This week, the gang were unnerved by the arrival of a youth movement called "Virtue" into their community centre, comprised of rebellious dropouts like themselves who have turned their back on drinking, smoking, swearing and antisocial behaviour. Led by the charming Ellie (Gemma Lawrence), the misfits soon begin to realize that she has the power to impose her will onto people through spoken word, and has been busily transforming her community's delinquents into cardigan-wearing, courteous zombies.
It's not long before goodtime girl Alisha (Antonia Thomas) and Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) are transformed into pansified versions of themselves, leaving Simon (Iwan Rheon), Kelly (Lauren Socha) and Nathan (Robert Sheehan) as the only ones standing between individualism and conformity -- armed with yellow washing-up gloves and iPods at full volume.
It was certainly an amusing and appropriate villain for the gang to be up against, and the threat was big enough to work as a decent climax for the series. There was also a lot of fun in seeing the characters transformed into disquietingly pleasant versions of themselves -- particularly prim Alisha -- and it was perfect that Nathan would become their best chance to defeat Ellie, using his gift of the gab to try and de-program her clique with a rooftop speech about embracing youth. Of course, it didn't work, but after a skirmish with Ellie, both fell to their death and the spell was broken at a tragic cost.
I don't think many people watching believed Nathan had really died, considering the fact his unknown super-power has been a running mystery, but the script did a good job of making us doubt ourselves -- particularly when Nathan's coffin was buried and his funeral held. But, in the final moments, Nathan awakened to find himself buried alive, with only an iPod as entertainment. The ultimate torture for someone who thrives on social interaction, now cursed by his immortality and doomed to spend eternity in a claustrophobic coffin. I hope Kelly filled his iPod with some good tunes and fully charged it, but it's a pity she didn't go with an iPhone...
This was a very entertaining and high-spirited finale, even if it wasn't much of a climax to the series' major plot arc -- that surely deserved a proper conclusion here. I'm sure we'll return to the story next year, if only to see how Simon disposes of Sally's body (that he's storing in a freezer), but there's also the question of whether or not Sally's cop friend will start to get suspicious that two probation workers have now gone missing. Incidentally, it's been fun to ponder the psyche of Simon recently -- on the one hand he's a very sympathetic victim of bullying, and he tenderly helped Kelly grieve by giving her a video tribute to Nathan he'd made, but you have to worry for his sanity in the scene where he's sat Sally upright in the freezer and is staring at her while eating a slice of pizza...
As for Nathan -- oh, he'll be back, probably by communicating with telepathic Kelly the next time she visits his grave, but how will he explain his miraculous resurrection to people? And who was the mysterious cyclist in the orange hoodie who rescued Nathan from a gang of Virtue's followers? Dead Gary from episode 1? A new character we've yet to meet? Himself from the future? And is Nathan's power strictly just immortality? I'm not so sure. After all, Ellie found it impossible to brainwash Nathan in one scene, so maybe cheating death is just a by-product of whatever his true power is?
Overall, Misfits has been one of the year's biggest surprises, managing to reach beyond what could have been a terrible, cheap, asinine Heroes rip-off into something really quite marvelous, understated, witty and entertaining. It wasn't quite as funny as I'd have liked, but Howard Overman's skill with character and dialogue gave us an accurate, believable British riposte to the superhero genre. There's nothing else quite like it on TV right now. I also think the casting has been first-rate across the board, but the performances of Rheon and Sheehan have been particularly excellent. The latter's a real star in the making, too. We'd better enjoy Misfits while we can, because I'm pretty sure these young actors will move onto bigger things before too long.
17 December 2009
E4/E4 HD, 10pm
written by: Howard Overman directed by: Tom Harper starring: Antonia Thomas (Alisha), Lauren Socha (Kelly), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Curtis), Iwan Rheon (Simon), Robert Sheehan (Nathan), Alex Reid (Sally), Gemma Lawrence (Ellie), Danny Barnham (Liam), Jessica Brown-Findlay (Rachel), Michael Obiora (Pete) & Claire Prempeh (Reporter)
