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The last ever episode of Misfits wasn't very conclusive; perhaps because creator Howard Overman still has hopes for a feature film to continue the story, which is apparently written and ready to film. Is there an Inbetweeners-sized appetite for it though? It already feels like the Misfits concept is a few years past its prime, and audience passion has dimmed over the course of so many cast changes. Added to that, there's the fact a show like Misfits gets less shocking/radical the longer you're in its company, although even Kick-Ass's language never got close to the epic vulgarities Misfits has delivered over the past five years.
It's the penultimate episode of the last ever Misfits series, and despite this week's story being a quasi-remake of an early classic (where the first generation of misfits encountered problems with their powers after taking drugs at a rave), this one was nevertheless very entertaining and pushed the show's arcs along in big ways ready for next week's finale.
A mixed hour this week, which is often the way with Misfits. The gang were tasked with entertaining a group of terminally ill youngsters at the community centre; with Finn (Nathan McMullen) uncovering a bald charlatan chasing sympathy shags, while a skin cancer patient called Lucas (Ade Oyefoso) succumbs to temptation and uses his super-power of stealing the 'life-force' from others—resulting in death and an attempted suicide.
I'm glad this is the final series of Misfits because episodes don't feel as essential as they once did, but at least episode five did something the show used to excel at: use super-powers to embellish something about the real world and actual people. This week's story was all about a shy girl called Leah (Scarlett Brookes) who's become a shut-in, but uses her ability to download her mind into other people's bodies over the internet. This enables Leah to interact with the world as an avatar, and charm Finn (Nathan McMullen) at a superpower support group meeting while in the body of her more attractive best-friend.
We're halfway through Misfits' final series, so it was no surprise to find this episode wasn't anything special. I wouldn't term it filler, but it was a little uninvolving and started to drag surprisingly quickly. There were some fun nods to the series arc with another item of prognostic knitwear, and conceptual laughs from a gay man literally "in the closet" (teleporting to the nearest cupboard if anyone questions his sexuality) and Alex (Matt Stokoe) being asked to use his power-ending ability by shagging a tortoise Abby (Natasha O'Keeffe) believes is really a shape-shifter, but otherwise I wasn't mightily impressed this week.
I really enjoyed this third episode, perhaps more than I've enjoyed a Misfits since series 3. Viewers get different things out of this fantasy drama (some love its coarse humour, others the gonzo superpowers), but I respond best whenever it's simply doing the unexpected. And despite being three years past its peak, Misfits still has a unique style of delivery that's unlike anything else around.
Most series of Misfits include an episode focusing on one of the lead character's parents, and it was high time we met the two people responsible for a reprobate like Rudy (Joseph Gilgun). Implausibly, he's tricked them into believing he's made a success of himself, while actually being a delinquent on community service in their own neighbourhood. I didn't buy that for a second, although one of the few surprises was realising Rudy comes from a decent middle-class family. 
It's fair to say E4's Misfits has had mixed success following a slow hemorrhaging of its original cast between series 2 and 4. It coped surprisingly well in series 3 (replacing Robert Sheehan's foul-mouthed Irishman with Joe Gilgun's foul-mouthed northerner), but series 4 definitely suffered from the departure of too many characters. Howard Overman now admits series 4 was the show's weakest year to date, but pins some of the blame on matters beyond his control. I'm guessing that key amongst them was Lauren Socha leaving the show off-screen, forcing him to introduce so many newcomers that year there wasn't enough time for a decent underlying story. Misfits devolved into a string of episodes where its crudity and unruliness became too overbearing, and much of the imagination and faintly satirical insight into Britain's disaffected youth fell by the wayside.
The superhero drama Misfits is coming back for 8 hour-long episodes, but this fifth series will be its last.
E4's The Inbetweeners was partly about an unremarkable foursome trying to be considered cool by their peers, whereas E4's Youngers is all about cool kids trying to break out of their unremarkable surroundings. The first episode sets up a very simple concept; two wannabe London rappers get their GCSE exams results, but discover only one of them has done well enough to go to college. However, their friendship is so strong, they decide to stick together and make their dreams come true by getting a foot in the door of the urban music industry. While the drama wasn't particularly gripping and the vibe carried a preaching tone (you could imagine this being played in tough schools to promote the importance of exams), Youngers at least felt authentic and avoided being a depressing insight into teenage inner-city life. This was mostly due to the directing of Anthony Philipson and use of grim metropolitan locations, but I also liked how Ade Oyefeso and Calvin Demba came across on camera.
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This was an okay end to what's been a frustrating fourth series. Misfits had a lot to overcome this year, with the loss of three original characters and a fourth halfway through its run, and it didn't entirely succeed. I don't dislike Finn (Nathan McMullen) and Jess (Karla Crome), but they're less interesting than their predecessors Simon and Alisha. The storylines this year have also felt slapdash, and there was such a lack of super-powers that you could be forgiven for thinking this was a scuzzier version of Skins. The finale was mostly nonsense, but it helped that Rudy (Joe Gilgun) and Nadine's (Gillian Staker) romance somehow made a connection despite them having such little screen time. Why didn't they introduce Nadine at the beginning of series 4, to get us more invested in the whole idea of Rudy finding true love? The pacing of this series, with the exception of Alex's (Matt Stokoe) search for his penis, has been all over the place.
Not as ostentatious or as significant as some episodes from earlier this series, but I found myself enjoying episode 7 more than expected. Maybe it's because Finn (Nathan McMullen) and Jess (Karla Crome) have settled in and newcomer Abby (Natasha O'Keeffe) is such an instant hit; but it’s also because I enjoyed the various storylines this week, even if most were undeveloped and the hour lacked a focus.
I've missed the sense of insanity Misfits once had in abundance, even if it sometimes resulted in misfires like a love story involving a gorilla, so ultimately found episode 6 a very enjoyable watch. It could have been much more, but write Jon Brown didn't manage to elevate his potent idea into anything much beyond what it was: a giant killer rabbit on the loose at a party. This was a shame, but the group dynamic's getting stronger every week as the characters of Finn (Nathan McMullen) and Jess (Karl Crome) sink their hooks, and I'm glad we've been given a replacement for Curtis in pensive Abby (Natasha O'Keeffe)...
There's been a curious lack of super-powers this series. That isn't a reason to dislike Misfits, but there's an argument it starts to lose a unique ingredient without them. I sometimes have to stop and think about what Finn (Nathan McMullen) and Jess's (Karla Crome) powers are, and had completely forgotten what Curtis's ability was until last week's reminder. This fifth episode did feature some uses of power, but it was still an episode that didn't particularly require them. Thankfully, taken as a straightforward drama about life, death, fathers, family and secrets... it was one of the better examples.
Everything about this episode screamed that I should be loving it, but I just didn't. Big things happened, but they felt more inevitable than truly surprising. It was a good episode that was never anything less than entertaining, but the emotional wallop missed me. Maybe it's because Curtis (Nathan Jarrett-Stewart) is my least favourite character of the original line-up, or that his exit from the show felt long overdue. It was certainly a surprise to see it happen halfway through the series, but this being Misfits perhaps not something unthinkable. At least he was given a feisty send-off, unlike Nathan (webisode yarn) or Kelly (off-screen excuse), although the storyline here would have worked better if Lola (Lucy Gaskell) had been given time to settle in as a character on the show. As usual for UK shows, while shorter runs guarantee better pace they don't really help character development or audience attachment.
