This RUN review contains spoilers.
Run Season 1 Episode 7
“Trick” is the season finale of Run, but you’d be forgiven if you didn’t realize that. Personally, after the episode aired, I had to check HBO’s schedule to be sure that another episode wasn’t coming next Sunday. The half-hour concluded with Ruby walking away from Billy, the murder investigation unresolved, and the fallout from Ruby’s weekend getaway unexplored. You would have to assume Vicky Jones and company are confident that they’ll be returning for a second season, otherwise this unsatisfying conclusion would be even more of a head-scratcher.
Ultimately, Run failed to live up to the potential shown in its engrossing pilot. It’s been stated before, but the concept would have worked like gangbusters as a feature, but doled out in 24-minute installments and forced to pad its story with a murder-mystery component that took focus away from the show’s most enticing element, the relationship between Ruby and Billy, the train went off the rails. To think that the show could potentially come back for more after struggling to stay interesting for just seven episodes is curious for sure.
“Trick” almost perfectly represents the entire season. The episode begins bizarrely out of place, with Ruby and Billy rushing to hitch onto a truck in the daytime after the last episode ended with them leaving the bar at night. One of the show’s biggest issues and one of the reasons the story feels like it should have been a feature is because the episodes begin and end with little rhyme and reasons, as if a complete story were just sliced arbitrarily by timestamp.
