Review: Misfits 2.5

This episode's promotional image.

Nathan dies. Again.

Ok. I'll admit that most writers have thier off days, and this is Howard Overman's. A Misfits equivalent to "Goblin's Gold," perhaps. The truth is, this lumbering hour of character drama only really worked on a higher level, and lost it in the detail. It was slow, redundant and left a lot to be desired regarding not only its content but its placement in the series. Regardless of that, the story was character-driven if not anything else, an area in which Overman always exells.
      The main plot this week surrounded Jessica, a charity worker who Nathan suspects brutally killed him after he watched her getting changed. She gets friendly with Simon an they start a relationship, to Nathan and Alisha's anguish, for various reasons. This plot provides a lot of well-deserved tension throughout the story, but it quickly becomes predictable when one considers the cameo made by her protective father, who turns out to be a storm-psycho bent on killing any man who gets close. It turns out she's acting suspicious because she's a virgin and felt embarrissed. Then, as mentioned in Episode 3, Simon does the deed before being quite anti-climactically saved by a barrel-wielding Alisha.

I have nothing to say.

     Elsewhere, and the main subplot showed Kelly start a chance relationship with strange, near-autistic Bruno (mostly sexual, of course.) He has singular thoughts and is running from the police after a fight. He attends the fancy-dress party (where the main plot fizzles out as well) and in the episode's climax climbs up a building with Kelly and is shot. It turns out that Bruno was a gorilla in Bristol Zoo who got made into a human by the storm.
     Excuse me for a second, but WHAT?! The idea itself is not only inane, it's also something that Misfits has covered before, most notably in the second episode of the first series. Person becomes young/human, has a relationship with one of the misfits and is then revealed in their true form before dieing. The worst thing, however, was the shitty, shoddy animatronics that were less convincing than a face drawn on a piece of wood. Amusingly, many episodes from the first series were referenced here, in Misfits' first instance of minor fanwank.

The fulfillment of 2.2's flashforward.

     However, there was some good among this mess. The acting, as usual, was superb; Jessica's nervous mannerisms felt natural and helped to stir some plot confusion, and Bruno had... erm... the mannerisms of a Gorilla? Moving on, the direction was excellent as always and so were the exquisite character moments, of which everyone in the group were afforded (apart from Curtis, who as usual was off shagging someone.) This was especially noticeable at the beginning between Alisha and Simon. You know, before the fucking GORILLA. Yes, I'm still hung up on that.
     To sum up, 2.5 really lacked any of the drive pushing previous episodes, and sauntered through its (mostly) predictable plot carrying the burden of unresolved tension. The subplot was frankly ridiculous and while I'm all for developing Kelly as a character, this did absolute fuck all and made as much sense. The episode had all the hallmarks of Misfits - strong characterisation, great direction and a firm sense of gritty urban humour, but it had none of the usual pace and tight plotting that make Misfits so watchable.

Thanks.