Typical. Just when you man-up and decide to ask the girl you fancy out for a drink, along comes a body-swapping coma victim to ruin your plans.

While doing her community service at the local hospital Kelly accidentally exchanges bodies with a girl named Jen, who’s in a permanent coma. The body-swap is a TV trope that’s been done well but also done to death, yet Misfits manages to put a smart, grim spin on it by having one half be at such a disadvantage.

That Kelly swaps bodies with a girl in a coma adds an element of creeping panic to proceedings. It’s one thing to wake up in a foreign body, it’s quite another to be trapped, senseless, in one that is so utterly broken.

It’s good to see a Freaky Friday scenario that is truly freaky rather than played for comedy, and once again it touches on the strong theme of identity that runs through the show. Misfits has always been about people trying to find or forge their own identities, and when that’s compromised (as it has been with Curtis/Melissa, and with Simon being controlled by comic creep Pete) things fall apart pretty quickly.

It can be so easy to praise Lauren Socha’s performance week after week that it becomes white noise, but she’s terrific as the conflicted ‘Jen’, and if her performance across this series doesn’t earn her another Best Supporting Actress BAFTA for her work this series then it’ll be a great disappointment.

Kelly isn’t the only person with body issues, it’s a theme throughout the episode; from Curtis getting caught indulging in a spot of on-the-job onanism as his alter-shego Melissa, to Rudy’s double copping off with his counsellor.

Joseph Gilgun, once again carrying the bulk of the episode’s comedic aspects with foul-mouthed aplomb, really sells the difference between the two Rudys, and the trouble brewing between them. He’s more than just the happy-go-lucky comedian who’ll say anything in the hope of getting a reaction – including shouting ‘Wake up!’ to a girl in a coma, in one of the episode’s funniest moments – he’s a complex character who hides it with simple outrageousness. Only occasionally do we see the mask slip, as when he admits to Simon how he’s come to end up in probation work.

By the time the credits roll we’ve seen some pretty bizarre relationships play out, but it’s only Kelly and Seth’s that ends well. It’s a rare, and likely brief, moment of happiness in a dark final third act. Jen’s demise is inevitable, but you’d have to possess Simon’s precognition to see Shaun’s death coming.

Short of dying on the toilet it’s harder to imagine a more ungracious and ignominious end, but as brutal as it is, it is fitting. After all, Craig Parkinson’s Shaun is a nobody; a snarky probation worker of no importance, and whether you liked him or not it’s only right that his death happens without fanfare and is of such little consequence.

Surprising death aside, it’s not as strong an episode as last week‘s non-stop Nazi madness, but it’s another great instalment in a series that’s proving to be just as inventive and entertaining as its previous two years. Now, who wants to bet how long Kelly and Seth are going to last?

Aired at 10pm on Sunday 27th November 2011 on E4.

> Buy the Series 1-2 boxset on Amazon.

> Order the Series 3 DVD on Amazon.

What did you think of the episode? Let us know below…