What I’m currently watching is Being Human — the UK version, naturally. But I will save my thoughts on that for next week, because this week we need to talk about Misfits. Every so often, there comes a show that takes your expectations and just blows them to smithereens, and that’s what happened with Misfits and me. A friend of mine recommended it, and while the premise was not necessarily something that intrigued me — it sounded a bit cliche, to be honest — it was a British show, and I am always willing to give those at least a one-episode shot. Well, that’s all it took. One episode, I was hooked. Before the same night was over, I had binge-watched 3 more. And then again the next evening. And so on. I haven’t been this sleep-deprived, or so in love with a show, in a long time.
The best way I can describe the premise is as the bastard offspring of The Breakfast Club and Heroes, except with a wholly British sensibility. Which is to say, irreverent to the nth degree. The plot follows 5 young adults, each of them a misfit in his or her own way, who meet on their first day of community service, get caught in a bad storm, and acquire strange new powers. What they go on to do with those powers, over the next 3 seasons (there are 5 in total, but I haven’t watched the last two yet) will never be what you expect. What does it involve? Lots of swearing, sex, drugs, and gore. The show has a mordant sense of humour, but it’s also laugh out loud funny.
The storylines are bonkers (in the best way), so I won’t bother trying to explain them, but let’s talk about the characters for a minute. As in any good John Hughes movie, the “ASBO 5” start off as archetypes: the jock (Curtis); the hot girl (Alisha); the tough girl (Kelly); the weirdo (Simon); the joker (Nathan). But there are layers to each of them, and the show does an amazing job of revealing them slowly without turning maudlin or losing its sarcastic bite. The cast (main and supporting) is diverse and excellent across the board. Each of them left me convinced that they were their respective characters. Based on my own experiences as a painfully shy introvert prone to over-thinking, I identified the most with Simon. But I also hard-core loved Kelly and Nathan. The latter, in particular, walked a very, very fine line between being endearingly off-the-wall and being just, well, a total d*ck. I would imagine that’s a tough thing to play, so kudos to the actor. It helped that he had the best comedic lines, and the chops to deliver them convincingly. After Nathan’s departure at the end of season 2, I really felt his absence (even though I also enjoyed his “replacement”, Rudy) and it seemed like the show never quite fully recovered. I loved season 3 for other reasons, but the team dynamic was weaker.
So, yes, let’s talk about this now:
For Game of Thrones fans out there, Simon will look familiar. Listen, if you had told me last year that I would find myself cheering for Ramsay-effing-Snow to get the girl — any girl, EVER — I would have laughed and laughed and probably puked in my mouth a little. And yet, by season 3, there I was, ugly-crying my makeup off watching Simon Bellamy, romantic hero. I won’t say more about the Simon-Alisha plot except that it’s basically one of my fave fictional love stories ever, and it is an example of incredible character development. Even if you don’t come to the show with Ramsay baggage like I did, Simon starts off as an utterly unpromising character; the creepy weirdo that everyone overlooks or forgets, literally. You can almost see that, at the beginning, the writers toyed with the idea of sending him to a dark, Ramsay-esque side. Instead, they took him in the complete opposite direction, and Simon ends up being the closest thing to a real superhero that this show gets. He is also possibly the sweetest TV boyfriend ever written; if his relationship with Alisha does not warm the cockles of your heart … well, you have no heart. So, yes, friends; Misfits is the show that gave me a Iwan Rheon problem, and I have zero shame about it. As Nathan would say: Save me, Barry!
Have you watched Misfits? Join me in the comments and let’s geek out together.
P.S. I haven’t had time to read anything in weeks, but if you have book recc’s, please send them my way.
