Misfits: S03 Ep03

What happened?

Simon saved a guy called Peter from being mugged, instantly winning Peter’s adoration. Simon doesn’t realise that Peter has his own power of being able to draw events that will then happen for real. Using this power Peter controls Simon and tries to split him apart from Alisha. However, when the gang stop Peter’s plans he draws a final scenario where he kidnaps Alisha only for Simon to rescue her and kill him in the process.

Kelly gets to know the Power Dealer more, learning that the girl in the cemetery was his previous girlfriend who suffered an overdose he feels responsible for. As such he’s finding it difficult to submit to a new relationship. Alisha, now back with Simon, makes him promise to burn his outfit and stop trying to fulfil his destiny of travelling back in time. He says he will, but in secret hides the costume.

Thoughts

A Simon-centric episode is the one that offers up the most engaging subject matter for Misfits fans interested in the larger story arc. This episode very much raised the questions tucked at the heart of the timeloop and Simon’s fate, but didn’t take any closer steps towards answering them. I don’t think this was the chief reason why this episode failed to lift off for me, but it was certainly part of it.

I did think Peter was underserved here. The reveal of his power was deftly uncovered, and as ever fitted with his character (being someone powerless to make things go his way in real life, as the story of the stolen handbag revealed, and thus granted a power to shape the world and events as he wanted). Yet I felt like we didn’t really get to understand what he was all about, and so his final act of showing Simon that dying for what you believe in by making the ultimate sacrifice didn’t quite land perfectly.

Was that his intention all along, when he was trying to separate Simon from Alisha? Or did he have a change of heart and mind once his first scheme failed? I’m tempted to believe he intended it all along, and breaking Simon and Alisha up was his way of testing their relationship’s resolve, but it’s impossible to really call for sure.

I liked Simon’s performance here, adopting a muscular comic book pose when he was under Peter’s control was a nice touch. It did seem a tad remiss that his power of foresight was never employed, although he has stated in a previous episode that it’s not something he is able to control. Didn’t particularly serve him well here!

The ending to the episode was a compelling build that, alas, felt anticlimactic. I did like how Simon’s burning of the corpse was depicted very similar to Luke burning Darth Vader at the end of Return Of The Jedi (are we to deduce something more meaningful about overcoming the dark side from this!?). However, Peter having ended his comic book with a ‘to be continued’ felt underwhelming; I expected the camera to pan towards a stack of comic book papers he had drawn already, basically mapping out events yet to come, which I thought would have been both cool and interesting in the sense of challenging notions of free will.

Simon’s very predicament is determined by the sense of doing what he believes must be done against what free will would suggest he is able to do. The compelling opinion of Alisha, that he doesn’t need to go back in time because she already got saved, feels right! If Simon never goes back, what happens? Does the space-time continuum unravel? But time travel logistics would suggest that Simon doesn’t have a choice. His fate is as predetermined as the drawings in the comic book. He will go back in time and die because he’s already done it. It’s set down. Drawn in black and white. Inescapable.

I’m torn 50/50 on whether Misfits will proceed with this tragic plot or, somehow, find a way around it so that it happens without Simon being really dead. There’s all manner of ways around it (on a show where anything can happen, where anyone can do anything, solutions are plentiful). He could be cloned. It could be an alternate timeline permutation. Someone could have the ability to reincarnate the dead. . .

This brings me on to the power broker, and the nice interplay between him and Kelly. His story of the dead girlfriend was less mysterious than it first seemed, but the reason why he can’t let her go and give Kelly a whirl makes me think he is looking for a power that will allow him to bring his girlfriend back. Maybe all of his power trading is a means for him to eventually acquire the power to bring back people from the dead, and this quest might dovetail into Simon’s tragic fate. Stranger things have happened.

Really enjoyed Kelly in this episode. Her straddling between awkward and vulnerable to cocksure and profane is really well-played. Lauren Socha performs it to a tee. High-fiving when she once again uses her powers as a rocket scientist, to bemoaning getting cum on her face, to laying her cards out and admitting she likes the power broker – she’s a subtle and unsubtle standout in every scene.

On the flipside Rudy was rather irritating this episode and got on my nerves. He was a rather redundant player in proceedings and yet still hogged screentime that would have been better used with Simon and Peter. For every funny scene, like Rudy suggesting the probation officer was abused as a child, there was a boorish misfire where his obnoxious sense of humour and witlessness clunked up proceedings. I wouldn’t want to see him befall the same fate as Curtis (present in scenes despite being utterly superfluous) but his character needs the most work to wrestle into someone relatable.

Lastly, and I know it’s debased and pathetic (so quite a good fit for Misfits!) but a word of praise for Alisha’s breasts this episode. The tops she was wearing, and the camera shots that amply showed her off, meant I could barely take my eyes off her chest when she was on-screen. More of *those* please! (I’ll break with tradition and stick a pic of her here for, uh, artistic purposes.)



What was the best part?

Despite the weighty thematic ideas, the actual execution of events wasn’t particularly slick in my opinion. Peter’s death scene felt rushed when it really ought to have been the best part. As such I’ll plump for Simon burning Peter and then making his false promise to Alisha, intercut with the flashbacks and comic book frames. The climax didn’t quite deliver the punchline I felt was coming, but it was still captivating and felt momentous.

What do I think will happen next?

Beyond the longterm quandary of whether Simon’s fate is sealed or he will fulfil his destiny and yet survive the only other ongoing thread concerns Kelly and the power trader. As previously suggested, I can’t help but figure he’s not given up hope of getting his dead girlfriend back. However, next week’s preview hinted at a deranged Nazi-inspired happening (time travel involved? Simon could be discovering his means of going back!) featuring the probation worker, too, so looks like demented fun.