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Oh brother, wherefore art thou, you w**ker? WARNING: CONTAINS DETAILED SPOILERS
Writer: Howard Overman
Director: Tom Green
THE ONE WHERE Nathan discovers he has a brother, and the Payback Gang find out that drugs reverse their super powers, with bizarre consequences.
VERDICT Funny, shocking, surprising and touching, this is a belter of an episode. This is rapidly turning into the best drama on TV, sc-fi or otherwise, on either side of the Atlantic. The precredit teaser is a work of genius in itself, with Nathan’s pervy tanning antics, his sudden discovery of a brother and his dad in the boot of the car. And it only gets better.
The idea that recreational drugs reverse their powers is a brilliant gimmick (though you do wonder if any of them would be tempted to experiment further), especially the cheeky way it lets us have a glimpse of a future with Curtis dressed as a (crap) superhero, and the way it sets up the final twist. Who is that girl? How does she fit into all this? Surely masked guy didn’t lead the Payback gang there by chance. But the heart of the episode, in amongst all the requisite lunacy and toilet humour, is a genuinely poignant little personal take about Nathan and his dad.
And blimey, wasn’t the night club scene disorientatingly trippy? Watching it was almost like being there.
HUH? Isn’t Alisha risking it a bit going to a nightclub with so much flesh showing? She’s gonna bump into someone.
GROAN Some of the Lily gags (“Cool power!”) are a bit Rentaghost , but at least no one says, “Hot sex” when her powers are reversed.
SPECULATION Is Jamie’s reappearance as a ghost just another of Nathan’s powers or a result of the reversal of Nathan’s power?
JUST GROSS Nathan shitting in that girl’s bed. Yeuch!
BEST LINE
Nathan: “I spent my eighth birthday eating Swedish meatballs with a known paedophile… that sick pervert cared more about me than my dad ever did. He would’ve taken me to the zoo.”
