(spoilers)

Steven Grant’s life is about to turn upside down…

Episode 1 of Disney+’s new Marvel series opens with a scene of quiet understatement – it’s not clear who we’re watching or what they want. What we do see is someone committed without reserve to a cause we can’t yet know. There is no giant speech, no showing off, only the ascetic’s fervour in quiet and unseen actions.

This is something of a bellwether for the series. There’s a hint of the quiet surety of Baron Zemo or the titan, Thanos here. An idea that wants to be played to its end. It’s endearingly high concept even though we still don’t know what this unnamed stranger wants.

If that acts as a kind of prologue, we then meet Steven Grant who has, it may be said without spoiling anything, had a bad night’s sleep.

Oscar Isaac plays Grant as a man who is just about holding himself together despite a hundred small inconveniences and irritations. He’s a man who hasn’t got a lot, hasn’t really got anything except the prospect of getting through today. Grant isn’t angry about this lack of stardom or talent – he’s got small dreams and, besides, the problems he has to face are much larger than any ideas about winning big in life.

He’s a refreshing character. Not a billionaire, not a genius, not physically perfect. Steven Grant is offensively normal with a boss who’s as frustratingly small minded as any villain you’ll ever meet. This being Marvel there’s more to this ordinary man than what we see but what it is and how’s it going to play out remains to be seen.

I hope that Marvel don’t use Grant as a foil or even as a disposable person only waiting for the more action-oriented characters to arrive before discarding him. There’s an inherent value in someone like Grant being on screen and I want to see a story in which he plays a part.

If there’s one thing that Grant doesn’t have, it’s stability. He loses days, awakens in places he doesn’t know, and I don’t mean under benches but entire worlds away from where he lay down for the night.

It’s fun, bonkers and entirely at ease with the absurdity it puts onto the screen in the first part. There’s the fear that Steven Grant is a solution, a gimmick, but I think with the groundwork laid here he’s going to be more than someone to be ridiculed as the show goes on.

Verdict: This first episode sets out an ambitious stall – establishes a solid main character and then does a bunch of stuff to upend his life.

Rating? 8 phases of the moon out of 10.

Stewart Hotston