Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Hulu series, Extraordinary.
The end of the first season of the new Hulu comedy series, Extraordinary has a shattering conclusion…literally. Ok, that’s pretty bad, but it was quite a revelation as Episode 8 entitled “Surprise!” wrapped up with an earth-shattering reveal. Seriously, no more dad jokes. For the entire first season of the hilariously bold and brash Irish comedy we see Jen (Máiréad Tyers) struggle with the fact that she is one of a very small minority who has passed the age of 18 and not been designated a power. Here she is, a 25-year-old, floundering without purpose or meaning. Her friend Carrie (Sofia Oxenham) is a medium, and her boyfriend Kash (Bilal Hasna) can turn back time. Her mother, Mary (Siobhan McSweeney) has the ability to harness technology with her hands. Even her sister Andy (Sofia Oakley-Green) discovers that she is strong like Hulk smack dab on her 18th birthday. It seems like everyone has what she so desperately wants and that she is hopelessly stuck being extraordinarily powerless.
But things were changing in the season finale. She discovers true love, with a boyfriend that just wants to be with her. And then it all comes crashing down in the final shot.
The Catman/Jizzlord
The introduction of Jizzlord (Luke Rollason), or the cat who turns into a man, is kind of an afterthought through the first half of the season. He is a cat who morphs into a human while Jen is undressing in her bedroom, which leads her to believe that her bare breasts are her power, and that they can turn animals into humans. It is a funny sidebar that is dispelled rather quickly. The truth is that Jizzlord is just a man who has been trapped in a cat’s body for three years and emerges as a bewildered and lost soul, unable to remember who he was or what he wants. He’s bug-eyed and awkward, and very depressed over his very odd circumstance. The flatmates take him in and make him a part of their group because there aren’t a whole lot of other options. So he lingers as more of a tertiary character for most of the season as his storyline slowly starts to develop.
Jizzlord Evolves into Real Character
Over the course of the last three episodes, Jen and Jizzlord’s character arcs slowly start to overlap more and more. He becomes less of a tangential afterthought and more of a fully formed person — rife with quirks, traits and emotions. He is still weird as hell, displaying cat-like mannerisms and freakishly feline qualities, but we eventually get to see a genuine character start to emerge as he settles in to his new environment. Then in Episode 7, entitled, “The Merry Monarch,” Jen and Jizzlord’s relationship starts to take a noticeable turn when they when he begins to delve further into her personal life.
Later in the episode, Jen, desperate for cash, enters him into a cat show. He’s hesitant at first, but sees an opportunity to spend more time with Jen and takes on his cat form, She enters him into the show as “Hercule” and the two prepare what amounts to a cat talent show. Once there, she realizes that Hercule has quite a reputation within the cat show circuit, and that their performance is very serious business. It’s at this point that the two start to form an attachment. While backstage, she listens to a recording he made before he turned into a cat and that he only did it because he likes who he is when he’s with her, and wants to help her win.
Jen’s Epiphany
The cat show is a disaster, but the two connect on a more physical level as he shape-shifts back into a human while onstage in an effort to save her from embarrassment. The two have a Dirty Dancing-type moment as he raises her into the air making her feel like a queen. It doesn’t really matter at that point that they bombed, because when they exit stage left, Jen aggressively lays a big kiss on Jizzlord in appreciation.
In the season finale, Jen pushes Jizzlord away and has a brief dalliance with her longtime fling crush, Luke (Ned Porteus). But when she realizes that she wants to be with Jizzlord, she leaves Luke alone on the rooftop at the party. But immediately after her realization, there’s a Three’s Company moment when Jizzlord overhears Jen talking with Carrie about her breakup with Kash, and thinks Jen doesn’t have feelings for him. He leaves, and Jen tracks him down in the rain and professes her true feelings to a stray cat that she thinks is Jizzlord. But then, he actually appears from behind a dumpster and the two seal the deal with a passionate kiss. Jen goes a step further when she introduces Jizzlord to Mary, marking a major step forward in their nascent relationship.
A Cliffhanger Revelation
The following day, they awake both feeling all warm and fuzzy about all the possibilities that lay ahead for the new couple. Jen lays in bed grinning at the mural that Jizzlord painted expressing his love for her, and she tickles his exposed feet that rest close to her head. Meanwhile, he heads out to the corner bodega to make a purchase when he’s recognized by a small child who blurts out, “Mommy, look! That man looks like daddy.” Jizzlord turns to see a gobsmacked woman and bespectacled child that looks a hell of a lot like him. Jizzlord has an astonished yet pensive look on his face as the woman drops a bottle of milk and it shatters on the ground.
The obvious conclusion is that she is his wife and child, and he is jolted with the memories he had lost more than three years ago when he was existing as Jen’s cat. Heading into Season 2, you can certainly anticipate some sort of reckoning that will leave Jizzlord torn between his new love and his old life that he had buried for years. Either way, somebody’s going to have their heart broken moving forward as the twist befits the double entendre of the episode’s title, “Surprise!”
