HBO’s ‘Run’ premiere sees Billy and Ruby leave their lives behind for a text message but doesn’t reveal why
A woman outside a Target store, in a car in parking lot, in an unknown city looks disheveled and clearly unhappy. She says she is shopping and should be back home soon but her words are peppered with anything but enthusiasm and that's when she gets a text message from one Billy and all it says is "Run".
She is visibly agitated and tense after seeing the message and she tries to get out of the car. It is as if she has taken the message to her heart and wants to run. Is she an undercover spy? Is she worried about being caught? That's the first thought that runs into your head, but it is nowhere as simple as that.
This woman is our lead and her name is Ruby. She decides to leave and ends up at the airport where she purchases a ticket to New York City. Once she arrives at New York City, she arrives at Grand Central where she takes the 5 pm train that takes passengers across the country and on the way she tries to text Lawrence, who we are assuming at this point is her husband.
She initially types an apology, says she isn't coming home today or ever for that matter. She rethinks and deletes it all and tries to send a simple apology, but loses her nerve yet again. What has she done? Is she eloping with someone or is this an escape plane?
It isn't until she gets on the train that we realize Billy is someone that she had last met 15 years ago and just how she ran away from the life that she had built with a moment's notice, he had too. Why did he send that message and why did she reply with the same text is something that we do not learn in this episode. What we do learn is that these two studied together in college and were lovers at that time. The attraction and the chemistry between them is so high that just one argument has both of them horny enough to masturbate in the train's washroom.
They bicker, argue and try to get on each other's nerves but it is also clear that the two of them know each other really well too. For instance, Billy asks Ruby if she built her own house; not that she answers his question but her surprise shows that this is something that she had always wanted. Billy is a life guru and Ruby makes fun of his career. Both of them are on the train because they are running away from something that haunts them in their life and this impromptu/planned cross country trip is supposed to be a way for the two of them to add some thrill to their otherwise not very interesting lives.
Impromptu/planned because this trip is partly planned and partly on-the-go. The two seemed to have planned much in advance that if there ever came a day where the other sent such a message and the response was the same, then they would meet at Grand Central on a train that leaves at 5 pm. However, when that would be was something that they had left unplanned. Now, that the two of them have met, what next? That is the question that runs through the mind as the episode comes to a dramatic end.
When the train stops at Pittsburgh for 20 mins, Ruby gets down to make a call and doesn't return until the train doors are closed and this has Billy panicking. His reaction is honestly extreme for someone that he met after 15 years. He has tears in his eyes, has a violent anxiety attack where he breaks the handle to the washroom door and it is this show of frustration that hooks you in. What is it between these two that they would drop everything to meet each other? Of course, Ruby did get in from the different coach and she ran to make it in time to make it but when she sees Billy in a state of panic, she tries to lighten the moment by making a joke about the toilet handle in his hand.
Despite meeting after 15 years, these two people seem to still know each other, and it feels like they have been hiding this part of themselves in their real lives.
New episodes of 'Run' airs every Sunday on HBO.