Misfits: S03 Ep01

What happened?

Rory, a man with a power that means his personality physically splits into two separate persons runs into the Misfits gang now free from their probation duties, and also from Nathan who has gone to Las Vegas. With all of them now possessing new powers they struggle to make the best of them, with Simon most successfully employing his ability to perceive potential consequences with his burgeoning parkour skills to become the ‘man in the mask’.

Rory reveals that Alisha once broke his heart after sleeping with him, and the pair of them find themselves at the mercy of a murderous girl with the power to freeze in time her immediate surroundings. Luckily Rory’s alter-ego comes to their rescue. Shortly after the gang are caught driving a car Rory stole and, before they know it, are back on community service, musing on whether or not the next 7 weeks will pass by uneventfully.

Thoughts

The big question facing Misfits for this third series was how it would cope with the unplanned departure of Nathan. Clearly leaving a massive hole in the group dynamic, not to mention the show’s signature outrageous comedy value, he was as close to a ‘lead’ as Misfits had and was not going to be an easy patch to cover. So whilst this episode did focus more on new boy Rory I suspect the show is going to lean more than ever on functioning as an ensemble piece.

How does Misfits fare with the departure of Nathan? Actually, not bad.

New character Rory is, naturally, going to be the major talking point. I personally found him a tad annoying but mostly enjoyable. The only aspect to him that kind of bugged me was that his power had him split his personality; one being egotistical and over-confident and the other being insecure and wracked with conscience. The trouble was when these two personalities were combined the personality that was presented was barely dis-similar to the over-confident one. I think I would have preferred the ‘joined’ Rory to be more balanced to better emphasise the extremes of his individual components.

Maybe the point is that the insecure Rory is just a small part of him that he kept buried, like he shielded himself from it after his suicide attempt. The powers a person has invariably feed back into some aspect of their characters so Rory’s split is just a power that makes him confront the very thing he wants to repress; the moral conscience and constant reminder of all that he would like to forget. If I consider it in those terms then his rather objectionable (although funny) coarse personality that dominates makes more sense.

So, Rory, he’s no Nathan, but if Misfits can traverse the fine line between his full-on manner and level-headed decency then there’s the makings of an interesting dimension to the gang. I did like his remarks about how there was definitely going to be trouble coming for the group; clearly this was the writer making a knowing in-joke but Misfits is littered with such moments, with the characters literally speaking the opinions of the audience, and it’s cheeky enough to get away with it. Indeed, it’s part of the charm.

Kudos to the opening rooftop scrap Rory had with himself; Misfits is evidently a show that operates on a small budget but they do wonders with it and the effects here looked great, particularly on the subtle touches like their shadows when they were stood together.

Elsewhere our gang have all undergone something of a reinvention and the other big question hanging at the end of the last series was what new powers they would now have. Kelly’s was the ironically dumb revelation that she was a “rocket scientist”; a power that felt like it had been given to her purely so she could make the self-aware remark of incredulity that she was “a fucking rocket scientist”. The danger is that, now that joke is done, it doesn’t leave her character with a particularly interesting or useful power.

I do wonder if the ‘rocket scientist’ power isn’t going to be a temporary one and that before long she will seek out the man who can give and take powers and manage to bequeath herself something a little more potent. (I did note that the preview for next week’s episode suggested she was pursuing him out of some form of love interest, so maybe that will be a part of it.)

Curtis had the most eye-opening power at being able to transform into a girl. I did like how he stated he had basically ended up with it because he had let everyone else go first and it was the only one left! What direction that will take his character in remains to be seen but, at the moment, he feels like the least vital member of the group. Possibly could be a mind-boggling situation for him, though, if as a woman he gets involved with another man. . . Will that make him gay!? Confusing!

Lastly, Simon and Alisha have the two ‘best’ powers. Simon is clearly focused on becoming the ‘man in the mask’ so he can fulfil all the amazing rescues and acts we’ve seen him perform already. His power of being able to foresee consequences ties into what we saw in series 2, where he was busy making sure certain things happened in order to make everything turn out as it should. The big issue for him is that he knows his own death date and the big question for the show is: Will Simon actively try and avert that?

It’s hard to determine if that’s a question this series will even tackle. The Las Vegas photo informs us that Simon and Alisha have to least go and have that picture taken before he meets his fate (and, presumably, encounter someone with the capacity to send him back in time). For now it seems they have time but I would hope it’s a matter that does get addressed.

Alisha’s power to see things from another person’s perspective is a natural extension of her new-found empathy from the selfish person she used to be. It’s certainly a handy power to have and will surely be useful many times during the series. Of all the characters she’s the one that’s come the furthest, although Simon is not far behind and, whilst he still retain that otherworldly creepiness about him, he’s the one with the best ongoing plot arc and the most character depth.

All in all it’s good to have Misfits back and even better to see it’s endured the loss of a major character and barely suffered in the process. Profane, funny, fast-paced and, so far at least, inventive and logically-sound. It’s a misfit from the rest of the TV crowd and all the better for it.

What was the best part?

I really liked the sequence where the girl who could freeze time did so in the pub upon seeing Rory with another girl (who was totally hot, shame they killed her!). Just the way the music was slightly fuzzy as action-time went to a crawl and the girl wandered through the room before bottling Rory in the face with bloody retribution was a standout moment.

What do I think will happen next?

Kelly will pursue her interest in the power broker; whether for romantic reasons, or to trade for a new power, or both remains to be seen. Otherwise I anticipate questions surrounding Simon’s fate will be addressed by both he and Alisha. Beyond that the world of Misfits has been thrown wide open and no doubt it will be populated with the usual array of other people with powers that will invariably create problems for our unlikely superhero group.