Review: Misfits 1.6

"If you could just see yourselves! It breaks my heart. You’re wearing cardigans! We had it all. We fucked up bigger and better than any generation that came before us. We were so beautiful! We’re screw-ups. I’m a screw-up, and I plan to be a screw-up until my late 20s, maybe even my early 30s. And I will shag my own mother before I let her… or anyone else take that away from me!” The tailend of Nathan's rooftop speech.

Nathan, in his finale suit, goes it alone.

Having used its five weeks to develop its characters without doing anything with them, there is very little plot left to form a finale. So, in a strange turn,1.6 gives us one of our first independant storylines that manages to be both conclusive and downright epic. A brilliant and appropriate twist on the Zombie genre, Series One's finale celebrates all of the series' attitudes while laying down plenty of leeway for Series Two.
     Given the power to control people through words, the all-sensible Christian Rachel has begun "recruiting" teenagers into a new society, known as Virtue. At first Virtue, with their pale and sensible style, simply bemuse the Misfits, but after Alisha and Curtis are turned, the others decide to do something. They try and rescue to two converts but Kelly is turned, Simon locks himself away with the frozen corpse of Sally and Nathan is cornered by the zombie-like converts. After being saved by the first appearance of SuperHoodie, Nathan apologises (to no avail) to a converted Kelly and then comes up with a plan. Dressing in a grey suit (the same one as in the Series Two finale, funnily enough) he sneaks into the Virtue-controlled community centre and takes Rachel hostage, culminating in an extraordinary speech (seen above). However, Rachel makes to escape, and in the struggle both she and Nathan fall to their deaths. In a shocking cliffhanger (as far as we were concerned at the time) it turns out that Nathan is in fact immortal and alive inside his coffin.
     This episode, while being a little more plot heavy than the rest of the series, still managed to fit in a lot of character development across the board, with the unfortunate exception of Curtis (who, as we'll see, has begun his evolution into walking plot device). Nathan and Kelly shared some touching moments and she was visibily distraught after his death, Simon giving her a compliation of all the videos he had recorded with Nathan on them. Simon, still mentally recovering from his accidental murder last week, became a little more secure and authoriative, gaining some well-deserved respect amongst the group. Alisha's transformation allowed us to take a look at her insecurities, with her "reasons" for having changed feeling a lot more sincere than anyone else's.

Rachel "recruits" using her persuasive power.

    The Virtue organisation itself is a fascinating concept philosophically. Who could complain about a system that makes people into productive members of society? The same system, unfortunately, that robs people of not only their free-will, but their ability to make up their own minds of subjective topics. It was a little disappointing that the plotline of this first series has been dumped so quickly, but the fact that the show instead gave us an intelligent social commentary is an idiosyncratic sign of its brilliance.
     A slightly irrelevant finale, Misfits 1.6 ties up Series One but leaves a lot open for the show's return, tempting us like a fish intently following a small grub on a fishing line. Overman delivers exceptional character development and dialogue in an extremely watchable hour of drama. 1.6 also ties up my Misfits reviews until the show's return in Autumn, so I'll see you then!

Thanks.