living in.

Marvel's RunawaysSeason 2 is now streaming on Hulu.