What’s the ultimate expression of selfishness and privilege? HBO’s latest dramedy RUN has the answer. Two people unhappy with the lives they’ve made for themselves decide to run away from them and throw the lives of everyone else around them into turmoil rather than acting like grownups and resolving them appropriately.
Merritt Weaver’s Ruby is a married mom who is feeling bored. The first scene lays the groundwork for the bored housewife motif with her, new yoga mat in hand, sitting in her car staring at the only two paths life has laid out in front of her - Ralph’s Supermarket or Target. Neither is the road less traveled. When she gets a mysterious text saying nothing other than RUN. She replies in kind which sets off a frenetic, anxiety laden cross country trip to NY. She’s running from what, we don’t know exactly and to whom is a mystery as well but we do know that she suddenly cares what her hair and makeup looks like.
It turns out she’s running towards Billy (Domhall Gleeson), a college friend? Lover? Unclear but apparently this adventure has been a possibility since they were students together 20 years earlier. He’s also running from something whose details unfold in the following episodes. What we do learn is that these two college friends had made a pact that if at any point either one of them texts the other “RUN” and the other responds in kind it would set off an immediate plan where they meet in Grand Central Station and then hop on the next train westward. Using the classic trope in American cinema of traveling East to West to discover something unknown comes off as trite and simplistic as the revelation never truly comes to fruition.
By episode 2 we still don’t have a full picture or any reason to think she’s anything but a desperate housewife. The 17 year itch perhaps? Whatever it turns out to be, I can’t help but be annoyed with these characters from the outset. They both have jobs, homes, family. To put it simply: responsibilities. And in a moment of impulse they abandon it all to fulfill a 2-decades old pact that they made when they were still teenagers. The fact that they’re nearing 40 makes this even more intolerable because they are full blown grownups who should know better and act as such.
The glorification of fulfilling a fantasy that I’m sure thousands - if not more - people have to just leave it all behind and escape the life that they’ve made for themselves is, frankly, gross. It’s also an expression of such white privilege. Imagine the connotations if, let’s say, it was an African American man escaping his fatherly duties to run away with a woman he knew 20 years ago.
I won’t give away the ending, but I will say this: the ending didn’t change my overall feeling of the show. It was a huge disappointment given the talent attached. Archie Punjabi as Billy’s Production Assistant is underused as her character is never fully developed and Executive Producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge has a small role that feels more like a cameo more than anything else.
Yes the acting is great - at this point I would expect nothing else from HBO shows and from these fine actors. But that is not enough to make this show compelling. What’s particularly sad to acknowledge is that since our media acts as a reflection of our culture and mores, this show is tapping into the thoughts and actions of American audiences. Selfish parenting on screen is nothing new, but the proliferation of it seeing how commonplace it's becoming is another sign of the times that it’s not going anywhere soon.
