This week, Curtis' ex-girlfriend Sam (Anna Koval) walked back into his life fresh out of prison for drugs possession, just as he'd begun a new (non-physical) relationship with Alisha (Antonia Thomas). This ghost from the past triggered Curtis' ability to time-travel and he found himself reversing time to the fateful night of the drugs bust in a thumping, sweaty nightclub. History says that talented athlete Curtis and Sam were both caught with drugs by an undercover cop that night, but now Curtis has a chance to change the past and win back his place on the 2012 Olympic team. What followed was Human Traffic-meets-Groundhog Day, as Curtis tried various ways to alter his own timeline -- first by flushing his drugs down a blocked toilet, then by simply running and stashing the coke until the trouble blows over.
Episode 4 also worked as a broad sequel for the entire series, as we met up with the other characters in their pre-community service days. Kelly (Lauren Socha) was dancing at the same club with her car-stealing boyfriend, at one stage vomiting down Curtis' trousers; we saw how Nathan (Robert Sheehan) got busted for trivially stealing pick n' mix sweets from a bowling alley managed by the unfortunately-named Beverly (Perry Benson); Alisha was true to form and flirting with the cop destined to arrest future-boyfriend Curtis; Simon (Iwan Rheon) had mistakenly been sent a text message by a "friend", arriving at the nightclub as an erroneous gooseberry; and we even saw probation worker Tony (Danny Sapani) and girlfriend Sally (Alex Reid) at the bowling alley in happier times, before Kelly's boyfriend stole their car and the expensive engagement ring Tony was planning to propose with.
To be honest, the storyline wasn't really much to write home about. If you're half-familiar with sci-fi, you'll guess where all this is headed. Neverthless, it kept your interest and it's always fun to watch events replay differently. But so much that's good about Misfits actually comes from its performances and real-world plausibility. The young actors are all excellent, particularly the riotously cocky Sheehan (a born scene-stealer), and this episode was a great showcase for Stewart-Jarrett's even-tempered and sympathetic character. Despite the fact they only really had a sprinkling of small scenes, Rheon makes you feel every second of social torture Simon suffers, while Socha and Thomas could easily become one-note bores, but there's the sense of something deeper going on beneath their character's surfaces. All five actors are Misfits' true super-power, and I'm guessing destined for great things.
It's a TV show that can make a nightclub look like a recognizable place that actually exists (no sense of bad extras dancing to silence here), and it has the wit to cast Dexter Fletcher as Nathan's father -- credible thanks to certain physical similarities and the fact older viewers will remember that Fletcher played similar arrogant dropouts 20 years ago.
Overall, this was undoubtedly a great episode, and definitive proof that Misfits has avoided the pitfalls that presented themselves from a "teen-Heroes" premise. I particularly liked how Curtis managed to change history and get his life straightened out, only to realize that his resulting absence on the community service scheme led to the brutal murder of Simon, Kelly and Alisha when Tony went crazy with an axe and he wasn't around to save them by reversing time. It showed how much Curtis has come to care about his fellow delinquents, as he willingly sacrificed his athletics dream to spare their lives. It's the kind of story you need when dealing with a time-traveller, to cement the idea that we're all shaped by our past and should actually just focus on the here-and-now.
A final scene found sorrowful Sally discovering her dead boyfriend's credit card in Simon's rucksack (which he used to buy plane tickets to put authories off the scent regarding Tony's "disappearance"), so next week's Simon-centric episode, the penultimate of the series, should prove to be an eye-opener.
So yes, Misfits has shaped up very nicely -- it has verve, realism, pace, great dialogue, fun stories, strong subtext, and charismatic actors. I hope you're all watching. Incidentally, my current theory on what Nathan's unknown super-power is: it's either healing (he survived Tony's axe in the altered timeline), or good luck (again, he was the only one to survive the massacre, and his character seems to always land on his feet.)
3 December 2009
E4, 10pm
written by: Howard Overman directed by: Tom Green starring: Antonia Thomas (Alisha), Lauren Socha (Kelly), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Curtis), Iwan Rheon (Simon), Robert Sheehan (Nathan), Alex Reid (Sally), Anna Koval (Sam), Stephen Wright (Danny), Michael Obiora (Pete), Perry Benson (Beverly), Benjamin Smith (Lee), Jamie Blackley (Matt), Danny Sapani (Tony) & Dexter Fletcher (Nathan's Dad)
