Review: Misfits 4.5

Finn and Grace.

You know what? Maybe Rudy's the problem after all. See, Curtis is gone and that's the end of the original gang and boo hoo. But Finn actually carried it out this week, and it's his second hit after the intriguingly creepy second episode. And while Alex and Jess's storyline becomes ever more intriguing and creepy, Rudy's characterisation remains compeletely stationary as an annoying, sex-obsessed dinosaur. I'm still not confident in the new characters' abilities to actually carry the series, and I hope our team expands from three soon, but our new characters did a bloody good job for once.
      Having discovered last week that his so-called father was in fact an interloper, Finn's journey to find his birth-father took him to his real, dying father and his step-sister Grace, whose power allows her to sustain life without actually curing her father's disease. His father asks Finn to distract Grace to allow him to die in peace, and on their night out Finn takes the opportunity to spy on a suspicious Alex, who is seen talking to someone in a hidden place. Finn confronts Jess with his suspicions, and despite her doubts she passes them onto Alex. Finn stops Grace from prolonging her father's suffering, and they all live happily ever after - apart from Alex, who catches someone and makes a rather disturbing request.
     There was no monster-of-the-week this time, and much like the episodes focussing on Nathan's past, we got to see Finn's family history in a reall well-executed way. After being a bit off in the premier, the writers have really developed Finn's character, and he's almost a replacement for Simon in terms of character development. His storyline again focused rather strangely on a larger real-world dilemma - the second episode of the series had been about the overall gender politics of young relationships, wheras this episode was about the argument on Euthanasia and whether or not it's right to allow someone to die. Heavy stuff.
     The problem, perhaps, came with the story's crossing over with the other subplot regarding Alex. As a character I'm finding him pretty limited, with the strangely juvenile, Pramface-style gay debate shrouding a larger and slightly more distrubing secret. The episode's sting and its sheer wtf nature was lended to more by its odd vulgarity rather than any sense of surprise - I initially thought Alex was simply a hitman, which would have lended a darker tone to the rest of the series, but the result instead is something that not only am I unable to guess but am also perhaps unwilling to.

I don't think I want to know Alex's secret.

      The loss of Curtis and of the last remnants of the "old regime" may have hit Misfits a little harder than it can handle, but it still remains standing. Next week's episode looks to be a good lot more absurdist and disturbing, and while I'm all for experimentation I am worrying that the spirit of Misfits as a gritty deconstruction of the super-hero genre with great characterisations is being lost somewhat in a cavlecade of Inbetweeners-style vulgarity and distinct unsubtlty. Next week... I don't know what's gonna happen. And that's making more more worried than I really should be with this show.

Thanks.