In a world where most of the population develops superpowers at the age of 18, 25 year old Jen (Tyers) is one of the very unlucky few who has not. She lives with her life long best friend Carrie (Oxham) and Carrie’s unemployed superhero wannabe boyfriend Kash (Hasna) and has a strained relationship with her family. On her half sister’s 18th birthday Jen finally decided to do something about her situation.
Extraordinary provides examples of
- Adolf Hitlarious: Carrie channels Hitler to cheer up Jen. Jen and Kash then proceed to make fun of him. Judging from Hitler's exasperated reactions to being invoked, it is a recurring habit.Carrie [channeling Hitler and his German accent]: Oh, God. Not you again.
Jen : Hey Hitler. Yeah, suck a dick. Everyone's cool with interracial marriage now.
Kash : Yeah, you're inside my white girlfriend, and we fuck at least twice a month.
Jen : Oh, who am I? "Let's all invade Russia in the winter, because I am a big dumb bitch!"
Carrie [channeling Hitler and his German accent]: (sarcastically laughs) Very funny!
Kash : Oh, the Jews are broadly doing okay.
Carrie [channeling Hitler and his German accent]: (puts Carrie's fingers in her ears) La, la la, la, la la! I'm not listening! This is really childish! (Mutters "Gott in Himmel"note , before Carrie stops channeling him) - Better as Friends: Following their breakup in the season one final, season two sees Kash and Carrie struggling with adjusting to the new status quo and trying to live separate lives from each other. After trying to deny it for most of the season, “Be the Daddy You Want to See in the World” sees them finally accepting they miss each other and considering getting back together. However, after kissing the two realise the spark between them is well and truly dead, and that it's not being in a relationship that they miss, but being friends with each other.
- Big Sister Bully: Inverted with Jen’s younger half sister Andy, a bratty asshole who at best makes passive aggressive remarks at Jen and at worst gets hostile with her. Jen isn’t very nice to her either and at one point humiliates her in front of her friends and parents.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Nora, Jizzlord’s wife from season two. On the surface she presents herself as a sweet, charming woman, and a loving mother, who works as a lifestyle coach and influencer who is all about people finding their best lives. Behind closed doors, she is revealed to be a petty, spiteful, vindictive manipulative woman who only cares about her image.
- Black Widow: Dahlia Hanford, the spirit who possesses Carrie in “The Exorcism of Carrie Jackson”, was one, as Kash’s research reveals five of her husbands died from breaking their necks falling down the stairs and one shot himself “in the back with a crossbow.” But she got away with it all cause she was a rich and successful Hollywood star.
- Blessed with Suck: some powers really suck.
- The vet Speaks Fluent Animal but most pets are miserable and ask to be put out of their misery.
- Jen and Carrie's high school dean cannot control his Super-Hearing and continuously wears noise-cancelling headphones.
- Angela, Jen's boss is a 56 years old woman stuck in the body of a prepubescent girl.
- Gordon, who can't even touch a pet.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: Carrie allows herself to be wooed by the ghost of Charles II
- The Call Put Me on Hold: In a world where most people get powers at 18, Jen and others who still don't have them after 18 are considered this.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Richard, Jen's coworker. He was there for two episodes, and then was never to be seen again.
- Cliffhanger:
- The first season ends on one, when a kid and her mom recognizes Jizzlord as their long disappeared dad/husband.
- The second season ends with Jen accidentally falling into the void, waking up in an unknown place and reacting to something the audience can’t see.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Jen regularly goes to her dad (via Carrie) for comfort, instead of her living mum. This is deconstructed in season two when her new psychiatrist points out how unhealthy her relationship with her mother has become, and even Martin himself begins to worry that his continual presence in her life is confusing her too much. In the final George reveals his theory that Jen’s inability to let go of her dad is what’s stopping her from maturing psychologically, and the reason she can’t access her power. Thus, she is reluctantly forced to say goodbye to him for the final time. In a cruel twist however, this doesn't allow Jen to access her power.
- Demonic Possession: In "The Exorcism of Carrie Jackson” Carrie channels the spirit of long-dead Hollywood Starlet Dahlia Hanford to teach her how to be seductive. However, Dahlia loves being young and beautiful again so much, that she flat-out refuses to leave, and instead takes over Carrie’s body planning to use her to continue her Hollywood career. Thus, it's up to the others to figure out a way to exorcise her and save Carrie.
- Does Not Know His Own Strength: Andy's Super-Strength comes with some downsides, she accidentally gives her girlfriend a hairline pelvic fracture when having sex and she becomes unable to play the violin.
- Entitled to Have You: One of the motivations of several members joining Kash's vigilante group is to save Damsel in Distress and maybe have sex with them. Kash is quick to shut the idea down, recognising the negative implications. Though he happily accepts the follow-up suggestion of the rescued instead giving them money deciding its “just tipping.”
- Evil Counterpart: Evil might be pushing it, but the more we get to know Nora the more it’s clear that she possesses all Jen’s negative traits, in particular her selfishness, pettiness, vindictiveness, callousness, and willingness to use others for her own gain, only without any of her positive and sympathetic one’s to act as a counterbalance.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Due to superpowers having been around and common for over a decade, nobody bats an eye at them and they are integrated into society, like people with flight powers working as essentially air taxis and people with super strength using it for manual labor.
- Flight: Luke's power. Fitting his fuckboy persona, he uses it to impress girls or fly switfly away after hooking up with them. It seems to be a fairly common power among the general population.
- Foreshadowing: Whilst not drawn attention to, the missing posters that Nora puts up for Jizzlord more resemble those you would use for a missing pet than a person (i.e. describing him as Lost and offering a small cash reward). Initially, this seems to be just another joke about his ability to turn into a cat, only for it to turn out Nora wasn’t aware he could do so. Instead, it foreshadows how little Nora cared about him, seeing him more as an accessory for her brand rather than a beloved partner.
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: The main cast. Jen is the choleric, brash leader of the pack. Serious, former A-student, shy and insecure Carrie is melancholic. Slacker, lazy Kash is phlegmatic. And cheerful, airhead and plain weird Jizzlord is sanguine.
- Happy Marriage Charade: From the many pictures that Nora provides it seems that she and Jizzlord had the perfect marriage and were deeply in love, being sweethearts from university. However, she quickly reveals she doesn’t actually care about him, and it is solely about projecting the appearance of her brand. It is even revealed that her cheating on him was the trigger responsible for him becoming a cat for three years.
- Identity Amnesia: Jizzlord has no idea who he was prior to his time as Hercule the cat.
- It's All About Me: Jen’s fatal flaw is that she’s a drama queen always focused on her own problems and not on the needs of others. This has effected Carrie the most.
- Left the Background Music On: The annoying power of Jen's dentist. It matches the emotional state of the patient.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: Whilst not many details have been elaborated yet, its revealed in the series that just over ten years beforehand was “the Great Change” which caused every person over the age of 18 to develop superpowers (although they didn’t all manifest at the same time) and everyone younger to develop them sometime after they turn eighteen. Carrie mentions at one point that surprisingly little research has been done into what exactly caused this or how it works.
- Mundane Luxury: When faced with the prospect of being paid £300,000 in exchange for Carrie channelling a dead country star to finish his album, one of the things Carrie is most excited about her potential wealth is being able to buy Tenderstem broccoli, excitedly talking about how tender it will be.
- Mundane Utility: As everyone has power, most people use it for fairly mundane utility or to enhance their professional practice: Flight-powered people are used as taxis, a Living Lie Detector conduct interviews for her firm etc.
- Orgasmatron: Jen goes on a date with Gordon, who can make anyone orgasm through touch... which is how Jizzlord gets his name.
- Power Incontinence: It seems to be fairly common among superpowered individuals.
- Andy has trouble controlling her Super-Strength, to the point of breaking her girlfriend's pelvic bone.
- Jizzlord, see below Shapeshifter Mode Lock
- Season two has Kash developing into this (implied to be the result of him overusing his power so much in the season one final), whilst developing the new ability to travel forward in time as well as back, he no longer possesses control over it to the point of being randomly sent forwards in time and then back to the present. He finally regains control in the season two final.
- The Reveal: As we learn in season two, Jizzlord’s real name is Robert Clutton, and he was a former successful structural engineer.
- Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Jizzlord got locked as a cat for three years.
- Shrinking Violet: Carrie’s ability to talk to the dead means most people only want to talk to dirge dead people she can channel and not her. This combined Jen’s self absorbed and her boyfriend’s neglect have made her a constant people pleaser who is very insecure.
- Sibling Rivalry: The first episode has Jen asking for balloons for Andy’s birthday which would read: “Happy 18th birthday, Andy. Mom is making me do this. We were never close and I hate you.”
- Soundtrack Dissonance: when Jen hooks up with Gordon. Their awkward, dispassionated encounter is rhythmed by the sexy piece 'I Put A Spell On You'.
- Stealth Pun: Jen lives above a cash and carry with her two flatmates, who are named "Kash and Carrie."
- Super-Strength: Andy's power that she discovers right after turning 18 to Jen's chagrin.
- Talking to the Dead: Carrie’s power is to channel the dead to act through her. She works for a law firm which has her do this to settle legal situations involving the deceased. She also regularly channels Jen’s deceased father so Jen can talk to him.
- Technopath: Jen’s mother has the power to control technology. Ironically she is a Hopeless with Tech parent.
- Telepathy: This is Nora’s main power, allowing her to communicate mentally (both individually and with multiple people of her choosing). It fits in with her manipulative and two-faced nature, with several times she’ll happily say something nice only for her thoughts to reveal her true intentions. She does have the issue of sometimes getting confused about whether she said something or thought it though.
- The Mind Is A Play Thing Of The Body: Jizzlord’s largest problem is that whilst retaining a human-level understanding of events, upon transforming into a cat, he also gains a cat’s instincts and begins to think like a cat. Thus, the longer it goes on, the harder it is to retain himself. After spending three years as a cat, he’s all but forgotten his previous life and how to behave like a normal human.
- Time Master: Kash has a limited ability to rewind time with him being the only one to remember what happened before. He generally only travels back a few minutes, as the longer he goes back the more tiring it is for him (his personal record being that he managed twenty minutes once). In season two he develops the new ability to also fast forward time, but it costs him the control of his powers, with him being sent forwards and back randomly. He regains his control in the season two final, but it is presently unclear if he can still travel forward.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening:
- After reading that moments of high stress can kickstart powers, Kash stuffs Jen into the boot of his mum's car while dressed as an IRA terrorist. Fortunately/unfortunately, Jen is high on Valium and is very chill about the whole situation.
- Angela seemed to have gotten her power after finding out her husband was cheating on her.
- Season two reveals this happened to Jizzlord. Catching his wife and his best friend in bed together was what originally triggered his power, causing him to transform into a cat and leading to him being stuck as one for three years.
- Un-Sorcerer: Jen has no powers and has lived that way for seven years while every adult around her had powers since they were 18.
- Vigilante Militia: Kash’s dream of being a superhero leads to him building a team of others like him to fight crime and save people (this being despite none of them possessing any real idea of how, and only he and his rival Gregor possessing any powers that are even remotely useful). Their first outing is a dismal failure where they get assaulted by some local thugs and Kash ends up running away when he’s unable to turn back time far enough to avoid the confrontation. He later manages to bring them back together having gained intel about a local gang moving a huge shipment of drugs, only to discover Gregor has built his own team after being kicked out. The two bicker over who should get to confront them, before Kash realises he needs to focus on Carrie and gives up the venture. The two teams combined and successfully took down the gang without him, to the point of being praised as heroes in the next day's paper. Kash even lampshades how completely illegal the whole thing was in the second season and admits it's lucky none of them were arrested.
- Wham Shot: In the first episode, a sad Jen walks down the street, having a phone conversation with her encouraging father. As she gets home, she asks her father if she could have a hug, and when he agrees, Jen goes through a door where Carrie sits, using her own phone. Carrie, remember, channels dead people.
