History Series / Impulse2018

''Impulse'' is a {{science fiction}} drama web television series, loosely based on the novel ''Impulse'' by Steven Gould, that premiered in 2018 on Website/YouTube Premium.

** Nikolai survived Occupied Romania during the late 80s, first jumping during a terrorist attack that killed the rest of his family. His criminal uncle and him lived together, stealing to survive until he befriended an injured Canadian national who promised to help get them out. They were betrayed by his uncle (who killed his friend, Wesley), resulting in Nikolai beating him to death. After the Revolution Nikolai found Wesley's family, who adopted him and helped him develop his powers...and founded the morally questionable teleport-experimenting company he now works for.
* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: Nikolai's adopted dad, in the present day. His daughter, Elaine, is keeping him alive in order to prove her worth to him. PlayedWith though as he's not really a "Dark Lord", and is overall a loving father to Nikolai, but [[AbusiveParents his influence]] turned [[WellDoneSonGuy Elaine]] into a CorruptCorporateExecutive PlayingWithSyringes to impress him.

* ObfuscatingStupidity: One of the women in the Mennonite church, Susannah, pretends to be ignorant of concepts like baking soda and toothpaste to mess with Lucas.

* RapeAsBackstory: After learning that Clay date raped Henry, his mom Wendy relates to him that she was once raped herself in similar circumstances by a boy whom she knew at a party, making it clear that his offense was inexcusable, urging Clay to make amends before too late.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: In the series finale, Henry gives her mom a lengthy angry one denouncing her having moved her around so often and frequently had different boyfriends, which left her little stability. Even worse, Henry blames her for being raped, saying she'd gotten close to her rapist because her mom was hardly there. Her mom's apologetic to her, but this [[RejectedApology isn't good enough to Henry]]. [[spoiler:Their argument escaltes to the point that her mom orders her to GetOut, with Henry not only obliging but leaving her for good, teleporting to a foreign country, while the pair's relationship may be ended for good or at least severely damaged.]]

** Played Straight with Clay himself; when describing the accident to others, he makes it sound like him and Henry went all the way and plays it off as a simple hook-up. When confronted with reality, he angrily denies it and then when remembering it, he remembers initiating and her saying no, but his memory downplays how much she fought him and makes it seem more like QuestionableConsent, which in his mind is apparently OK.

* TokenMinority: Zach is the only boy of color in the main cast. At school Zach appears to be the only black student, or among a very few.
* TokenMinorityCouple: Townes, an autistic boy, discovers that his online girlfriend Zoe is missing her left arm (with a prosthetic replacement) when they finally meet. She was scared for him to see, as people sometimes are pretty uncomfortable due to her arm. Townes likes it though, and understands what she means as a result of his autism. She is very pleased by this. Both of them are the only disabled characters in the show.

* EarlyBirdCameo: The pizza delivery guy is causally shown during a WildTeenParty where he asked Henry for the house owner. He gets properly introduced in a later episode when Henry starts working with him.

* GoodPeopleHaveGoodSex: Henry with Josh. It stands in complete contrast to her [[DateRape experience with Clay]] as Josh, before and after the sex, is nothing but kind and supportive, and so the sex is clearly good for her. Unfortunately deconstructed as, while he's a good man and they ''enjoy'' the sex, it also triggers the trauma she suffered from Clay and causes her panic attacks after.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: The Boones are well-liked by the community because of how much business they bring in, and the fact Clay is a local hero with the school's basketball team. There's some rumor of their criminal dealings but most seem to see it as a necessary evil, and after his "accident", the entire town rallies behind Clay. Part of the reason Henry never goes public about his AttemptedRape on her is that the town would probably not take her side.

* DownerEnding: Due to being cancelled after two seasons; [[spoiler:in desperation, Henry left Hulce in a random cave, but when she returned she was gone and may be dead. Henry's friends have turned on her, Cleo and Tom broke up, and Henry had to ruin her relationship with her mother in order to break their tether. She also discovered that her father was long dead and Nikolai killed him, and out of anger Henry beat Nicholai ''to death''. She's got enough cash to survive for now and has gained enough control of her powers to live anywhere, but this little bit of positivity does ''nothing'' to contrast the rest of what happened.]]

* AbusiveParents: Nicholai's adopted father, though not to him nor his other son, Wesley, but to his daughter, Elaine. His wife/her mother, died during childbirth and the girl had asthma, so he's got a cold, sometimes cruel demeanor with her. He spent her entire life crushing any confidence or identity she had outside of him, which seemingly only stopped when he became sickly and bedridden. Nicholai is conflicted between the love he has for the man who took him in and treated him like his own son, and his horror at seeing what he did to his own daughter.

** Nicholai to a lesser extent; he never wanted his powers or the life he's gotten but is somewhat trapped in villainy due to needing the medication to deal with his teleportation-induced health issues.
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:Nicholai executes Henry's father this way]].

* DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: Played with. For a long time, it looked like Henry's father left the family to protect them. [[spoiler:In reality, he was killed by Nicholai]].

** Nicholai survived Occupied Romania during the late 80s, first jumping during a terrorist attack that killed the rest of his family. His criminal uncle and him lived together, stealing to survive until he befriended an injured Canadian national who promised to help get them out. They were betrayed by his uncle (who killed his friend, Wesley), resulting in Nicholai beating him to death. After the Revolution Nicholai found Wesley's family, who adopted him and helped him develop his powers...and founded the morally questionable teleport-experimenting company he now works for.
* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: Nicholai's adopted dad, in the present day. His daughter, Elaine, is keeping him alive in order to prove her worth to him. PlayedWith though as he's not really a "Dark Lord", and is overall a loving father to Nicholai, but [[AbusiveParents his influence]] turned [[WellDoneSonGuy Elaine]] into a CorruptCorporateExecutive PlayingWithSyringes to impress him.

* DisposingOfABody: [[spoiler:Nicholai dissolves Bill Boones in an AcidPool]].
* DownerEnding: Due to being cancelled after two seasons; [[spoiler:in desperation, Henry left Hulce in a random cave, but when she returned she was gone and may be dead. Henry's friends have turned on her, Cleo and Tom broke up, and Henry had to ruin her relationship with her mother in order to break their tether. She also discovered that her father was long dead and Nicholai killed him, and out of anger Henry beat Nicholai ''to death''. She's got enough cash to survive for now and has gained enough control of her powers to live anywhere, but this little bit of positivity does ''nothing'' to contrast the rest of what happened.]]

** Nicholai is an AntiVillain at worst, who genuinely cares for both his adopted family and dearly loved his younger brother, and Wesley.
* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: Young Nicholai [[spoiler:pummels his uncle with a piece of metal for shooting Wesley]].

* HitmanWithAHeart: Nicholai is an experienced teleporter-hunter who has killed people in the past, but he would rather bring teleporters in peacefully and train them without causing any harm, and seems to genuinely care for Henry's well-being.
* HunterOfHisOwnKind: Again, Nicholai hunts teleporters, like himself. He doesn't like it though, and he'd prefer to help teleporters learn to control their powers without the torturous methods his company seems to prefer.
* IHaveAFamily: According to Nicholai, Simon Coles dropped this line when threatened to be killed.

* OffstageVillainy: We never see Nicholai kill [[spoiler:Sam]] probably to keep the audience's sympathy he earned via his OriginsEpisode.

* PleaseWakeUp: Nicholai's sister has this reaction when finding [[spoiler:her father dead on his hospital bed.]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: In the last two episodes of Season 2, Nicholai tries to give Henry a YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre speech after she asks for his help, thinking what she needs is to believe in herself to be able to solve whatever problem she has. He also decides now is finally time to come clean about what happened between him and her father. [[spoiler:He's unaware of the fact Henry's "problem" is that she kind of stranded Hulce in a cave somewhere in a moment of blind panic and is now struggling to find a way to fix it, which has her completely on-edge. Because of that, he completely misreads her mental state at the time and doesn't know that it would be a ''very'' bad idea to tell her how he killed her father, which ends up resulting in Henry ''killing'' Nicholai in her grief-stricken rage, and this ends up making her forget about Hulce until it's too late to save her.]] All of this could have been avoided had he been willing to let her explain what her problem was.
* PowerAtAPrice: Teleportation gives Nicholai health issues. He cannot survive "jumps" without a serum called "Factor".
* PowerIncontinence: Until Nicholai teaches her how to control her abilities, Henry would trigger the teleport powers whenever she is in distress.

** Literally, Nicholai keeps a single goldfish as a good luck charm, and as a token to his friend Wesley. When it dies, he's shown to just casually buy a new one.
** Nicholai's bond with the Kido family (his adopted family) seems to act as something of this for his own lost family; in particular his bond with Elaine (including encouraging her piano playing) mirrors the bond he had with his brother Milos, and he follows his adopted father in the same way he did his uncle. He also seems to see Henry in a similar light to Elaine/Milos.

* SickbedSlaying: How Nicholai [[spoiler:kills his adoptive father]].
* SpreadWingsFrameShot: There is a shot of Nicholai before a mural of wings at the Romanian church that lines up perfectly to [[https://imgur.com/uA3SLfY make it look]] like he has angel wings.
* StartOfDarkness: "The Moroi" is fully committed to exploring Nicholai's [[OriginsEpisode backstory]]. [[spoiler:He was a poor Romanian teen who fled in the country's brief civil war sparked by communism falling, connecting to his future adoptive family by befriending their son in Romania, committing his first murder while avenging his friend's murder before turning into the fearsome teleporter we know today, kidnapping others like him for cruel experimentation.]]

* TeleporterAccident: In season two, the company Nicholai is working for loses its best teleporter through such an accident. That's why they can't wait to get their hands on Henry.

* TheyWouldCutYouUp: Townes receives videotapes with footage of teleporters being tortured to invoke their power. It's pretty obvious this would also happen to Henry once she gets in the clutches of Nicholai's company.

* WellDoneSonGuy: Elaine Kido, Nicholai's boss and also adopted sister, pretty much sacrificed ''everything'' to try and earn her father's love and affection, as he's nothing but cruel to her. Nicholai is conflicted between the love he has for the man who took him in and treated him like his own son, and his horror at seeing what his abuse did to his own daughter.

* DisappearedDad: Henry's dad left when she was very young, and she's not happy with her mom having many boyfriends after him. [[spoiler:It later turns out her dad [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou didn't go voluntarily]] but for far more sinister reasons, with Henry trying to find out what happened.]]