"No matter what I do, the ones I love will be the ones who pay." - Curtis
Yes, Curtis stole the line from Spider-Man but it works in ending his relationship with Sam, and it turns out to be somewhat true in the end. Simon doesn't love Sally, but he cares about her in his own creepy way, and yet because of his powers he unwittingly takes part in her demise.
(Uh, spoilers.)
(Also, yes, I've been watching Misfits on Hulu this summer but I haven't been discussing each episode.)
That segues into the big question the episode presents: is Simon a villain?
If any of the main group of Misfits was pegged to fit the archetype of "supervillain" it's Simon, although the show has avoided common tropes thus far in making any of its protagonists actual superheroes. He's a loner, he's the most genuinely antisocial of the group, Nathan picks on him all the time, and he just plain acts weird (I'd love to see him in a British television stare-off with Ruth Wilson from Luther). Like the rest of the misfits, he's covered up two deaths, so he's already on the fast-track to villainy.
But hold on a second. He's also a disturbed kid who could use a little therapy and a few good friends. He's been manipulated by Sally the entire time. And he didn't really mean to kill her, right? Right? Let's not even get into Sally, whose personal quest for justice crossed a whole ton of boundaries.
It's this kind of moral relativism that sets Misfits apart from, say, Spider-Man. I'm sure that the majority of the fans would like to see the series subvert the typical origin story in that the protagonists are all juvies (not an exact equivalent but close enough). Instead, it subverts the genre by not having anyone do anything remotely heroic. Curtis tries in the fourth episode, but by trying to fix his mistakes he ends up juggling girlfriends as an unforeseen consequence. Nathan isn't Peter Parker (thank God) and Simon isn't the Green Goblin. They're all just messed-up people who got thrown into an even more messed-up situation and they're having a hard time coping.
The first season is only six episodes long, so perhaps in the finale the show takes a sharp left turn and tries to become Heroes although it's extremely unlikely. There's only one cliffhanger; the other storylines are fairly stable at the moment, save for the inevitable part where Nathan and Kelly hook up, but that's hardly a game changer. Misfits inhabits some nebulous grey area between dramedy and genre show, and arguably if not for Nathan it would be a straight drama. I'm not sure what Misfits' game is but I want to know where it's heading.
