Review: Misfits - 4.06 - "Episode Six"

This week's "Misfits" was a cavalcade of anticlimactic moments. A new character is introduced with little fanfare, a visually striking and bizarre murderer is taken care of abruptly and easily, and a big reveal which has been building for nearly the entire season was kind of swept to the side with a nod and a shrug.

The gang takes a break from their community service to attend a house party thrown by local legend Richard "Two Tabs" Saunders. Like many do, Saunders has a power since the mysterious storm of the series premiere, that of bringing his drug-addled fever dreams to reality. As Saunders drops his namesake two acid tabs, his television plays back a rapid succession of images which brings to mind a psychopathic murderer with a giant rabbit head.

It's a lot more menacing than you might think, and it preys on those who drift from the party into the apartment building. Unfortunately, the stalker/killer scenes are laden with some pretty awful dubstep (I know, "awful" and "dubstep" is a bit redundant), rendering the exciting horror movie fare at once frightening and aggravating. As mentioned, the creature is brought to an end in pretty underwhelming fashion, and didn't seem to serve much of a point other than to introduce new character Abby. "By the way," she says, "my name is Abby." And so Abby is now a part of the group. If it seems I'm possibly selling this introduction short, I'm not -- that's pretty much all there is to it. She drinks heavily, she helps Rudy and the ASBO crew to take care of their tormentor, and she follows them back to the community center.

The side-story is more interesting, but still leaves a lot to be desired. As a consequence of another person's power, the group gets the number of people they've slept with branded to their respective foreheads. The less-discriminating Rudy is leading the pack at 99, and eager to make his 100th a special one. Jess (2) is a bit put off by her beau Alex (46), and thereby leads into his big reveal as to why he's so hot and cold when it comes to their relationship. Again, this has been built for nearly the entire season and is brushed off by Jess as no biggie -- no bug eyes, no gasp or exclamation of profanity -- it is what it is and that's all there is to it.

The one saving grace of an otherwise disappointing episode is that the cast really seems to be gelling together and developing their own dynamic. Based on the exciting preview of this episode from last week, this could have been and should have been far better than it was.

Final Grade: C