Misfits, Season 2, Episode 5

The new season of Misfits has begun but our recaps are not yet up to date. Because of that, we will continue to run our recaps of the old series on Mondays until we catch up and we will be covering the new season on Wednesdays
 
In the community centre, Nathan walks in on Jessica – a charity worker in her underwear getting changed. Being Nathan, he does not handle the situation with anything close to class. Following which, the lights go out and Nathan is brutally murdered, his head slammed repeatedly against the sinks until he dies.

Y’know, there’s an advantage to Nathan being immortal – it means we can see him die many many many times. It’s like the Joffrey slap on a grander scale and with far more variety.

The gang arrives (Alisha walking in with Simon and trying to connect with him after the death of future Simon) to find a newly resurrected Nathan whining about being horribly murdered. They consider for a moment who could possibly want Nathan dead but are faced with a list that includes “everyone he ever met”. The conversation devolves, in classic Nathan fashion, into auto-fellatio and Kelly points out this is why people kill him.

The community centre is hosting a big charity fun run – which Jessica is organising. Nathan asks their probation worker about her (who is his usual encouraging, helpful self), throws in some transphobia (can we schedule another Nathan murder, please?) then runs to Curtis and Alisha – telling them he thinks Jessica was the one who murdered him (and isn’t that the weirdest sentence?).

Jessica is busy flirting with Simon who is engaging in stunned, monosyllabic lack of social skills – but she does seem disturbed, perhaps even surprised, to see Nathan watching her.

On the roof the gang try to tell Simon about Jessica murdering Nathan but Simon won’t believe it – even with the litany of weird things that happened to them. In the end he leaves, thinking they think there must be something wrong with a girl if she likes him (Nathan was, of course, not a big help there). Simon goes to see Jessica and asks her out to the bar – watched by a sad Alisha.

The community centre nearly empty, Nathan watches Jessica and Chris, someone else working on the run. They’re laughing and joking and Chris tries to hug her – and she pulls away. He pushes and she leaves, he calling her a “pricktease”. Nathan gets up to follow them, through the silent, deserted corridors, until Chris’s body falls on him, bleeding from a neck wound.

Nathan calls Alisha, who is sadly examining Future Simon’s old flat and tells her that Jessica has murdered someone else – and he’s staying dead (after a false start). Alisha tells him that she’s on a date with Simon and the both go to the pub, waiting outside, in case she tries to hurt him where they both admit that they’re there because they like Simon.

They watch Jessica and Simon leave the bar, she takes Simon aside and then kisses him. Then leaves, saying she’ll see him tomorrow. Then he finds Nathan and Alisha followed him – who tell him about the dead man at the community centre.

Kelly, while moving boxes, runs into a guy who thinks she’s beautiful (confirmed by her mind reading skills) on the run from the police – who she quickly misdirects for him to escape. Leaving the centre she runs into the man again who tells her he was running from the police because he was in a fight. He wants to have a beer with her as a thank you and she tells him no and threatens to slap him when he pushes. As she leaves he tells her she’s the first person who was kind to him and she melts – agreeing to one beer. His name is Bruno. They spend some time together, her talking about her probation and his funny face when she hears him think “shall I invite her back to mine?”  He wanders in indecisions so Kelly asks him if he has any beers at his place.

His place is a squat and, it turns out he doesn’t have any beers. She jokes with him in her abrasive style and he continues to fumble round while his thoughts reveal that he wants to kiss her – so she tells him to. Kelly certainly lets her power cut through the preliminaries. She tells him she’s not a slag and then they start kissing – and stripping – and start having sex.

Then we switch to Curtis and Nikki who have also just finished having sex – Nikki wondering about using his time stop power to rewind orgasms and keep having them.

Simon, Alisha and Nathan arrive back at the community centre – but the body isn’t there. Alisha suggests she moved the body – Nathan adds “who leaves a body around to be discovered, we never do and we’re not the most competent killers.” This casual reference to the bodies they’ve left behind is both disturbing and hilarious – and pretty much sums up Misfits.  Simon says that she was with him at the pub and refuses to stop seeing her.

The next day at the community centre, Simon and Jessica have more awkward conversation and she invites him and his friends to the charity’s fancy dress party that evening. The gang agrees to go, if nothing else to keep an eye on Simon and Jessica – and Nathan makes up an awful story about a made up girlfriend.

Kelly invites Bruno to the fancy dress party and they move into the storage unit for a quickie –it starts well, but he quickly gets too rough, she tells him to take it easy but he keeps going until she pushes him away – screaming at him to fuck off.

She goes and sits down, visibly shaken and upset. Nathan comes to talk to her but she asks him to leave her alone and he backs off. Meanwhile the police find Bruno’s squat – and his invitation to the fancy dress party.

Simon and Jessica meet in the changing room and they kiss again, much deeper than last time and with extra groping. She pulls back and says there’s something she has to tell him – then her dad comes in, she jumps back away from Simon as quickly as possible. He stares at the two of them, face like thunder and doesn’t speak when Jessica introduces him to Simon. He leaves with her in silence.

To the party where the gang arrives dressed as superheroes! Simon meets up with Jessica, Alisha calls her costume slutty. And Kelly runs into Bruno in a gorilla costume who apologises to her. Simon and Jessica kiss – watched by her father whose eyes become red and bloodshot. He does not look happy.

In the changing room he finds someone wearing a similar costume as Simon and stabs him saying “no-one touches my little girl,” but when he takes the mask off, he sees he has the wrong person. It doesn’t seem to bother him much. The real Simon and Jessica sneak off the dance floor, loosing Alisha, Curtis and Nathan who split up to find them. Alone, Simon and Jessica kiss again and Jessica, embarrassed, tells Simon she’s a virgin – Simon says he is as well.

Curtis ends up on the roof and Nikki, at home, starts to text him, saying she wants to see him. But thinking of him activates her power, teleporting her to the roof with him. She unbuttons her dress (it’s dry clean only). They strip off and have sex on the old sofa – when Alisha walks in on them and then quickly out again.

She leaves and finds the body of the guy dressed like Simon – and realises Simon is in danger. She hurries to try and find him. we cut to Simon an Jessica – just getting dressed again with big smiles on their faces (we can assume the virgin thing no longer applies) and in walks daddy. Worst, possible moment even if daddy isn’t a murderer. He raises his knife – and Alisha clocks him on the back of the head, knocking him out. Leaving her in a room with half naked people who just had sex, again.

Back in the dance, Bruno is trying to explain himself to Kelly, how he doesn’t know how to be around women and how his instincts take over. Something happened to him during the storm – yes, the power giving storm. Before he can say anything else, the police arrive. Kelly wonders what he did to the guy in the fight but he runs, pulling her with him, chased by the police. He runs outside then gets Kelly to climb on his back and continues to climb up the side of the building. In his gorilla costume.

He reaches the roof, but the police detective has run up the stairs inside. He tries to cuff Bruno, but he throws the detective aside. Kelly tries to hold him back but he knocks her aside and hits the police man again. She screams at him to stop, but he lifts an fixture from the roof and raises it above his head to crush the detective – until another policeman shoots him. Kelly runs to him and takes off his mask – and finds a gorilla head underneath. She hears him think “do you understand now? I just wanted to be human.” He then dies and Kelly screams for him and at the police.

As the sun rises, Nathan comforts Kelly – who says he was one of the few people who meant what he said, saying nice things about her that he really meant. He fumbles to comfort her as the others arrive. Curtis tries to explain Nikki to Alisha but she says it’s fine and Simon gets to tell everyone that it’s Jessica’s dad who was the killer and he’s been arrested. Oh and that she’s not a virgin any more. Of course Nathan is classy about it.

I like to see Alisha and Simon’s relationship build, definitely the 2 most compelling characters to me with the most compelling story.

This episode did something that speculative fiction does a lot that I loathe – present inexcusable behaviour and then explain it with the woo-woo. The father deciding no-one can touch his daughter with all the ownership and infantilism that comes with that was bad, but at least it was presented as bad. But Bruno losing himself to his “instincts” and then being rough with Kelly even when she tells him to stop? No... that’s an explained by the woo-woo I can’t swallow.