Your Assignment This Weekend: Watch Extraordinary

Emma Moran’s clever comedy about a girl with no superpowers in a world full of them is the British cousin of The Good Place. Photo: Olly Courtney/Hulu

The first season of Extraordinary took a provocative premise — what if everyone got a superpower when they turned 18, except for you? — and spun it into eight episodes of shrewd comedy that put a refreshing twist on the superhero’s journey. The second season, now streaming in its entirety on Hulu, leaps into a new creative stratosphere. Creator and writer Emma Moran builds out a rich world where the fact that most of the population possesses a singular, idiosyncratic ability — teleportation, fixing bad haircuts with the touch of a hand — is only one fantastical element in this bizarro version of contemporary East London. Season one was very good television. Season two is flat-out great.

There’s no easy way to explain this so I’ll just come out and say it upfront: Extraordinary’s protagonist Jen (Máiréad Tyers) is dating a guy who used to be her cat. Technically, he was a stray she took in during season one and named Jizzlord, only to discover that he was actually a man (Luke Rollason, his eyes as wide as the saucers his alter ego licks from) with the capacity to shape-shift and, also, no memory of his pre-feline form. At the end of the first season, their romance is just beginning when a little boy spots him at the grocery store and calls him daddy. The second season takes us right back to that moment, revealing more about Jizz’s previous life and inserting new obstacles into his relationship with Jen, including a rivalry with Nora (Rosa Robson), a woman from his past. Both literally and figuratively, this new enemy knows exactly how to get inside Jen’s head.

That’s only one of Jen’s problems. At 25, she’s finally scrounged up the cash to pay for treatment at the Discovery Clinic, a facility that helps the superpowerless unlock whatever’s blocking the emergence of their unique skill. There she enters a physical manifestation of her subconscious where she must sort through her psychological issues: an extremely cluttered used-book store overflowing with tomes inspired by all of Jen’s thoughts, feelings, and personal history. Titles include: Weird Things You’ve Thought About While Masturbating and The Compiled Lies of Jennifer Regan, a series of audio cassettes read by distinguished British actor Derek Jacobi.

“This is my mind?” Jen asks, taking in her surroundings. “It’s a shithole.”

True, but it’s a clever shithole, a quality that applies to many of the details and plot twists that make this new season such a delight. In the East London of Extraordinary, citizens can toss old things they want to get rid of into the Void, an actual black hole accessed for the cost of a few quid. How did this black hole show up in London in the first place? The show never explains, instead treating a visit to this inter-dimensional portal with all the sense of wonder that accompanies a trip to the local dump. When Jen and Jizz decide to eat at a restaurant called Little Italy, they discover that it’s literally a miniature eatery. “How do we get in?” Jen asks the Italian guy who seems to run the place. “I boop,” he explains casually, then boops each of them on the nose, shrinking them temporarily so they can fit inside, where everything is tiny except for one thing: the food. It’s normal size but looks gigantic in this diminutive setting, the bucatini resembling giant pool noodles more than actual pasta.

While Extraordinary has its moments of whimsy, its underlying sardonic sensibilities never let it get too twee. Jen is sincerely attempting to become a more considerate version of herself, but she’s also the first to tell you she’s a terrible person. Vulgar, petty, and self-involved, she can inject a backhanded compliment with so much liquid poison you practically taste its toxicity. It helps that Tyers, a winning presence in her first major role, is Irish and delivers many of her best lines with the blasé brogue of someone who looks at life through black-tinted glasses

“Can you imagine a world where everyone loved who they are on the inside?” she asks her best friend and roommate, Carrie (Sofia Oxenham) — superpower: channeling the dead — after she chastises Jen for being shallow. “We would all look like shit.” It’s the kind of observation Larry David might make on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Actually, perhaps it’s more apt to compare Jen Regan to Eleanor Shellstrop, the similarly flawed hero of NBC’s sorely missed The Good Place. The more Extraordinary evolves, the more it feels like a British cousin to Mike Schur’s sitcom about the moral calculations that come with the territory of being human. Both focus on four friends (in addition to Jen, Carrie and Jizz, Carrie’s ex Kash can rewind and, as of this season, fast-forward time) attempting to overcome their hang-ups while clumsily swimming their way toward self-improvement. Both are based in recognizable yet freaky versions of reality. Both are comedies that also deal with some of life’s most delicate questions about grief, death, and learning how to let go.

Both also love a cliffhanger. The second season of Extraordinary ends on a doozy that suggests a potentially whole new direction for season three. If I had a superpower at this moment, it would be the capacity to immediately watch a finished third season.