Thursday 30 December 2010

Misfits: Episode Four

Nathan: 'Come on. Get in there, you beautiful bitch.'

Curtis saw an opportunity to turn his life around tonight. After an unexpected visit from Sam, he tried to use his powers to change the past, and predictably got more than he bargained for. Trying to alter time is a tricky business, and in the end it took him three attempts to get it right. Sadly, he killed virtually everyone in the process. Too many variables, see? Thankfully, Howard Overman resisted the urge to push the reset button. Well, almost. The misfits survived, but things are subtly changed in ways that Curtis should've, but didn't, foresee.

Curtis' main objective was to avoid being caught in possession of drugs. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! Instead of letting Sam pocket the drugs, Curtis flushed them immediately down the most disgusting toilet in existence. (It was like something out of Trainspotting.) Which should have been the end of it. Unfortunately, Curtis had no money to pay the dealer as he'd left his money in his hoodie, and his hoodie with Kelly. Which was good news for Kelly, but very bad news for Samantha, who ended up being stabbed by an irate drugs dealer. Strike one! Curtis hit the rewind button, again.

Second time around, things went a lot smoother. This time Curtis didn't flush the drugs, he instead hid them in the car park, and then retrieved them after the police raid. Which actually did work, but because he was never arrested, he never did community service, which means he wasn't there to save the misfits from Tony. (See episode one). Thus Simon, Alisha, Kelly and Gary all ended up dead. Strike two! Curtis hit rewind again.

This time Curtis flushed the drugs, but kept a single wrap on his person—thus sealing his own fate. Not the perfect solution, but it was enough to assuage his guilt over Sam going to prison. An unexpected side-effect is that Sam is now still his girlfriend, as she never went to prison and they never broke up; so Curtis now has two women on the go. How this works, I have no idea, and I don't think Curtis does, either. He looked totally baffled. How will Alisha react when she finds out? If next week's teaser's anything to go by, not very well.

It was fun to see the other misfits scattered throughout Curtis' botched rewinds. Simon was sadly as invisible as ever—his social gaffe in the club was just the latest in a seemingly never ending line of ego-battering mishaps. Thank goodness he didn't go through with molesting Kelly. I did however love the misdirect. After seeing Curtis help Kelly moments earlier, it seems obvious Simon would follow suit—only for his voyeuristic instincts to kick back in. And then, just as he was about to go too far, his better nature took over, and disaster was thankfully averted. Which I actually thought was a lovely character moment for Simon.

Honestly, Kelly looked in a bad way. It was nice to see her boyfriend again (whatever his name is), but you can't help but feel that she's better off without him. Stealing cars, jewellery and CDs is no way to exist. Alisha was the only one who seemed reasonably stable. I wonder if she remembers meeting Curtis at the club? It was a weird enough conversation to be memorable, that's for sure.

Tony and Sally also made an appearance. I felt a little sorry for Sally. Despite Tony having some serious anger management issues, she looked genuinely happy at his almost proposal. No wonder she refused to believe he could've just upped and left; it would've been completely out of character. Why would he just run away? And now Sally's found Tony's credit card in Simon's locker, her suspicions are all but confirmed. The misfits do know something about Tony's disappearance. What will Sally do? Go to the police? Or dish out some kind of crazy-ass vigilante justice?

It was odd seeing Dexter Fletcher and Michael Obiora on the same show. I've not seen them working together since Hotel Babylon, and Detective Pete is as far removed from Ben Trueman as you could possibly get. It's a shame they weren't in the same scene. Maybe next time.

Nathan behaved like an absolute arse tonight. He can't use drugs or drink as an excuse, either—he looked pitifully sober. Beverly tried to reach out to Nathan, he even tried to reason with him. (Like that was ever going to work.) He didn't want to phone the police, he just wanted paying for the stolen goods. Unfortunately, Nathan opted for arrest rather than accept help from his dad. I guess Nathan really is doing community service for eating Pick n' Mix. And stapling Bev's hand. And being a dick.

Other Thoughts:

—Sally didn't recognise the engagement ring in Kelly's locker because it was stolen before she got a chance to see it.

—Loved 'A Message To You Rudy' playing in the background at the end. The words couldn't have described Curtis' situation better. ('Stop ya messin' around.')

—Nathan is terrible at bowling. He's also bad at trying to escape from bowling alleys. You're supposed to run away from the lanes, not into them. Nice tip of the hat to The Big Lebowski, though.

—I liked that during his second rewind Curtis didn't even bother to speak to Nathan. A prick, indeed.

—Kelly puked on Curtis twice. Nice!

Quotes:

Nathan: 'Would you like me to grab you some toilet paper?'
Curtis 'I'm not taking a shit!'

Kelly: 'I need to go outside. I'm off my tits.'

Nathan: 'Hold my hand, Bev. Hold it!'

Gary: 'Kell? Do you want to marry me?'
Kelly: 'That is so fucking romantic!'

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