Series / The Tomorrow People (2013)

"We're called Tomorrow People, and we didn't choose the name, I swear."

The second reboot of the popular British sci-fi drama from The '70s, this version debuted on The CW in October 2013. It was not picked up for renewal for a second season.

Stephen Jameson (Robbie Amell) thinks he's mentally ill - he sleepwalks, he hears voices that shouldn't be there, the works. As it happens, he's really part of a genetically enhanced new species, and they're being hunted by Muggles who fear them and their psychic powers. So what's a poor young Tomorrow Person to do? He joins Ultra, the very team that's hunting his kind, as the inside man for a small underground movement of renegade young Tomorrow People forced to live on the fringes as society has rejected them.

Has a character sheet that needs some attention.

This series provides examples of:

• Ambiguous Situation: Is Stephen's "connection" with Cara because of The Power of Love and because they are meant to be together? Or just his unusually powerful abilities allowing him to break through the normal limitations to reach out to her, which only intensifies after he develops an attraction for her and belief that they are connected?
• Accidental Murder: Cara killed a boy attempting to rape her, but his father was too well connected and she can never go back.
• Accidental Pervert: Stephen starts out the pilot by accidentally teleporting in his sleep into his neighbours' bed, right in between the couple, while all three are wearing only pajamas or underwear.
• Action Bomb: Hilary uses one for a suicide attempt on the Founder.
• Another Dimension: Limbo. Stephen's father believed this would be the refuge of the Tomorrow People. He tried to access it via a combination of time-stopping and teleporting but failed. He only managed it by apparently dying.
• Anti-Mindreading: Running water can block telepathy. Apparently, so can some opiates, in addition to having a more broad-spectrum transient depowering effect.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read:
  • When Astrid suggests Stephen's telepathy is awesome, he points this out by citing how one guy was wondering if he had crabs.
  • Cara hearing her father thinking "We're better off without you." Probably every Tomorrow Person except Stephen has heard that one from his family, and that's because he never told them.
• Artistic License – Biology: Somehow — the series never explains precisely how — sampling a Tomorrow Person's DNA to duplicate their powers takes that DNA and the associated powers away from the donor. It's also implied that the effect is temporary for both people, usually.
• Artistic License – Law: "Brother's Keeper" makes use of the urban myth about undercover cops not being allowed to lie if directly asked if they're with law enforcement.
• Bad Boss:
  • Neither Jedikiah nor The Founder have any compunction about killing "Homo Superior" (HS) Ultra personnel for even the slightest infractions. We have yet to see if their human agents get the same treatment.
  • It is shown they don't have any compunction about killing civilians for the sole reason they had contact or seen the powers of HS.
• Battle Couple: Cara and John. They spar particularly well with each other.
• Big Bad: As in the 1970s show, Jedikiah is this. However, in this reboot, it does not appear that he is anything more than an ordinary human being, abilities-wise.
• Birds of a Feather: Cara mentions that something about Tomorrow People's powers causes them to find each other and congregate. The New York group has members from all over.
• Butt-Monkey: Russell. In general, when something goes awry, it's because Russell happens to be involved somehow. As one example, Russell accidentally brings Jedikiah Price back to the Tomorrow People's lair.
• Category Traitor: Just about all the HS working for Ultra are considered this. Kurt sold out the Tomorrow People and led to three dead and more injured. And one of Jedikiah's bosses is an HS who just wants to be on the winning side.
• The Chains of Commanding: John has had to make some tough calls as The Leader of the Tomorrow People. As has Cara upon her taking up the mantle.
• The Chessmaster: Jedikiah Price. He has spent literally years planning to remove The Founder (Bathory) as an obstacle to his long-term goals, whatever they may be.
• The Chosen One:
  • Stephen. He has abilities the other Tomorrow People lack, such as the ability to slow or stop time, as well as to exert his powers in a building in which Tomorrow People should not be able to exercise them. He has also shown the ability to override a power-depression cuff to be able to signal Cara for help. Lampshaded in-verse when Kurt snarkily calls him by this appellation.
  • Earlier, pre-series, John was this for Jedikiah. He was intended to be the most ruthless Ultra agent yet trained, and was even successfully able to kill another person without coming afoul of the Restraining Bolt. All so he would kill The Founder.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Stephen has a tendency to act like this, which gets him in trouble from time to time. As one example, he insists that John's strictures about going "topside" are dangerous and disregards them in order to save Irene's life, even at the risk of exposing the Tomorrow People.
• *Click* Hello: John, to Jedikiah just as Jedikiah has started strangling Morgan.
• Continuity Nod: Paying homage to the 1970s series in these examples:
  "We're called Tomorrow People, and we didn't choose the name, I swear."
  "You, my friend, are a Homo superior." "We didn't pick that name either."
  And now, "jaunting" as a term for a fighting match to settle disputes without contesting the leadership.
  "Sap" is a slur borrowed from the original show. Jedikiah considers it "disrespectful". Partly because The Founder coined it..
• Cut Short: The last several minutes of "Son of Man" (the finale) are devoted to setting up a second season that didn't come. Jedikiah restored John's powers at the cost of his memory and was using him as the first of a line of paranormal super-soldiers, intending to recruit the other Tomorrow People. Meanwhile, the ranks of the Tomorrow People had swelled, prompting them to take over Ultra's old facility as their new lair.
• Deadpan Snarker: TIM has a finely-honed sense of sarcasm for a computer.
• Differently Powered Individuals: The species is Homo Superior. "Tomorrow People" is used variably as a reference to members of the species or to the faction opposing Ultra. The term "paranormal" has started cropping up as well. The term "break-out" usually refers to any newly-discovered Tomorrow Person.
• Disappeared Dad: Roger Price ran out on his family to protect them from his escalating fight against Ultra. He allowed himself to be shot and apparently killed by John in order to access the Limbo dimension.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The slow and painful process of 'breaking out' (i.e becoming a Tomorrow Person) which just happens to occur in one's teenage years...
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Stephen decides to do this, working for Jedikiah while secretly reporting back to Cara and John. Jedikiah thinks he's a double agent but he's gambling on Stephen one day leading him to the Tomorrow People and Stephen overheard him, so really its a matter of who maneuvers who, until Jedikiah finally cuts the crap and acknowledges that Stephen has, in fact, been working as a double agent when they both meet in the chamber containing Roger Price's body.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Hillary tried to get Stephen and Astrid killed to advance her own position within Ultra. Then a bit later in the same episode suddenly she's sympathetic to one paranormal's superhero complex. And Stephen's starting a relationship with her. It turns out she's The Mole for The Founder. But then she was only doing it to "protect" Stephen.
  • Russell betrays Roger to his death and Stephen swears that things "aren't finished" between them. That lasts all of ten minutes.
  • John, who has convinced the Tomorrow People that Roger is setting up a Refuge for them, is revealed to have actually shot and, as far as he knows, killed Roger on Jedikiah's orders years previous. Although the rest of the Tomorrow People feel betrayed and vote to remove John a leader, Stephen simply shrugs off this revelation and carries on working with John.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The fugitive Tomorrow People have holed up in an abandoned subway station and made it over into a living space, complete with a stolen A.I. computer.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Jedikiah's is a truly horrifying example of Kick the Dog. He tells a turncoat Homo Superior You Have Failed Me, admits he's going to kill him, gives the HS a gun to attempt to kill the sociopathic sap first, smirks as the shutdown engages, then nonchalantly takes the gun back and shoots the HS in the back of the head.
  • Stephen's makes you feel sorry for the guy. He winds up in between a married couple, to which the husband rather strenuously objects. And he very obviously has no idea how he did it.
  • "The Founder" bowls on into Ultra, takes charge, and shows no compunction about having a Tomorrow Person killed. And as for Ultra's Homo Superiors? If displeased with one he'll casually yank out their access port and leave them for dead on the floor.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Jedikiah seems to have genuine feelings for Morgan, enough that he is willing to give up Ultra intel to the Tomorrow People, help John escape Ultra custody and send her into hiding with the Tomorrow People in order to keep her safe. He also seems to have genuine regrets over how things played out with John.
  • And despite everything, he honestly loved his brother to the extent he tried to warn him to leave. He also has his body preserved and frozen.
  • The normal brother of a pair of identical twin assassins, despite being a killer for hire, isn't willing to sell out his HS brother to gain his powers. In fact, he seems insulted by the notion.
  • The Founder loved his daughter, despite everything he did being enough to drive her into wanting to kill him herself.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Averted with Julian. He throws his second-in-command (of sorts), who seems to have an attachment to him, at Stephen so he can get away.
  • Jedikiah will kill anyone deemed a threat to Ultra's agenda but he won't tolerate his agents gloating about it. Especially not a paranormal agent when it comes to the death of a human.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Inverted with Jedikiah. He's a geneticist and he's definitely evil but he's devoted to helping Homo Sapiens humans come out on top against Homo Superior.
• Evolutionary Levels: The entire premise revolves around "the next step in human evolution".
• Explosive Leash: Jedikiah plants one up Julian's sinus cavity to ensure that he devotes his full attention to capturing the Tomorrow People. He decides to disarm it at the last minute but Julian, in the lair, was too far underground for the disarm signal to reach him.
• Face–Heel Turn: Natalie, in spades. Originally she was apparently just one of many Tomorrow People, but as soon as she learned about Roger Price's return, and what the "new and improved" Ultra is doing, she lets her Fantastic Racism run rampant and is completely un-bothered at the planned mass murder of millions of Homo Sapiens.
• Failure Montage: One episode has Stephen attempting to access "Limbo" by trying to learn to stop time whilst teleporting. We get a nice montage of him and John trying to work that out, before concluding that they need a new approach.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: Stephen and Cara use this gambit to dodge being caught by Ultra's mooks.
• Faking the Dead: Jedikiah fakes Morgan's murder to protect her from the Founder.
• False Friend: Natalie is this. She causes things to escalate in the final arc of the season to save her own ass after she pressed some of them into taking the tracer in the first place. She openly challenged Roger, held Luka hostage, and convinced Russell to betray them. She makes it bluntly clear she doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but herself. She led a team of annex agents down the lair with the express intention of killing Cara. When Russell gets in the way she flat-out says he's on his own.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Goes both ways. Ultra obviously sees the Tomorrow People as a threat to the human species to be eliminated, while the Tomorrow People hold themselves apart from "saps", i.e., normal humans. One of the reasons Stephen won't stay with them is because he won't separate from his family.
  • Jedikiah seems to be an Expy of racists who nonetheless have a secret friend or lover of the group they hate.
  • It's harder to tell if Hillary Cole really believes, or if she's just opportunistically looking for a way to get rid of Stephen. She certainly holds no love for non-paranormals, though.
  • Hell, even some of the Tomorrow People are as bad. When they learn getting to the refuge would mean the death of just about every other human on the planet, a few of them are more than okay with that and defect.
• Forgot About His Powers: A lot of Stephen's problems could be solved if he remembered he could stop time to get in and out before he gets into trouble, but he can't always control it. It's usually triggered by extreme emotional surges.
• Generation Xerox: Despite Roger Price having run out on his family when Stephen was very young, Stephen turned out exactly like him. He's got his father's drive to protect people and shares his advanced powers.
• Gonna Need More X: In the finale, Stephen drops "We're gonna need a bigger lair." when a couple hundred new break-outs show up after the machine is destroyed. They take over the old Ultra facility.
• Hannibal Lecture: Jedikiah gets some good ones in when he's taken captive.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • John was an Ultra agent before Stephen's father recruited him into the Tomorrow People.
  • Hillary does this and tries to kill The Founder.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Jedikiah. The writers can't seem to decide whether they want him to be a sociopathic human-supremacist crusader or The Mole inside an even more sinister Ultra — this week.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: Ultra employs a lot of Homo Superior agents and while some are reluctant to one degree or another, others seem to be fully willing to carry out their missions. This is despite the callous treatment they receive at Ultra's hands. What makes this even more tragically ironic is that Stephen's father supposedly started Ultra to search out and protect breakouts, but Jedikiah hijacked it with his own ideas about how to "protect" Homo sapiens and Homo superiors.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Stephen and John fall into the trap of thinking that believing Jedikiah or Bathory (The Founder) is an either/or proposition. They overlook the obvious prospect that neither man is to be trusted.
  • In trying to prevent Stephen from joining forces with Bathory, Jedikiah skips over the part where he tells Stephen what Bathory wants to do with the machine and goes straight to taking Luca hostage.
  • Russell, Natalie, Jody and others allow Ultra to inject them with something called a "tracer." Only Russell is mildly suspicious of this, and then only for a moment. It turns out that this "tracer" allows Bathory to kill any of them instantly via remote control.
• Instant Sedation: When Jedikiah knocks out Irene in "Kill Switch" she goes down as soon as he sticks the needle in her neck.
• Interrupted Suicide: Cara managed to talk down one of Stephen's classmates.
• Ironic Echo: Teenage John telling Roger Price, "The people I talk to end up dead. You should stay away from me if you know what's best for you."
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Russell's father was subjected to one to get him to talk. He doesn't.
• Keeping Secrets Sucks: Stephen has to keep his powers a secret from Astrid, who witnessed him teleporting away, for her own safety. Eventually he tells her so she doesn't keep running after him and getting into trouble.
• Kill the Ones You Love: Jedikiah was ordered to kill Morgan. He managed to fake it in a way that fooled a Mind-Reader.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Happened to one of John's friends when he used to powers to prevent a robbery. One of Stephen's co-workers attempted the same to have Astrid killed and Steven reprimanded.
• Laxative Prank: In the first episode, Stephen tricks a bully who has been stealing his medication by swapping them out with laxatives. It's the first real sign that he's not going to just roll over and be a victim.
• Leave No Witnesses: Ultra's policy, which is rather ruthless given they have people who can probably erase memories.
• Legacy Character: The Red Avenger mantle belongs to a female HS who acts as vigilante and gained it from another one. Which Russell apparently inspired.
• Locked Room Mystery: It's a mystery to the characters but not the audience: How Stephen manages to "sleepwalk" into a couple's bed through their locked doors, despite having strapped himself down in his own bed the night before.
• Love Dodecahedron: Astrid loves Stephen, who loves Cara, who loves (or at least cares a lot for) John, and also Stephen. And now there's Hillary, who's at the very least interested in a physical relationship with Stephen. And Astrid has a thing for John as well, which appears to be reciprocated.
• Mama Bear: Marla Jameson threatens Jedikiah on Astrid's behalf and keeps a stash of money and fake documents to be ready to run at a moment's notice. Once she finds out about Stephen and Ultra, she refuses to "hide [her] head in the sand" any more.
  Marla (to Stephen): "No! I'm your mother! I protect you!"
• Mental Affair: Tomorrow People incorporate their telepathy into sex. One who hasn't yet is a "tele-virgin."
• Mid-Season Twist: We discover details on the origins of Ultra and learn that John's first kill was apparently Stephen's father.
• Mind over Manners: Rarely practiced, but Stephen promised Astrid he wouldn't read her mind and breaks it later while drunk.
• Mind Probe: Ultra calls it debriefing.
• Mind Rape: Julian violates Charlotte's mind to the extent she was comatose when he was done.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • In the pilot episode, Stephen is seething about his father and to all appearances would have nothing to do with him or the group associated with him. Scene cut to him in the bathroom accidentally activating his telekinesis abilities. Cue instant rhapsodizing about how awesome it all is to his skeptical friend, and all but raring to get back to the group of Tomorrow People.
  • The Founder and Jedikiah have both proven they will do horrible things to paranormals in the name of their respective goals. Yet Stephen's main focus as of "Smoke and Mirrors" is that the Founder is "one of us" and he is apparently willing to overlook those atrocities.
  • After realizing that betraying Roger was all for nothing, Russell is last seen with all but making out with Natalie, smiling and laughing.
• Muggle Best Friend: Astrid to Stephen initially, though she seems to be well on her way to becoming the Tomorrow People's token sap. She and John get along really well too.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Although she doesn't know it yet, Astrid pretty much pulled this off by triggering Hilary's bomb.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: Stephen discovers that Limbo can only be accessed on the verge of life and death and that's what his father did.
• Mythology Gag: Roger Price, Stephen's father, was the leader of the Tomorrow People and the most powerful. Roger Price is the name of the man who created the original series.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Russell doesn't stop to think that Jedikiah is right next to him when he hits the "alarm cancel" button, and teleports him straight to the hideout of the Tomorrow People.
  • Nor did he consider just how bad it would be giving Roger to the Founder and endangering all of humanity. Especially considering that he had to have known Stephen and Cara were trying to disable the connection at the cell tower.
• No-Sell: D-Chips don't work on the Founder because he's strong enough to overpower and destroy them.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Jedikiah is a geneticist dealing with the most advanced genetic science in history, an expert on psionic powers and the technology to track them and also designed the operating system for an AI computer.
• Parent with New Paramour: Stephen's mom starts dating a new guy, Peter. Since Stephen believes he's on the verge of finding his father and bringing him back, he's not pleased about this. Stephen also discovers he can't read Peter's mind, which was later because his mother was blocking them.
• Poor Communication Kills: Jedikiah does everything in his power to convince Stephen not to go along with Bathory's plan to use the machine... except to tell him what it would actually do.
• Power Incontinence: Some Tomorrow People's powers get away from them; this is common in new break-outs. Charlotte had nightmares that would cause her to broadcast telepathic screams to everyone nearby; John told her he suffered the same when he was younger.
• Power Perversion Potential:
  • Cara informs Stephen about the joys of telepathic sex. And later shows him.
  • Some Homo Superiors who engage in criminal acts use the fact that their Restraining Bolt kicks in when they try to kill someone, in order to get a kind of high from it.
  John: (summarizing) Julian pushes the envelope as far as he can. Like he gets off on it or something.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality:
  • When Ultra depowers Homo Superiors who commit actual crimes, they're despicable and wrong. When Cara depowers Kurt, who was coerced into helping Ultra by threats on the life of his mother she says she is perfectly justified as Kurt's betrayal got several HS killed despite the fact that getting the sample to be able to reverse engineer it took them so much effort in the first place.
  • In the second episode, they immediately forgive Kurt for robbing a bank, when it's discovered that his mother couldn't afford the pills for him. Kurt therefore was also clearly justified in having fun forcing the terrified security guard to commit the crime for him, risking having the poor sap shot by the police outside and dooming him to go to jail for a long time as well.
  • On the other hand, Ultra were planning to murder Kurt as punishment for his behaviour, so while Cara's actions were arguably Disproportionate Retribution and definitely tactically stupid, she didn't quite take it that far. Although...
• Psychic Powers:
  • The "three T's" — Telepathy, Teleportation and Telekinesis. Stephen and his father share a fourth ability to stop time.
  • John can leverage his teleportation to perform a brief variation of Self-Duplication.
• Psychic Static: Using your most painful memory to shield your thoughts.
  • A powerful-enough telepath can push another out of their own or another person's mind. Errol does it to Stephen. Cara can't get a read on Cassandra at all. And Stephen's mom was able to push Stephen out of Peter's mind.
• Put on a Bus: Irene. After showing her returning from the hospital and visiting Crick, she's never seen again. Russell name-drops her one time in passing after the fact, indicating that she's still around off-screen. She doesn't show up again until "Kill Switch", whereupon she has one scene with Jedikiah, is used as a donor when he gains HS-like powers and promptly vanishes again without a word about her ultimate fate.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Jedikiah observes to John that he was always "better at following orders than giving them". Given that Cara more effectively takes up the gauntlet against Ultra than John ever did, it's somewhat justified.
  • When one of Steven's co-workers notifies Jedikiah about Astrid being aware of his powers and then checks to make sure she was being killed and him reprimanded, he tears her a new one that they are allowed to keep their powers to benefit mankind and each time a human is killed For the Greater Good it isn't something she should be proud of just because she wants to improve her chances of making the cut.
  • Jedikiah tries one on the human twin brother of a Tomorrow Person, stating that his natural strengths and abilities are nothing compared to his brother's powers. It comes off as a massive case of self-loathing with Jedikiah referring to himself and Roger. Although he pretends to go along at first, ultimately the twin doesn't sell out his brother.
• Remake Cameo: Nicholas Young (John from the original series) appears as one of the founders of the original, more benevolent incarnation of Ultra. He provides an Info Dump about Ultra's origins and clues about Stephen's father.
• Remember the New Guy?: Natalie, whom everyone seems to know, suddenly appears and becomes an important character in the last few episodes of the series.
• Reset Button: Stephen's time-stop power evolves into this in the finale. He uses it to undo Cara being shot by Natalie. It's unclear if this is a permanent development or a temporary side-effect of drawing all his father's power out of the Founder's machine.
• Restraining Bolt:
  • Ultra has power-blocking technology that can shield their facilities or be locked on with cuffs or bracelets to negate the wearer's powers, which is how they keep Tomorrow People from being able to escape custody.
  • The Tomorrow People can't kill anyone. It's not that they ethically won't; their own brains engage some kind of shutdown mode when they try. However, it's been suggested that soon, they may evolve past this little roadblock. Ultra can, however, alter agents to be capable of killing by using drugs to kill that part of the brain. There were only two successful candidates until the season finale, when Ultra manages to produce an entire paranormal kill squad. Later on, it's revealed that the Founder's Plan can get around this when people are frozen in time using his machine. He plans to use it to kill the human race.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!:
  • This pops up a lot with more criminal breakouts. And Stephen gets a little bit into it with basketball and, being a bit drunk, forgets his own self-imposed rule about reading Astrid's mind.
  • Even the protagonists have little to no hesitation to commit petty theft or harassment with their abilities. And considering they're fugitives, we see them steal luxuries more often than the essentials of survival. Let's not get started on Russell.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • Stephen shakes up the Tomorrow People's bunker mentality by encouraging them to break John's rules and live their lives beyond mere survival. While this leads to Kurt's betrayal and Ultra's ambush at the party it also results in Stephen teleporting an injured Irene to a hospital to save her life.
  • Cara and Russell ignore John and go to rescue Stephen in the pilot, while Stephen convinces Cara to ignore John's policy about not using their powers in public and talk Emily out of suicide.
  • John took Cassandra to Ultra in order to save Stephen and defied Cara in front of everyone. Cara kicks him out of the hideout to maintain her authority.
• Secret Relationship: Jedikiah is in one with a HS called Morgan.
• Shout-Out:
  • Charmed - In the episode "Sorry For Your Loss", Russell and Stephen met a girl at the bar who is trying to play a round of pool with "her new rod". Guess who is the new breakout?
  Girl: Piper.
  Russell: Charmed, Piper. Russell, Stephen.
  • Escape from New York - Just like Snake Plissken, Julian is injected with an explosive that has a timer as insurance for their opponent that the assigned job will be done and that no thoughts of sneaking off somewhere occur.
• Smart People Play Chess: Jedikiah taught John to play and John in turn can identify Jedikiah's aggressive play-style with just a couple of moves on the board.
• Suicide Attack: Hilary blew herself up in the Founder's office to try and stop him.
• Superhuman Transfusion: Jedikiah's goal overall as been this. To give humans superpowers. And he succeeded in giving himself them in "Kill Switch".
• Superpowerful Genetics: A "Synergist" is the child of two HS. Cassandra is thought to be one.Stephen is one as well.
• Throwing Off the Disability: Cara was deaf before breaking out but fully gained her hearing the moment her powers manifested.
• Took a Level in Jerkass:
  • Stephen for an episode.
  • John for the same episode: Whilst Jerkass is pretty much his default state in the early episodes, he takes it to a new level by humiliating a temporarily powerless Stephen in revenge for sleeping with Cara (while, as we later learn, keeping quiet about the fact that he shot Stephen's dad).
  • Cara, after becoming the The Leader of the Tomorrow People, as she soon finds the pressure to be something she has yet to become accustomed to. She even hired an assassin to kill Jedikiah and read Stephen's mind without his permission.
• Trickster Twins: A very sinister pair, they operate as tag-team assassins. One has powers and gains them access to their targets, the other is straight human and kills the targets.
• Truth in Television: The show gets correct that identical twins with 100% identical genes can still have different expressions of those genes, causing them to be biologically different. In this case, one of a set of identical twins is a Tomorrow Person, his brother is human.
• Twin Telepathy: A literal case, one of a pair of twins is a Tomorrow Person and can hear his human brother's thoughts, even when they're both under power-damping restraints.
• Vancouver Doubling: As of the second episode, the series was filmed in Vancouver, which stood in for New York. Some recognizable aspects of Vancouver can be made out if you look closely.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Jedikiah Price obviously has some Fantastic Racism issues, but he is correct about the problems that would arise from teenagers and young adults spontaneously manifesting super-powers. Which is shown as a teenager uses his power to make people rob a bank and then an armored truck, a rapist who kidnaps women, and a guy who breaks out prisoners from jail cells.
  • Jedikiah also has concerns about what would happen if a Homo Superior mutant were born with the powers but not the no-killing limitation. We've already seen them assisting with murders and robbery alone, in which the HS does the teleporting, and the non-HS does the actual criminal stuff.
• Villainous Breakdown: Jedikiah has one when a non-paranormal twin is killed and his brother gets away. He didn't even care that they tried to kill him, which Stephen noted was out of character for him. It's hinted that he had some plan and they were a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
• Walking Shirtless Scene:
  • Stephen is a borderline case - he gets this treatment roughly Once an Episode, but it's usually justified in some way. Par for the course since it's a CW show, and he is played by an Amell cousin.
  • John occasionally gets this too. Especially during workouts, just like Oliver Queen.
• Weaponized Teleportation:
  • We see two Tomorrow People training in their underground base. During their spar, one teleports behind the other, putting them back to back. The other looks around and taps the teleporter on the shoulder to get his attention, and they go back to fighting.
  • Cassandra Smythe is the most powerful teleporter we've seen yet, able to teleport objects at range including two police cars simultaneously and pulling all the ammo out of several cops' weapons. She's also able to scatter her teleport signature all over the island of Manhattan.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Dr. Jedikiah Price intends to either suborn all Tomorrow People to the cause of protecting Homo Sapiens or kill them. As the series progresses there are numerous examples of his Knight Templar tendencies and Fantastic Racism.
  • Cara has been heading for this territory since she took over as leader. At first she simply wanted to be more proactive in taking the fight to Ultra but as things have progressed she's become more and more willing to do morally questionable things. John draws the line at sacrificing Stephen to use Cassandra against the Founder and making an assassination attempt on Jedikiah. Stephen and Russell aren't wild about some of the things she's doing either.
• Wham Episode:
  • "Sitting Ducks" has Astrid almost killed and forced to stay with the Tomorrow People, Stephen nearly killing his mother's new lover, and his brother about to break-out.
  • "Things Fall Apart": The Founder goes back on his deal and tries to kill Astrid...only for it to be revealed that Stephen's mother is a HS and capable of blocking automatic weapons fire. Also, John leaves/is thrown out of the lair after having a blowup with Cara over her leadership style. (although he later returns to the fold)
  • "Superhero": Stephen finds his father's body and Jedikiah finds out about his connection to the Tomorrow People because of it.
  • "Endgame": Stephen and John try to kill the Founder, only for his daughter to die instead when he deflects the bullet, Jedikiah is forced to run, and thus Stephen no longer has as much protection as before.
  • "Modus Vivendi": Hillary is revealed to be The Mole.
  • "A Sort of Homecoming": Rather literally, given what Hillary does right at the end.
  • "Kill Switch": Whooo booy...where do we begin? Russell is convinced by Natalie to betray Roger to Ultra over humanity, Jedikiah performs a Superhuman Transfusion and gains powers, and Astrid hooked up with John now that he's lost his powers.
  • "Son of Man": Stephen gets a power upgrade, and Jedikiah somehow brainwashed John so thoroughly he no longer remembers any of the Tomorrow People.
• Wham Shot:
  • The end of "Things Fall Apart" shows Stephen's mom having blocked a hail of automatic gunfire from a squad of Ultra agents using a telekinetic shield.
  • Stephen's father being cryogenically frozen.
  • Jedikiah teleporting into the middle of a crowded street before pushing cars away.
• Wild Teen Party: Stephen stupidly throws one. It ends badly.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Most of the Tomorrow People can't go back because Ultra would be monitoring their homes and waiting for them. Cara can't go back because of an Accidental Murder and it turns out her father didn't want her back.
• You Have Failed Me: If a HS botches a mission they are killed for it by Ultra.
• Your Head A-Splode: Off-screen. How Julian meets his end from Jedikiah's Explosive Leash.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Stephen manages to find his dad, only to be told on the Limbo plane that the Tomorrow People need to find his body in order to reconstitute him.
• Xanatos Gambit: In a rather literal sense.^note "Xanatos" or "Thanatos" means "death", and Roger Price's apparent death is a pivotal part of the show's plot arc. It doesn't matter to The Founder who brings Roger Price's body back from the dead and reintegrates his mind from the Limbo plane. All that matters is that Roger is brought back. Hillary being "interested" in Stephen is convenient to The Founder for almost any reason as well, even if it simply distracts Stephen from being able to focus on keeping ahead of either of the Big Bads of the series.

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