ICYMI: Hulu’s Extraordinary Is the Cure for Our Collective Superhero Fatigue

Editor’s Note: Welcome to ICYMI! The strikes may be over, but we’re still highlighting some of the best shows you may have missed in the deluge of content from throughout the year. Join the Paste writers as we celebrate our underrated faves, the blink-and-you-missed-it series, and the perfect binges you need to make sure you see. All around our current pop culture discourse, one question seems to be on everyone’s minds at the moment: are superheroes over? It’s hard to believe, given the dominance of this content in virtually every medium over the last 20 years or so, but one only has to look at the recent underperforming box office returns and middling critical reviews to see that superhero fatigue is a very real thing. The CW’s Arrowverse is effectively dead, even though Superman & Lois technically still has one more season to go. The DC film universe is headed for what is essentially its third reboot next year. And while the great Marvel experiment certainly shows no signs of stopping, the franchise has floundered creatively in the wake of Avengers: Endgame, more concerned with preparing viewers for future stories rather than allowing them to enjoy—or emotionally connect with—the ones currently being told. 

To be fair, there are still plenty of interesting stories in the superhero space. Prime Video’s The Boys and its college-set spin-off Gen V are often uncomfortably cynical and subversive, but they both make for wildly entertaining TV. And while Marvel’s had its share of issues figuring out how their Disney+ series fit into the franchise’s overall blueprint, several of them (WandaVision, Loki, Ms. Marvel) have been legitimately groundbreaking in a variety of ways. But one of the best superhero stories of the past year—heck, of the past several years—is the one most fans of this genre probably haven’t even heard of: Hulu’s Extraordinary. 

The eight-episode comedy—which has already been picked up for a second season—is a British import, which may be part of the reason it stands out so effortlessly from the superhero pack. The debut comedy series from writer Emma Moran, Extraordinary features raunchy humor and ridiculous situations, but it also boasts a sensitive heart and a nuanced understanding of the unique problems and challenges of young adulthood. The story takes place in a world in which everyone develops a superpower at the age of 18, gaining abilities that range from the predictable (flight, super strength) to the absurd (a sphincter that doubles as a 3-D printer, the power to turn literally anything into a PDF). Most people tend to use their powers for a variety of mundane, stupid, or outright ridiculous reasons, and the possession of extraordinary abilities has become so commonplace that they’re no longer seen as a big deal. Rather, it’s the lack of them that now makes people stand out. 

Such is the case for Jen (Máiréad Tyers), a 25-year-old underachiever in East London whose power has yet to manifest itself. This is a source of deep frustration—not to mention embarrassment—for her, exacerbated by the fact she’s basically decided to make her lack of a superpower her entire personality. (It is, after all, essentially what makes her special.) While the failure to launch metaphor is more than a little on the nose, Moran still finds a way to make Jen’s dead-end day job at a costume store and her romantic entanglement with a “flyboy” who doesn’t care about her both deeply honest and painfully hilarious. As she struggles to save enough money to visit a special clinic that reportedly helps those without powers access their hidden abilities, her perceived deficiencies constantly weigh on her, particularly as her younger stepsister Andy (Safia Oakley-Green) becomes increasingly successful. 

Jen lives with her lifelong best friend Carrie (Sofia Oxenham), who possesses the ability to summon and speak for the dead. While this gift is certainly useful—it’s helpful for settling contract disputes in her job as a lawyer, it allows Jen to chat with her deceased father, and is an occasionally fun party trick—it often leaves Carrie wondering whether anyone is truly interested in what she has to say. Carrie’s boyfriend, Kash (Balil Hasna), can rewind time for brief periods, a skill which he most often uses to prevent himself from being caught in embarrassing situations or to help win arguments with his girlfriend. He dreams of being part of a vigilante superhero team (one of the funniest moments in the series is the audition process he uses to narrow down prospective members), but he’s finding it hard to drum up interest in a team of heroes when almost everyone else already has their own abilities anyway. And then there’s Jizzlord (Luke Rollason), Jen’s rescue cat who turns out to be a shapeshifter who has been feline for so long that he’s forgotten his human identity. 

An awkward but heartfelt coming-of-age comedy whose light touch doesn’t make its larger points about human nature any less biting, Extraordinary is wildly funny, deeply cringe, and charmingly sincere by turns. The show deftly connects the existence of a wide variety of truly bizarre powers to the characters’ various emotional struggles, with both hilarious and heartbreaking results. In this world, all manner of special abilities can exist, but no matter how spectacular they are, they basically just make everyone who has them more of what they were already. Carrie’s an excellent listener, even at the expense of her own voice. Kash is terminally conflict-avoidant, whether he’s using his abilities or not. Jen uses her lack of a superpower as an excuse for her often rude and self-centered behavior; she was selfish and self-absorbed long before anyone she knew whether or not she had any special abilities. 

But what makes Extraordinary truly, well, extraordinary, is the fact that it remembers what so many of the blockbuster superhero stories appear to have forgotten: the powers aren’t the point. Having special abilities is pretty cool, obviously, but the fact of possessing superpowers isn’t what makes good or bad people or determines who the heroes or villains of a story are. Its the choices they make along the way, and the people they decide they want to become. Maybe DC and Marvel could take some notes. Just saying. 

Watch on Hulu

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB.

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