Lola – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Misfits: Series 4, Episode 4

“Don’t do this. This isn’t who you are.”

Some surprisingly early answers and a shock development in this week’s episode of Misfits, which turned out to be rather underwhelming given what it set out to achieve. The answers concerned mysterious ‘trainee probation worker’ Lola, a plot thread that I’d assumed was being set up to run rather longer than a couple of episodes. And the shock was the departure of the only remaining member of the original cast – a moment that should (IMHO) have been far more dramatic and emotionally affecting than it actually was.

My previous fevered speculation pertaining to the mysterious Lola turns out to have been both right and wrong. Turns out I was right that she was a false identity, but wrong in my assumption that she’d inherited Curtis’ old gender-swap power and was the alter ego of the tyrannical Greg. Actually I still think that might have been more interesting than what we got here. ‘Lola’ was actually a fictional character created by an aspiring actress, whose encounter with the storm gave her the ‘power’ to remain in character – permanently. Which was a bit of a problem, given that her character was a femme fatale who uses and manipulates men into killing each other, in revenge for previous misogynistic ill-treatment.

To give it some due, Jonathan van Tulleken’s direction pointed us at this in a fairly stylish way, presenting Lola in several scenes initially in monochrome and widescreen, recalling the films noir that presumably inspired her. And the fact that this (and the character herself) was actually something of a cliché was cleverly justified by the fact that she was a construct of a less than imaginative actress.

Given the opportunity to embody such a full-blooded archetype, the actual actress who played her, Lucy Gaskell, gave a broad but spirited performance a la Double Indemnity and other such classic thrillers. As her last male ‘victim’ caught up with her, she quickly established her MO of pretending to have been beaten up by an obsessed ex and setting her current beau onto him to ‘defend’ her.

Nothing wrong with that, really; though Howard Overman has deconstructed similar clichés rather more cleverly than this in the past. But the real point of the story was to give an exit to Curtis, and in that it felt messy, contrived, and dramatically rather unsatisfying for such an important occurrence.

So Curtis found himself manipulated into confronting Lola’s previous ex/victim Jake with a gun the lady had thoughtfully provided, leading inevitably to a struggle and a fatal shooting. Andrew Gower, recently memorable as vampire Cutler in Being Human, felt rather wasted here in the small (even if significant) part of Jake; he was as charismatic as ever, but got little to do before being accidentally offed by Curtis – and then not-so-accidentally brought back from the dead.

Yes, as remarked on last week, Curtis still has the resurrection power Seth gave him last year to bring back his deceased girlfriend. That didn’t end well, with an outbreak of ravenous Romero-style zombie cheerleaders having to be head-smashed by the gang before they spread their infection outside the Community Centre. So it seemed rather foolhardy that Curtis, desperate for answers about the now nowhere to be found Lola, chose to ask the only other person he could – her now-dead (at his hands) ‘ex’.

Well, the gang have been foolhardy before, Curtis as much as any, so that’s not out of character. And it was typical that their planned clubbing of the resurrected Jake when he started to turn ‘hungry’ went so messily wrong, and Curtis got himself bitten and therefore infected. Trouble was, the previous zombie episode had established that there was no cure for that. In the past, it would have been down to Curtis’ old time-rewinding power to change the events, but this time that power wasn’t handy. Leaving us with two possibilities – either Curtis was going to have to spend the rest of the series desperately concealing his invincibility and tendency to snack on small animals; or he’d have to die.

That the latter of these two options was the more likely became clear fairly quickly – I’m not sure whether it was the writing, or the general sense of instability in a show that’s lost all but one of its original cast. The progression had already been uncannily similar to that of Being Human – major character (or two, in this case) killed at the end of the previous series, with another disappearing for contrived reasons before the show returned. After George the werewolf came back only to die in the first episode, and Annie spent the whole series laying the groundwork for her departure, this felt so similar that I was only surprised Curtis had hung on so long.

Nathan Stewart-Jarrett has always given a respectable performance in the role, but in many ways Curtis has been pretty ill-served by the writers after the first series. There, he was given a backstory and issues to resolve; but they were resolved by episode 4 of that series, and from then on Curtis seemed to very much take a back seat to the more involved, emotional Simon/Alisha arc. He’s had a couple of interesting things to do recently, such as his gender-swap power giving him an insight into how the other sex lives, but mostly he’s been relegated to the sidelines making sarcastic remarks.

I’d hoped the Lola storyline might finally give him a purpose this year, but it turns out the purpose was just to write him out. I’ve no idea whether that was the decision of writer or actor, but his ultimate death, inevitable though it had been made, felt like a bit of a cheat for such a longstanding character. Having been shot by Lola’s latest dupe (with little effect in his zombie state), he gave up on helping Lola and gave in to the urge to chow down on her, then blow her brains out when she too revived as a zombie. That left him with only one thing to do – use the gun on himself to spare humanity from (another) zombie outbreak.

Fair enough, that’s actually rather heroic. But the circumstances – Curtis alone in an abandoned warehouse shooting himself in the head – felt a bit too bleak for this show. Especially with none of the other characters around to witness it – the best he could manage was a quick chat to a choked-up Rudy over cellphone. True, we haven’t yet got to know Finn or Jess enough for them to have any sort of bond with Curtis, so Rudy it had to be. But even then, exchanging last words over the phone lacked the kind of impact the scene perhaps should have had.

Still, at last there were a fair few laughs on the way to such a bleak ending. The lion’s share, as usual, came from Rudy, with a subplot about him having sex in the room he shares with Finn leading him to try and find somewhere new. ‘Somewhere new’ turned out to be an even seedier storeroom in the Community Centre, leading to an unfortunate slug infestation (“Can you help me shit out this slug?”). As ever, normality was restored by Rudy learning his lesson – in this case, don’t keep shagging people while your less than keen best mate is in the room with you.

For Finn does seem to be being shaped into a kind of ‘best mate’ scenario with Rudy, who’s (ineffectually) trying to help him get together with Jess. This week’s effort, with Finn ‘borrowing’ the imaginary disabled dog Rudy used a chat up technique, was amusing enough; but I have to say, I haven’t built up enough affection for either Finn or Jess yet to really care very much.

Even with a bleak ending in wait, Curtis too got some good comedy moments, most notably with Greg. Shaun Dooley continues to be hilarious/terrifying in the part, and you never know quite what’s real about him. This week, he initially asked Curtis whether he was on crack, making you wonder if he was some kind of racist, before (apparently) responding in a most unexpected way to Curtis’ desperate pretension of being attracted to him: “You’re a very attractive young man, but…” So is Greg gay, or is this yet more bizarre obfuscation? It remains to be seen, but he’s certainly the most interesting addition to the new cast.

Farewell, then to Curtis, finally given a strong plot just to write him out in a scene that should have been, and wasn’t, a tear-jerker. I’ve always felt this show to be rather like Being Human, another sleeper hit that began at the same time on another backwater digital channel. Perhaps Howard Overman’s of the same mind, casting both Andrew Gower and Lucy Gaskell from that show here. But while Being Human managed its difficult cast makeover with some aplomb, I have the feeling that Misfits is rather struggling with its ‘reboot’. I’ll carry on watching (as ever), but I’m beginning to wonder if the show is joining the ranks of those who carried on long after their stories had reached a natural end.

Misfits: Series 4, Episode 2

“What you have is a disease. And I’m gonna find the cure.”

A much better episode of Misfits this week, thanks to a greater focus on what the show does best – its characters. Yes, the whole “ordinary people with superpowers” premise is always interesting (though far from original), but what’s always set Misfits apart from shows like Heroes is its believable, funny, and not always likeable characters.

The main focus of this episode was on new boy Finn, and the reason behind our discovery last week that he’s keeping a girl bound and gagged in a locked room at his flat. I had wondered if this might be strung out over a few episodes to keep us guessing as to whether he was a psycho or there was some other reason, but Howard Overman chose to deal with it early – probably a good idea, if we want to establish whether we like a potentially contentious new character.

As it turned out, this was a ‘domestic’ take on the “standard Misfits plot™” of someone misusing their power. Sadie was actually Finn’s girlfriend, and the reason for the gag was fairly obvious as soon as we realised he was trying to “cure” her – her power was to talk him into being a better boyfriend.

Anyone who’s ever had a partner whose behaviour became irritating to the point of vexation will probably sympathise with her motives, but behind the sitcom-style premise was an interesting meditation on free will. Yes, under Sadie’s power, Finn had become considerate, generous, cleanly and willing to give cunnilingus whenever required (“some days it felt like I never saw the sun”). But none of it was real. He was being forced into it against his will, making him not the real Finn. So when Sadie took a holiday and her influence faded, he’d strapped her to the bed on her return until he could figure out a way to remove her power.

The gaff was blown when the now homeless Rudy “invited himself” to stay with Finn, and began to suspect that behind the mysterious locked door was – a talking dog. It was good to see Rudy’s power being used cleverly again, as “thoughtless Rudy” dragged the truth out of a gullible Finn at the Community Centre, while “sensitive Rudy”, unaware of the situation, ended up setting Sadie free.

With the secret out, it was Jess who best summed up the situation – and the dilemma. If Sadie had to supernaturally force Finn into being a considerate boyfriend, and the only way he could stop that was to keep her a gagged prisoner, their relationship probably wasn’t going to work out anyway. Nonetheless, back under Sadie’s influence, Finn insisted that the loss of his free will was a price worth paying to make his relationship work. But was he saying that out of his own free will or not?

The solution was fairly obvious, considering that Seth was still hanging around – but in the end it was Jess who talked him into relieving Sadie of her misused power. So finally, her power was removed, very much against her free will. Seen from behind the closed door of her bedroom, that was actually a little uncomfortable to watch, like a violation. But she’d been misusing her power, so this was the right thing to do. Wasn’t it?

Interesting meditations on free will aside, the script this week was laugh out loud funny far more frequently than the season opener, as well as setting up some interesting plot threads that will presumably be followed up later. The secondary plot involved the gang being dragooned by tyrannical new probation worker Greg into acting as models for a class of blind sculptors. The obvious similarity was to the classic, and indescribably creepy, video for Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ – and the script did eventually get round to referencing this, courtesy of the ever-charming Rudy; “in the words of the immortal Lionel Richie – hello”.

By far the funnier of the two plots, this set Rudy and Curtis at each other’s throats as they vied for the attention of a beautiful blonde blind girl. Irked at Curtis getting there first, Rudy suggested settling the disagreement “like gentlemen – a game of penis, scissors, twat”. It was just one of many classic Rudy moments this week. Finding himself homeless after refusing to pay his rent, he compared himself to canine kids’ show hero The Littlest Hobo: “Do you know what happened to the Littlest Hobo? He got raped!” Comparing the gang to The Waltons, he reminisced fondly, “I love The Waltons, man. It’s good, wholesome family entertainment. The cunts don’t make telly like that any more” – amusingly breaking the fourth wall from inside a show that is as far from “wholesome” as possible, and much the better for it.

Rudy got his chance with beautiful blind Ally after Curtis made the unpleasant discovery that she was an old-fashioned racist. Of course, the fact that she was able to tell he was black without seeing him immediately set off alarm bells, but the truth only came out after possibly the funniest sex scene I’ve ever seen. Assuming she couldn’t see him, Rudy donned a “condom” that was actually the cling film and rubber bands from her guide dog’s food bowl, then actually discovered some principles – “I am not leaving my penis in a racist vagina”.

At which point the disgusted Ally revealed that she could “see” after all – via her guide dog, which had gained telepathic powers during the storm. Astute viewers may remember this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an animal affected – there was the gorilla-turned-human that Kelly fell for last year. Nonetheless, it raised the interesting question of whether it was Ally or her dog that was racist – or both, perhaps. Still, even if Rudy was white, she made her displeasure with him very obvious with the end product of her sculpting:

It was a hugely funny episode with subtexts based around some interesting moral dilemmas. By wisely keeping the powers very much to the background (integral to the plot though they were), the script gave us some very funny and incisive character studies. Joe Gilgun’s Rudy continues to be the best thing in the show, a constant source of hysterically funny politically incorrect humour, but Curtis got some good righteous indignation at the racist Ally.

With the focus on Finn, we still got a bit more of a handle on Jess too, which was welcome after last week. She’s obviously the sensible, level-headed one of the group, prone to drily sarcastic quips mostly at Rudy’s expense – “you immediately reduce any woman to a hole your penis might potentially enter”. But she’s obviously a little insecure when it comes to the opposite sex, as seen in her awkward attempt to chat up hunky new barman Alex.

Alex may be a plot thread we’ll come back to later; Curtis revealed that plenty of girls had tried hitting on him, all to be rebuffed. It may be, as Curtis thinks, that he’s gay. However, in a show like Misfits, I suspect a more complicated reason.

The other mysterious new character to follow up on was statuesque new “trainee probation worker” Lola, who showed up unexpectedly to flirt with Curtis by the vending machines. Who is she, and what’s her angle? It’s early days, but I’m already wondering if somehow she has Curtis’ old gender-swapping power, and is actually the female alter ego of the fascistic, bullying Greg. Or perhaps she’s the “real” probation worker, and Greg is her alter ego. That could be interesting…

This was a much more assured script than last week, with plenty of chances to bond with our new characters. Nathan McMullen’s Finn, now living with Rudy in the Community Centre, is likeable enough but thus far a little underwhelming. Karla Crome’s Jess (perhaps by dint of having revealed little about herself as yet) is far more interesting. Of the old gang, Seth still seems like a bit of a spare part though – still hanging around to “collect Kelly’s things”, he’s yet to be much involved in the real action. All that may change though, and with my faith in the show somewhat restored by a better episode than last week, I’ll still be tuning in to find out.