The mind-blowing finale of I Am Not Okay With This left us with so many questions about
Syd's powers and the identity of the mysterious figure.
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and in this video, I'll be breaking all of that down,
and explaining the secret conspiracy that led to Syd's superpowers, plus Season 2 theories.
Obviously, spoilers ahead, so take care if you haven't seen the show yet.
The first season ends with a literal bang when Syd's powers explode Brad's head at the
school Homecoming.
As gruesome as it is, it's also designed to be kind of funny because Brad unsuspectingly
predicted his own demise earlier that same day:
"Let's just say that tonight's gonna be f***ing mind-blowing."
When Syd flees the scene, she returns to the tower that she went to the previous time her
powers became massively out of control.
As she contemplates her future, we hear whispering voices and a dark cloud of particles arrives
on the platform behind her, taking on a human form.
"Who are you?
Should I be afraid?
They should be afraid."
So, who is this strange, shadowy figure that's been stalking Syd?
This entity can dissolve into a dark cloud as we saw when it was watching Syd after her
training session with Stan.
On the one hand, the show seems to hint it could be her father or a vision of him.
For example, when Syd mentions to her school counsellor that she thought a man had been
following her, Ms. Cappriotti asks Syd if it looked like her father.
And basically suggests that the figure was just a grief hallucination of her dead dad
caused by her feelings of loss over him.
However, when this mystery figure finally appears in front of Syd on the platform, she
doesn't recognise him.
We also know that Syd's mother said that when her father was still alive, he believed somebody
was following him too.
Curiously, in the graphic novel that the show is based on, a shadowy, black form appears
in a scene where Syd is having sex.
And in the comic, it's Syd's powers which unconsciously create this menacing entity.
So, in the TV show, could this ghostly figure be something that Syd has created from her
inner abilities without realising?
When Syd and Stan are reviewing the stolen library security cam footage, Stan even comments,
"That just looks like your shadow."
Whoever or whatever it might be, the ending is setting this mystery man up as a mentor
figure for Syd in the second season.
Stan, who already thinks of Syd as a superhero, pointed out to her that this is classic comic
book storytelling.
"So each of these comics features an unknown visitor.
A professor, a wise old sage, some form of mentor figure,
you know, who visits the hero, explains their abilities, the mythology behind
them, and how they can harness those powers for
good."
This being is likely there to help Syd properly understand how to control her powers, and
maybe even harness them in a positive way.
"I mean, if I really can make a nose bleed with my brain, then maybe it can be used for
good."
So far, Syd's struggled to manage her powers.
She's tried blocking out negative thoughts and smoking weed which seem to help somewhat.
But these aren't real, permanent solutions as any type of strong emotion or panic trigger
her powers in unpredictable and dangerous ways.
Season 1 then is Syd's superhero origin story, and the show heavily hints that she received
them from her father.
When Stan tries to figure out how Syd got her powers, he suggests that
"Sometimes a person inherits their abilities."
And Syd's mother also tells her "When it comes to your dad, you have this
gift."
There are also obvious parallels in terms of their shared telekinetic powers between
Syd and Eleven from Stranger Things whose own powers originate from the clandestine
MK Ultra experiments carried out on her mother.
However, the origin of Syd's father's powers is, as yet, unknown.
In fact, the show's co-creator and director, Jonathan Entwistle has said that "there is
[…] a much bigger, under-the-surface conspiracy [to do with the powers] that goes back much
further."
Which makes me wonder whether Syd's father was experimented on by the military after
he joined the marines?
And when Stan is trying to figure out the origin for Syd's powers, one of the possibilities
he mentions is "Secret military experiment?"
Syd's father could have been involved in covert military research and trials designed to turn
him into a kind of super-soldier.
One of the best-known comic book characters who underwent this type of experiment is Steve
Rogers, aka Captain America.
Another hint towards experimentation or perhaps a chemical accident being the cause of her
father's powers is that we get a number of scenes in Syd's chemistry class.
"As the temperature increases, if an atom loses one or more electrons, it becomes oxidized!"
And the blackboard behind him is also filled with numerous details about acid and alkaline
reactions.
We also learn that during her father's final tour, he was the only human being who survived
an enormous explosion.
What if that explosion was set off by some kind of bio-weapon that triggered a mutation
in him?
Alternatively, the explosion might have gone off next to a chemical facility and killed
everyone else but gave him powers?
Or perhaps he'd already been experimented on, along with others, and the explosion was
deliberately engineered to test whether any of them would survive the blast, and only
he did.
X-Men characters like Wolverine and Deadpool received superhuman healing abilities after
being experimented on.
In fact, I Am Not Okay With This has numerous allusions to the X-Men from Stan's "Not Men"
comic book, the Wolverine-like spiked gloves that Syd's
brother designs for his superhero suit, and the school is also "Home of the Wolverines".
Comic book characters have often received their powers through accidents or mutations.
Daredevil got his powers when he was blinded during a chemical accident and Carol Danvers,
aka Captain Marvel, was an ordinary human who received her powers when she absorbed
the energy from an experimental light-speed engine that blew up.
And there's also Stan's "Spider Tales" comic, referencing the radioactive arachnid bite
that gave Spider-Man his abilities.
At the end of the season, when the mystery figure tells Syd
"They should be afraid" he could be referring to the people involved
in the conspiracy rather than the townspeople.
For example, if it is the ghost of her father, he could be looking for revenge.
He could have even been murdered and his death made to look like a suicide, remember he never
left a note.
Another possibility is that there are supernatural or even alien forces at play here, given the
mystery man's ability to disappear into thin air.
There's a hint to this in the poster for the movie They Came From Beyond Space which is
displayed quite prominently in Stan's room.
In that movie, space aliens attempt to enslave humans by possessing them.
Whether Syd will be able to keep her powers under the radar in the second season is unclear
because her diary which Brad was reading out went missing on the dance floor during the
panic after his head exploded.
It'll be interesting to see how Brad's death is explained by investigators, but some suspicion
may fall on Syd given how he was ranting at her just before he died.
Especially if her diary ends up in the hands of someone who decides to reveal her secret
to fellow students, teachers, or the police, or perhaps even ends up blackmailing her about
it.
Now, if you've read the original graphic novel, you might be thinking that ultimately Syd's
journey will end in tragedy, because... spoilers for the comic book...,
Syd commits suicide when she discovers she can't handle her powers.
However, Entwistle has specifically said that the Netflix version of the story will not
be as "macabre" and will instead expand the world of the graphic novel.
To be honest, a suicide storyline as the final destination for Syd would be a rather bleak
way to treat a character who's not only grappling with grief, but also confronting her burgeoning
sexuality and feelings of social isolation, who could hopefully still find a path to dealing
with all that.
Entwistle has also said that while the comic is "a story about mental illness, and essentially
suicide", what he wanted to do with the show was build out "the backstory of how [Syd]
got [to that point]" and "take all the elements of a journey of
somebody being confused by lots of different things in their life [..]
and make a different type of genre show."
So, did the ending of I Am Not Okay With This blow your mind?
And who do you think the mystery figure is?
Leave your thoughts and theories in the comments below.
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!