“Episode #1.1” is episode one of season one of Misfits.
It opens with six young people dressing in orange jumpsuits, after which they are told by their probation worker, Tony, that this is a chance to do something positive, to give something back, to help people and make a difference in their lives. That’s what community service is all about. People think they are scum and this is their chance to show they are wrong. One, Nathan, asks what if they’re not wrong? What if they’re right? Some people are born criminals. So far, things are not going well.
There first job is painting benches and one, Gary, gets paint on his baseball cap. He kicks the paint can over and storms off. Alisha says to another, Curtis, that he’s that runner guy. He screwed up big time. Nathan asks Kelly if she was done for shoplifting. He’s making conversation, trying to network with other young offenders. Kelly got into a fight with another girl who called her a slag. Nathan then tries winding Simon up; Simon, it seems, tried burning someone’s house down. Nathan says he was done for eating pick and mix as a storm sounds to be rolling in, with an odd-looking cloud.
Tony arrives and sees the paint and asks how they can screw up painting benches. Then a hailstone hits a car behind him – his car as it happens. Ordinarily, a hailstone wouldn’t be a problem – but this one was several feet in diameter. More start striking and as they run, Simon is filming this on his phone – and this is before that really became the thing to do all the time. Inside the community centre, Gary is trying to clean his cap in the toilets as hailstones make debris from the roof fall down. The community centre is locked when the other get there and, before Tony manages to open the door, they are struck by lightning.
They’re still alive but Tony suggests they call it a day. In the changing room, Kelly is combing her hair when she hears Alisha say something. Only Alisha didn’t. Then Kelly hears Alisha calling her a chav. Only she didn’t. As the five of them head out, Tony watches. Something seems wrong with him. Gary is still there in the toilets smoking a joint when he hears someone enter and gets rid of it. He drops his phone and presumably-Tony stamps on it. Then an axe head slams through the cubicle door.
Kelly is at home playing with her dog, Keith – a Staffie, of course – when she hears him saying something. When Nathan gets home, his keys don’t work. His mother has changed the locks. She wants to give her relationship with Jeremy a chance and Nathan is always making fun of people. Nothing touches him but not everyone is like that. If Nathan stays, Jeremy will leave. She’s left his things by the garage with some cash. She’ll call him in a few days. Nathan tries calling everyone he knows to get somewhere to crash. No-one wants him. That should tell him something. Meanwhile, Kelly is making out with her boyfriend when she hears him thinking too. The boy decides he’s leaving.
Nathan has crashed at the community centre and goes to the toilets, displaying a staggering lack of interest in the fact that the cubicle he uses has a door hacked to pieces and is liberally coated with blood. Evidently Nathan isn’t a morning person. Outside, graffiti has been written on the front of the centre ‘I’M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL’. Nathan thinks it’s Banksy. Simon says maybe someone wants to kill them. Tony arrives and takes all their phones.
In the changing room, Simon finds Gary’s cap. There’s blood on it. None of the others are paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Then Simon’s head moves really fast. Still none of the others is paying any attention. To the degree that it’s getting odd. He stands in front of Alisha, who is preening in the mirror. She’s looking right through him and Simon has no reflection. The other four leaves, dropping a joint on the way in the corridor, and Tony, who seems to have acquired some serious anger management issues, stamps on it. The same thing happens to Simon again and he becomes visible. Tony, meanwhile, is having a temper tantrum.
Kelly is still hearing what people are thinking, and Nathan isn’t being helpful in his comments when she asks if anyone else has noticed something weird. She does hear Simon wondering if he should speak up. One thing Nathan causes Kelly to go for him. She leaves and Tony tries to stop her out of sight of the others. She punches him in the face and he overreacts a bit. Tony rips some metal from the fence – his eyes are odd – and goes after Kelly.
The suggestion that at least some of the five might have powers and that Tony has gone psycho are met with disbelief from the others. As more of them start gaining powers and Tony does try to kill them, the belief lessens. Nathan says that they are unlikely candidates for becoming superheroes.