The icon for Extraordinary, a sitcom on Hulu, features Ashly Tisdale from The Suite Life of Zack and Cody in an apartment surrounded by friends, two guys and a girl. No doubt one of them is gay, so I reviewed the first episode.
Spoiler alert: it's not Ashley Tisdale, it's Máiréad Tyers.
Scene 1: Not Ashley Tisdale, a red-haired woman named Jen, is applying for a job. This is a world where almost everyone has a superpower, and the interviewer's thing is having people say exactly what they are thinking, so she mentions masturbation, defecation, menstruation, and being lazy. But she doesn't get the job because she has no power of her own yet. It usually comes in at 18, but she's 25, and nothing. This makes her feel inferior.
Scene 2: She goes out into the streets of London, where people are flying, levitating, and so on.
That night, she has sex with a hot guy, Luke (Ned Porteous, top photo). Extensive beefcake shot! She invites him to her sister's 18th birthday party, which freaks him out. While she's on the toilet, he jumps out the window! (He can fly, so he's just trying to escape).
Scene 3: A blond woman is working for a barrister by channeling a dead guy, who complains that his heirs are all wankers.
Meanwhile, Jen returns to her apartment (so the guy who flew away was in his own apartment?) and greets her quirky gay roommate, Kash (Bilal Hasna). He's wearing a superhero costume that reads "Super Cock." Uh-oh, it's supposed to be "clock," but the "l" fell off, plus his bulge is too blatant. So he turns back time and tries to change clothes before Jen comes in.
Wait, he's not the gay roommate, he's blond woman Carrie's boyfriend. They kiss. Three down. One more member of the gang to introduce. He'd better be gay.
Jen is distraught over having no superpower, so Sister Carrie tries to cheer her up by channeling Adolph Hitler, so they can insult him.
Scene 4: Jen has a Tinder date with Gordon, who presents as a woman but uses he/him pronouns (played by Eros Vlahos. The actor identifies as a straight male.). His superpower is causing orgasms in anyone he touches. It first appeared when he shook hands with his father....
Scene 5: Sister Carrie and Quirky Kash walking hand in hand to dinner. Kash thinks that A.D. stands for "After Dinosaurs." That's not funny, it's idiotic. Her shoes hurt, so Kash gives her his shoes, and walks around in socks. Awww...
Switch to Jen and Gordon having sex. They stay fully clothed, and he puts his gloved hand inside her to prove that he can do it himself, not rely on his power. It takes forever, Jen is bored, she pretends to orgasm. Later, when he is asleep, Jen tries touching him to get an orgasm, but the cat comes in and....
Scene 6: Jen, Sister Carrie, and Quirky Kash in bed, eating cereal and watching American Dad. Hey, an actual contemporary cartoon, not a public-domain 1930s dancing-flowers thing. She's late for work, so she nipple-twists Kash into turning back time.
Scene 7: Jen in a Cinderella costume at her job at the Party Hamlet. Her coworker Tim (Daniel Tiplady) is wearing a bear costume and blowing up a balloon fish. Mean Boss Angela, whose superpower is looking 16 forever, storms in to demand to be invited to her sister's 18th birthday party.
Is Tim the fourth friend? He only gets a few lines.
Scene 8: Jen in an Uber with a giant balloon. The driver's superpower is telling you when and how you will die. She doesn't want to know, but he tells her anyway: "Bears." Dad calls to tell her knock-knock jokes. Plot dump: The 18th birthday girl is actually Jen's half-sister, with a different father.
The party: a lot of middle-aged women listening to Sister Andy play the violin. She tells Jen that she got an audition for the Greenwich Conservatory. This makes Jen angry. Mom told Jen to bring balloons, but then went out and got them herself. This makes Jen even angrier.
Sister Andy blows out the candles on her cake and immediately starts checking for her superpower. The adults cheer her on. Why 18? It's a socially constructed milestone, not connected to biology. Starting at puberty would make more sense. Nothing happens, so she storms off in a snit. But then super-strength suddenly emerges! Everyone is amazed.
Upset because Sister Jen is getting all of the attention (at her birthday party?), Jen storms out.
Scene 9: Jen shows up at the home of Luke, the guy who jumped out the window to avoid her in Scene #2. Not the best idea: he's having dinner with another woman. Jen invites herself to join them.
The other woman notes that her power is shape-shifting. Jen insults her: "Oh, that's why you look like that." Then she talks Luke into giving her a flying-ride, but it's too scary. He gives her advice: "If you don't love yourself, how will you love somebody else," rather a nonsequiter, before flying off.
She calls Dad to complain about not having a power. "So what? Most powers are useless anyway. Accept yourself as you are."
But she insists, so he suggests a clinic where people can discover their powers.
Scene 10: Jen and Sister Carrie arrive at the clinic. It's quite elaborate; evidently a sizeable percentage of the population has no powers. But the discovery package costs 9.500 pounds! They decide to DIY it. The end.
Beefcake: Luke's chest and Kash's bulge.
Gay Characters: I haven't seen any yet, but the fourth person in the icon, Luke Rollaston, has yet to be introduced. He plays someone named Jizzlord; maybe he's the gay friend.
Gay References: Jen complains that Luke's advice is a quote from RuPaul, so they're both familiar with Drag Race.
Is Dad Trans? While Jen is talking on the phone to her Dad, she asks if she can do "the thing." He says ok. She walks into the bedroom, and there's a middle-aged woman there, whom she hugs. So is Dad's power teleporting? Is he trans or a drag queen? I'm confused.
My Grade: Jen is rather a snit, there are too many female and not enough male characters (why does she need so many sisters?), and why get so upset over not having a power? Most of them are mundane, like being able to change tv channels without using the remote. C.
Update: Jizzlord is a shape-shifter who turned into a cat three years ago and got stuck. He doesn't remember anything about his past, and has difficulty re-adjusting to human life. I doubt that he will be portrayed as gay.
Homophobic Panic: When Jizzlord reverts to human form after three years as a cat, he is so overjoyed that he rushes up and hugs Quirky Kash, who recoils in disgust. I'm not sure this counts as homophobia; if a naked lady rushed toward me, intent on hugging, I'd run the other way, fast.
The trailer is cute
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