Misfits/Headscratchers

• Season 1. Somewhere in episode 5 they mention they it was just two weeks after the storm. Then how come Kelly has grew her hair back so fast (not in two weeks' time but even faster, since she went bald just two episodes ago)? Yeah, there was some serious meddling in the timestream in between, and at first i thought that the whole bald incident simply dissolved and didn't happenned in this variant, but no — Nathan refers to it in season two.
  • If I remember correctly, the power to make people bald only lasted for a day, and that the hair would grow back overnight. I'm sure the girl who had the power mentioned how her ex-boyfriend would come to her place time and time again, so when his hair grew back, he just went bald again on seeing her.
  • Kelly's twitter account makes mention of her hair growing back over the course of a couple of days.
• Season 1 finale. All main heroes except Nathan and Simon turn 'good' for a few days. Shouldn't they had go to police and admit in assisting in murder?
  • Creepy hivemind cultist purism isn't the same as having a conscience, and having a conscience doesn't always mean deferring to authority - in a way that's kind of the point of the episode.
  • They weren't 'good'. They were "better". They were "well behaved". And Virtue Girl's focus was on sex and drugs and vandalism. So there was no compulsion on them to do anything other than not behave sluttily.
• Why couldn't Alisha have just worn Gloves? It wouldn't have canceled out her powers completely,but it would have helped a lot.
  • And maybe wearing a bit less revealing clothing would've helped.
  • What does clothing have to do with it? It only happened when she gripped someone's arm. Take your judgement elsewhere...
  • Might've helped. If somebody bumped into her and her face touched them — power activates. Besides, comfort also is an issue, and clearly they were in warmish time of year, because Curtis usually kept his suit only half on, and Nathan wore his open to the navel most of the time.
    • How often do you have people bumping into your face? At any rate, some light cotton gloves wouldn't make it much more uncomfortable, especially considering the trouble she'd save.
      • No, she definitely should've worn long sleeves at least, preferably with gloves. People lightly touch each others' arms to gain their attention or take each other's elbows to halt them all the time. Even bumping skin against people in crowds is a common occurence, especially given how much she likes nightclubs. In one episode a policeman took her forearm to arrest her. Her face was probably safe but her arms and hands should've been covered as often as possible.
  • What happens when Alisha uses her power on someone who doesn't know about sex like a baby or a kid
• Severe Fridge Logic: In season 2 episode 6 the gang becomes famous due to their powers. This leads to Alisha having a conversation with Nathan about their fame and how Simon was right about it not being the right path. All while Simon was in the room, invisible. She quotes something Future Simon said as if Present Simon said it, then leaves. Simon, confused, follows her to Future Simon's flat where he finds out from Alisha that Superhoodie was him from the future. By the end of the episode, the whole cast but Curtis dies, leading Curtis to hit the Reset Button to before any of the fame occurred. So now nobody knows about their powers meaning that their fame, the conversation Simon eavesdropped on between Alisha and Nathan, and Simon finding out about Superhoodie never happened. And yet the next episode Simon and Alisha are a couple and Simon is training and comparing himself to Superhoodie. What? Did I miss something here?
  • Well, there is a 3 month gap between the two episodes. We can assume that Alisha visited the Hoodycave and was followed by Simon, much in the same way as episode 6.
  • It's still confusing - this troper did assume that they'd talked about it in the mean time, but still had a couple of issues:
    • Future!Simon told Alisha to never ever tell Simon who he was, and she kept to this until he caught her in the 'hoodcave' and demanded an explanation. Her telling him would thus require special circumstances, which would seem to require more explanation.
    • Simon and Alisha's relationship pretty much developed offscreen! C'mon, they were nowhere near at that stage in 2x06.
    • Future!Simon had footage of interviews like those in the Asbo Five timeline... despite the fact that that no longer happened. Alisha was still wearing her community service jumpsuit in the footage, so something weird is going on there.
      • That's possibly explained by Future!Simon possessing the ability of immunity to other people's powers. So maybe when Curtis changes the past Future!Simon interacts strangely with it, being from a different timeline, and thus can bring objects back with him?
    • The 'previously' clips for 2x07 seemed to treat parts of 2x06 as if they had actually happened, despite Curtis having reversed them.
    • Wouldn't Simon just have followed Alsiha back to the Hoodie Lair?
  • And...Er...What happened to the mouse? Assuming they killed Monsieur Grand Fromage (and much as I abhor killing, I could look the other way on that one), what happened to the girl who was going to heal the world? Presumably, that wasn't solely because the milk freak was famous. In fact, the 2x6 reset button left so many glaring holes I'm starting to think (or at least hope) that they're building something out of it.
    • Since the milk guy never came out about his powers, neither did she. Simple as that. He was the first one to show off his powers to the media, because of how mediocre his life was otherwise, it's possible that no-one else has had the guts to. As for the healing girl, she's probably still using her powers on the sly.
  • As the Curtis-having-two-girlfriends incident in season 1 showed Curtis's powers seams to try to keep the new timeline as close as possible to the original timeline except when dealing with tings directly related to the change Curtis made. The Hoodie Lair reveal wasn't really related to the milk guy and thus probably still happened.
• What. Just. What. Oh. My. God. Do these guys have two brain cells between them? They. Sold. Their. Freaking. Powers. For. 20. Grand. My. God. A chimpanzee would be smarter than that. No. Wait. I'm sorry, I grievously insulted chimpanzees, they're intelligent animals. A tapeworm would have more brains than that. Damn wait, once again, I insulted a creature that doesn't deserve it. An amoeba... Yeah, we might be getting there. Curtis can freaking travel backwards in time. JUST MEMORIZE LOTTERY NUMBERS EVERYDAY. That takes all of five minutes and about two brain cells to figure out. Yes, I know he doesn't control it. But, sooner or later he's going to do something he regrets and go back a day or two. He can just buy a lottery ticket then and guess what? That's millions of reasons to keep your powers Curtis. Judging by the frequency of his power use during the series, he wouldn't have to wait more than a couple of weeks for that to happen.
  Or, hey Kelly, say hello to POKER. If you can read the minds of your opponents you're going to be the best poker player ever, easily. The others, admittedly, have more trouble with earning money without turning to crime. If they turned to crime, Simon would be rolling in cash, as demonstrated in one episode.
  This easily ranks in the Top Five of most retarded idiot balls EVER in the history of TV/movies. Just. Seriously. WTF.
  I can understand Alisha giving up her power because it sucks. Maybe, just maybe, Nikki because she has little control over it. But the others? They have no excuse whatsoever.
  • Agreed, especially with Curtis. Curtis' powers have been nothing but good to him. Sure, he can't control his powers, but even in that state it was useful! From the way they talked, it sounded like their powers were the cause of all their problems, except it wasn't. What they failed to realize, was that the cause of all their problems was everyone else's powers. Alisha and Simon, at the least, can be excused. Simon can be excuse because Alisha told him that Future Simon said that they were supposed to sell their powers. Alisha's powers sucked and it's (somewhat) understanding why she'd convince everyone else to sell their powers. Her reasoning probably went along the lines that Simon might not go back in time and die if they all stayed out of the super powers business.
    • Ayup. I can totally understand Alisha and Simon and maybe Nikki due to her lack of control.
      And yes, Curtis is especially stupid in that regard. His entire power is based on being able to reverse decisions he regrets. What, did he think that he would never ever do something he regrets in the future? Is he really that stupid? And hey, I just realized as well. Nathan can see dead people. If he had two brain cells, he could find out what makes it possible for him to see dead people and then? Guess what? He can become the most successful medium ever. People already pay unimaginable sums of money to fake mediums! He's an actual, real one! He could be rolling around in cash if he learned to control the power, but noooo... Being stupid is great!
      So, in conclusion - What were they thinking? I realize that on the meta level this was supposed to be the episode that justified them getting different powers... But, couldn't they have done so in a more intelligent fashion? Why did the writers present the characters as utterly idiotic? Sure, they never were geniuses before but their decisions in Christmas special were just so bafflingly stupid.
      • I was under the impression that Nathan can only see dead people if he saw them die. Wouldn't make him a very lucrative medium!
  • I think you're giving the characters too much credit. I agree that Alisha, Simon (by way of Alisha's lie), and Nikki all had a decent reason to give up their powers, but the other three selling them is justified, too. Hearing what people think of her does nothing for Kelly's self-esteem (although I do think that should have been developed more). Nathan's always holding the Idiot Ball, so a poorly-thought-out decision like that, especially when he wanted to impress Marnie, was perfectly in-character. And Curtis is the most 'normal' of our Misfits, and it seems like that's all he wants to be. Maybe he really did believe that if they got rid of their powers they'd stop getting caught up in the messes caused by other people's, and even if they did, they'd be nothing but innocent bystanders. Also, it's implied that those three months after getting out of community service were pretty normal, maybe he wasn't getting much use out of it and would rather just not worry about it anymore?
  • The other problem is that this is back to the original Aesop of the show itself: The Misfits ended up in community service because they couldn't or wouldn't think past their immediate needs at the moment. And that appears to be the case in the Christmas episode as well. They all regret all the killing. They all regret the problems they feel their powers have caused. ( being buried alive and dying repeatedly, seeing the dead ... Nikki not having any control over the teleportation even though it seems to always take her to Curtis when she wants him ... Alisha losing Superhoodie ... Simon and Sally, etc) So they think of what would make them happy based on their past and their present without stopping to think through what the future might hold.
• In the episode with the GTA guy, what happened to all the money they stole to pay his ransom? It would've really come in handy for the Christmas Special
  • Maybe they gave it back? That sounds like something Simon would do.
  • Or the GTA guy might have taken it with him when he left to brake into that prison.
• Nathan's brain death. Couldn't Simon snap his neck and thus revive him to normal?
  • Nathan wasn't brain dead, his brain was encased in cheese so no electrical signals could get from it to the rest of the body. Snapping his neck would just heal his neck...though if they ripped out his brain, that might work - but nobody really knew what happened to him, so they might not even be able to figure out to do that.
    • What about an operation to remove the cheese? It was public knowledge that he was able to heal, so that shouldn't have been a problem.
      • Trying to remove the melted cheese from Nathan's brain would be like trying to remove the melted cheese from a hamburger.
        • Just scrape off the hamburger that still has cheese, it's just going to grow back anyway.
• The power dealer. I don't understand how this makes sense. He has the ability to take people's powers, sure, and give them to others, okay. That part makes sense. But all someone would need to do is get one particular power - like invisibility - and use it to steal as much money as they want to buy more powers. Why aren't more people doing this? We saw Simon steal money for the GTA guy, it was laughably easy. I don't see Simon doing this sort of thing, but as we saw with Jesus, it's not especially hard for someone to do and it doesn't make sense to me that more people AREN'T doing it. This show isn't exactly about showcasing the inner good in people, after all. Why aren't there loads of self-made supervillains running around?(Though I guess it could be argued that this is the future plot of the show..?)
  • The Jesus impersonator was already an example of someone doing this and with the power dealer still being around, there'll probably be more self-made supervillains running around in season 3. However, it's perfectly understandable why Simon doesn't do this sort of thing: He wants to be a superhero. Well... This is technically the case with the 2nd season finale. They took 'Jesus' money and went back to the power dealer.
  • ^ This, plus it seemed likely the market was just getting started. Also, as "everyone has a power!" as this show seems, they may not be as plentiful as you'd think, especially specific really useful powers like invisibility.
• Speaking of the Season 2 finale, it's being treated as a big cliffhanger in regards to what new powers everyone's gonna pick, except the characters (and the writers) seem to forget that they still, oh, I don't know, wanna stop Nikki from being shot to death? Once time is rewinded, everyone would go back to their original power anyway. Actually, it would also mean Jesus would still be alive, and the more I think of it the more it seems like they just plan to forget about Nikki, which makes. No. Sense.
  • ...it makes sense because the power dealer said that he already sold Curtis' power to some Jewish dude who wanted to go back in time and kill Hitler. The reset button was smashed - in an incredibly lame way - but smashed nonetheless
• Nathan isn't going to be in season 3. His departure and the arrival of his replacement character (called Rudy) will be shown in videos on the E4 website. After the good news we got of there being 8 episodes for season 3 alot of people will stop watching the show because he's not in it. Also, those that haven't read that news or go on the site will be confused about who the new guy is and why he's there. This happening to any of the main characters would be a bad case of All There in the Manual (closest trope I can think of for the changeover in characters) but it's especially bad for the one character who is the main reason a lot of the audience watch the show, they'll be quick to see the new guy as a replacement scrappy no matter what happens.
  • I'm guessing the Put on a Bus incident will be at least conversed at the beginning of the new season.
  • If this Rudy guy is a completely new character who's never met the main characters before, it'll be a pretty big jump to explain all the weird shit that happened to them, including one of the group returning from the future to save them all at various points.
• The detective known only as 'Pete'. Let's take a look at the facts here - two probation workers and two young offenders who knew the five have vanished. Not to mention, one of them is a friend of yours who mentioned how worried she was, that she knew her boyfriend wouldn't have just skipped town. Not to mention, you arrested one of these kids yourself, so if there is a 'firing line' you're bound to be next. And what does the detective do? He makes some light enquiries, keeps talking about a 'bad feeling' and threatens to investigate further. And...he doesn't. He never even got the warrant that he promised to search the community centre. Interviews with the five were, this troper remembers, informal. Surely with this much evidence, his first action would have been to haul Nathan and the others in and interrogate them one at a time, especially after Ollie's death? He doesn't even arrest "Simon" after the events of 2.01. I'm pretty sure abusing a police officer at least affords you a night in the cells.
  • True. Should've been "filing a false report" — or is there not such a thing in England?

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• Another Headscratcher about Super Hoodie. Alisha knows his true identity, and given the weirdness of the situation, she must think about it a lot, especially if she is with the other misfits. How come Kelly never found out?
  • Kelly can't hear every thought from every person-in fact most of what she heard was about her, at least indirectly. She's also surrounded by 3 people other than Alisha, and Alisha is only going to be having the passing thought through out the day-Kelly would be hearing things out of context and therefore not know that the Simon Alisha was thinking about was Superhoodie. Coupled with the fact that Alisha only had to keep Simon out of her thoughts for a few weeks....it's plausible.
• Considering Simon dresses like a member of Joy Division, who weren't even in style for the time, how does he managed to be ignored so much? People notice unusual dress styles.
  • Simon's dress style was "all dark colors" and "denim" and "really neatly buttoned up". He had the overly tidy haircut. That's fashion speak for "hopeless geek, beneath the notice of cool people."
  • It's true that Simon's style isn't exactly in fashion, but neither is it outlandish enough for people to notice much. Plus, it's likely that his "invisibility complex" was established through being a social outcast at school, where he probably didn't dress like a member of Joy Division. And in the months or years between leaving school and starting community service, he probably never went anywhere to get noticed - it's well established that he had no friends and zero confidence, and spent all his time online in his room.
  • I always figured it was a plot device to hide his hot bod, before we're meant to know he has a hot bod. He spends a lot more time shirtless or in vests now.
• How did Lucy know that Kelly could read minds?
  • Presumably, she did some sort of espionage as a mouse or similar creature before she started imitating them. She happened to know quite a few of the characteristics of each of them, so it's not unreasonable.
  • It was mentioned in her presence. When Kelly overhears Simon thinking about "Alisha" giving him a blowjob, Lucy was there, disguised as Nathan. But yes, it's also quite probable that she'd been watching them at other times too.
• The end of episode 4 of series 3 is a bit unclear. Is Friedrich now powerless, or in this ever so slightly different timeline has he decided not to go back in time, or will he now go back in time and be stabbed to death by Hitler?
  • He was already stabbed so he was probably dying. And he was back in the 40s and probably did not have the energy. If he did, he would have used it again during the episode.
  • At the end of the episode Friedrich walks away from the cenotaph with his hat, instead of leaving his hat and time travelling as soon as he stood up. So presumably in this timeline he won't go back in time.
• Why were Alisha and Curtis, as non-whites, treated equally (or even in existence) in a Nazi-controlled Britain?
  • They weren't. It's subtle, but its there. Now, whether Alicia should exist at all in a world where there is so much more racism is another question...
    • Even under Apartheid (a sufficiently close analogue) mixed race relationships still occurred. There's also ... darker reasons.
  • Alisha mentions that she was going to go to prison for drink-driving, instead of receiving community service, which clearly still exists as Kelly had it. So either drink-driving laws are harsher in Nazi Britain, or people from minorities are discriminated against in the justice system.
  • Shaun also acted more harshly to Curtis too, suspiciously demanding what he was doing in his own bar.
  • Whites clearly do have a better deal in Nazi Britain as well. All of the Nazi's mooks and officers were white.
• So, shouldn't the Kelly that ended up back in the show have the memories of the Nazi timeline, and not the real one?
  • It's possible that Nazi timeline Kelly merged with original timeline Kelly as soon as she went back into the present. Maybe having memories of both timelines came with the power, but Curtis wasn't able to take advantage of that when he first had it due to his lack of control of those powers.
    • But someone using the power for the first time was?
    • Fridge Brilliance moment: When Curtis got the power, all he wanted was to correct his own mistakes, so that's exactly what he got. He can only travel back to places he'd been already. The Jewish guy felt bad because he did nothing about the Holocaust, so the power allows him to change what he couldn't before. And when Kelly got it, she wanted to set things back the way they were, so she gained the knowledge of both timelines so she could know the differences.
      • The Jewish guy was alive and well during the Holocaust, and would probably have been 10 times better off if he had used his power the way Curtis did, his motivation was the same as well, he regretted his mistake of not doing anything. As to Kelly, that makes even less sense, Curtis never had knowledge of the timeline changes he made, and the Jewish guy clearly didn't either, it's like saying someone who ended up with Simon's power would be able to walk through walls if they wanted to.
      • The Jewish guy was a child hiding out with a German family during the Holocaust. He literally couldn't have done anything to stop it. So he wanted to be able to change things that he couldn't before. That's why the power worked that way for him. Curtis is The Atoner, who wished that he knew then what he knew now, so he could have made different decisions. And that's exactly what his power did. And Since Kelly was told of an alternate timeline, she had the intention to be a part of that timeline, so she got the knowledge of what her alternate self had done in the alternate timeline. Also, comparing Simon's power to this is like apples and oranges. There are so many different interpretations of Time Travel that different people can Time Travel in different ways. Also, by technicality, it depends on whether Simon's power was actual invisibility or just being Ignored and Weirdness Censored out by people (Note that when his power got reversed, everyone became totally and unnaturally interested in him, or when he opened and closed a door and the probation worker thought nothing of it). Someone would be able to walk through walls by making the wall "ignore" him.
    • It's possible that Seth's ability has some sort of filtering effect, or that the same power affects different people differently. The teleportation power was alternately controllable and uncontrollable depending on the carrier.
• Body switching and clumsiness YMMV, but I've always wondered why when a power is involved in 'using' another person's body, they aren't really clumsy. I mean think about it, with Kelly and Jen for instance, Kelly has a much different body shape to Jen, who has also been in a coma. Wouldn't your sense of balance and body position in space be completely distorted? Your brain has been used to your body for many years, even growth spurts in puberty are known to cause clumsiness. I know it's not very dramatic to show but you'd think the body swappers would bump into things occasionally.
  • Close your eyes and touch your nose with your finger. Your body is aware of its own position in space, its called proprioception, and is about as natural as sight or any of the other sense. Some slight clumsiness would be expected, but it would not take long to get used to.
    • It's also possible that only the memories and personality are affected. If the new user has the old user's muscle memory, adaptation should be extremely easy.
• So as suspected, the power Seth was looking for was to bring his ex-girlfiend back to life. Now if only he had access to a time travel power... He even gives the power to Curtis, how did he not think of it? It made sense the way the power was originally depicted, wanting to reverse a decision so it would have been difficult to find someone who could go back to the right time, but the old Jewish man and Kelly both show that the power can be directed pretty accurately.
  • It's entirely possible that back inside Curtis, the power would have worked as it did before.
  • He can't use the power himself, and it's been shown that using it results in an alternative timeline, with the only person aware of both timelines being the user. So even if he somehow found a person willing to help him by going back in time and saving Shannon from overdosing (not a simple task in itself), the version of him that we see in the show probably wouldn't be affected by it and wouldn't have any way to find out if his plan worked.
    • Isn't that what he wanted? To never have let her die?
• Curtis's baby: just how inbred would it have been? Do his chromosomes change completely when he switches, meaning everything would have been okay? Would it have had the same risk of deformities as brother/sister inbreeding? Or would the dangers have been even higher? Essentially, how much do you think he biologically changes when his man parts go away?
  • It really depends. If he changes but his DNA effectively stays the same, it'd be more of a clone (sorta) than anything else - there would literally be no randomness involved as with a normal birth. If his DNA does change, it depends on how much Melissa is a new person.
    • Assuming identical genetics, it wouldn't be a clone, it would be the most inbred baby possible. The risk would be twice that of a sibling incest (25% per lethal recessive instead of 12.5%). He has at least one lethal recessive — his Y chromosome (not a problem in normal humans since normal possessors of Y chromosomes can't reproduce with each other). Of course, since it's a sex swap, it's possible that this chromosome was switched (possibly eliminated and his X duplicated), instead raising the risk for lethal recessives on the X chromosome to 50%. But he could only carry lethal recessives on the X chromosome that there are Y loci for as well (or he'd express the recessives, being XY), so this isn't as big a risk as it sounds.
• Another Curtis's baby one: what was happening to the zygote when he switched to being a man at first? Was it just hanging out in his liver or something?
  • If it was, it would still be there now. Misfits doesn't seem to concern itself with such things.
  • Absorbed into the body perhaps.
• Bit of an awkward and inconsequential one really, but given we've been shown (the Gorilla in Series Two) that animals can also use powers - do we think it was possible that Seth's Iguana (who was given the Time Travel power for storage back at the end of the Nazi episode) could have "used" said time travel power when he was getting eaten by zombie girlfriend? (I mean, maybe he did, but that's a timeline we'll never see as it's not "ours.")
  • One explanation: iguanas are simple minded, smart enough to STORE the power but not smart enough to use it. Bruno (the gorilla) was able to use the power because gorillas are smarter than iguanas.
    • I get that to some extent, but it's not as if Curtis 'knew' how to use the power either - it just seemingly kicked in when he was faced with extreme regret/danger.
      • It's not really a question of being smart, it's more about having higher-evolved emotions.
      • It kicked in when he had regret. The iguana may not have felt regret, been able to distinguish what caused it, or been able to act fast enough.
• Question: The "Zombies" are essentially living human beings who occasionally have the desire to eat flesh and drink blood. What's stopping them from feeding on each other?
  • Not so much explained, but handwaved during the scene with Seth and his girlfriend hiding in his recently zombified neighbours' apartment - we hear the ominous heartbeat sound from the two zombies POV when they look at Seth, but not each other. So it could be assumed their 'zombie-hunger' whatever it is only applies to the flesh of not-zombies.
• Another time travel related one - in the third series finale, Kelly mentions the guy who had the power to manipulate cheese and mentions he was a psycho. Didn't Curtis erase the timeline so that the only thing she'd have to go on is Curtis' word (which, granted, was clearly enough to accompany Curtis when he punches him in the face back at the end of that episode) but surely she should have had no idea how 'psycho' he really was?
  • I'd imagine Curtis told them everything the cheese guy did, which would make him sound pretty psychotic even if the others weren't there to witness it. That, or she read Curtis' mind and understood the exact extent of the nuttery that went down.
  • It doesn't really matter if they knew exactly how psycho he is though. By that point they had pretty well established that Curtis doesn't time travel just because he stubbed his toe. If he wandered over to them out of the blue and said "some kid has freaky cheese powers and he's going to go nuts unless we stop him", odds are they'd take his word for it.
• How did Seth get the "power-immunity" power? If other peoples' powers don't work on you, how do you use Seth's power to take away your power?
  • Maybe Seth's power has the ability to negate all other powers even the ones that would usually be immune to all other powers?
  • Or the immunity power isn't an "always on" one and the owner voluntarily gave it up?
• Is it just me, or does the necklace that Future!Simon gives to Alicia, almost identical to Jamie's neck tattoo?