Misfits: S03 Ep07

What happened?

Using his new power to bring the dead back to life, Curtis resurrects Seth’s girlfriend, Shannon. Whilst Seth breaks up with Kelly to attempt to make things work, Curtis discovers that his power causes the dead to return as bloodthirsty zombies.

The gang are forced to band together and stop the growing number of undead to prevent an outbreak that involves killing an old lady, cheerleaders and their latest probation worker. Seth kills Shannon and both he and Kelly declare their love for one another.

Thoughts

This is more like it. Misfits firing on all cylinders, meddling in the right genre with the prerequisite dose of unpleasantness, bad language and outrageous behaviour. It was such a return to old school form they even bumped off a probation worker; a staple that has now become a signature event!

The throughline of Seth attempting to reconcile his past with Shannon almost strayed into unsubtle territory when he was once more a supplier feeding her habit, only this time instead of drugs it was blood, and this time rather than kill her off and regret it he found love. And then kill her off. It certainly warmed the heart to see Kelly find such joy; hard-faced and blunt she may be, we’ve seen that she has a heart of gold merely diminished and wearied by a life of hard knocks. She deserves happiness.

Everyone was a pleasure to watch this episode. Take Simon and Alisa – him agog at the cheerleader display only for her to suggest that she might wear such an outfit to please him, later touted as a threat after she was blood-splattered following vigorous zombie-cheerleader slaying with the pulverised remains at her feet.

It’s a credit to Misfits that it can suddenly drop in a troupe of cheerleaders purely for explicit purposes of them becoming zombies and it not be considered ludicrous. Point is, it is ludicrous, but that preposterousness is the skill of the writing and the in-built joke of the show. It inhabits a strange, off-kilter world, surreal and self-aware, whilst still keeping itself real. Same goes for the probation worker. That many missing workers would have aroused far more suspicion, but like the countless bodies the gang have buried, this is a world where such things are just about allowed to let slide so long as there's been just enough done to keep it quiet.

Curtis has managed to wrangle himself back into the thick of things when he was, above everyone, the most in danger of becoming irrelevant. Clearly his power was the key driver of events, though quite what he does now with a power that can basically create zombies is anyone’s guess. I suspect he’s going to want to trade that in (but then to do so would mean risking such a power being in someone else’s possession!). Curiously, I am finding Curtis to be the most amusing character. He doesn’t splurge outrageous remarks and wisecracks like Rudy, but he’s often the ‘straight’ character forced to deal with the most bizarre and freaky occurrences and it’s his very reactions that are the source of much humour.

All in all, this was a Misfits classic. Throwaway and indispensable, tying up longstanding plot threads whilst delivering a standalone slice of entertainment. With Seth and Kelly now established all that really remains is for the plot of Simon and Alisha to run its course – though whether that happens this series remains to be seen.

Of course, the matter of whether or not another probation worker will ever emerge should be addressed. They’ve gone through two this series, so you’d have to figure that if another one should arrive on the scene they ought to survive the series!

What was the best part?

The whole episode was on top form, but really the scenes with our heroes rushing around taking out zombie cheerleaders was absurd and gory and brilliant. From Alisha’s ruthless slaughtering, to Rudy cowering behind a door whilst blood splashed against it as cheerleaders got pulverised, it was nothing but delightfully demented entertainment.

What do I think will happen next?

The preview for next week’s episode looked like a corker, with previous characters that have died during the show’s lifespan returning to the Misfit gang. Given we’ve had the dead physically resurrected I have to assume this ‘return of the dead’ phenomena will happen via some other means (perhaps a totally psychic, mental guilt thing). The big question, since this is the last episode, is whether Simon and Alisha’s timeline turmoil will find a resolution. I find it hard to imagine it will – Simon doesn’t seem anywhere near ‘finished’ as the man in the mask to fulfil his destiny.