Warning! SPOILERS for The Imperfects season 1Netflix’s The Imperfects shockingly revealed Tilda’s secondary superpower, but despite her seemingly abrupt resurrection, Tilda’s immortality should not really come as a surprise. A superhero show like fellow Netlix original The Umbrella Academy, The Imperfects instead takes inspiration from mythical creatures such banshees, succubi, and chupacabras. The proclaimed “coming-of-rage” series is created by Dennis Heaton and Shelley Eriksen.
The Imperfects follows Tilda Weber (Morgan Taylor Campbell), Juan Ruiz (Iñaki Godoy), and Abbi Singh (Rhianna Jagpal), as the three develop superpowers from treatment of the fictional disorder AGDS. Each of the trio and others members of the AGDS treatment program has a different reaction to the stem cells administered by mad scientist Alex Sarkov (Rhys Nicholson), resulting in unique superpowers. While Tilda develops hypersensitive hearing and sonic screams, a later test subject of Sarkov’s without AGDS named Doug (Max Lloyd-Jones of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian), develops extremely powerful regeneration granting near immortality which is later transferred to Celina Martin’s Hannah Moore after she is shot in the chest. When Tilda is shot by Sarkov in The Imperfects‘ penultimate episode, she discovers she can regenerate similarly to Doug.
While both Tilda and Abbi are surprised to discover Tilda’s super healing, Tilda’s secondary power actually makes sense in conjunction with her first. Compared to Abbi and Juan, Tilda was the only one that suffered from a severe side effect from their powers as she was forced to wear noise-canceling headphones to alleviate her hyperacusis, an oversensitivity to loud noises. Abbi and Juan learn to control their powers throughout the series as they use them more and more. Dr. Sydney Burke, Designated Survivor‘s Italia Ricci, is able to understand and overcome her nightmares and willingly transform into her alter-ego, Isabel Finch (Kyra Zagorsky).
Why Tilda’s Regeneration Is Different From Doug and Hannah’s
Tilda’s hearing is shown to be so sensitive that everyday sounds at normal volume will pain her. She wears her headphones and drinks heavily to dull the constant barrage of sounds. The fact that Tilda is not completely deaf by the season finale of The Imperfects hints that her super healing has constantly been in effect to heal her acutely tuned ears. Unfortunately for Doug and Hannah, Sarkov’s new stem cells come with a severe side effect for their immortality, which is constant pain from the injury — despite a healing power on par with Wolverine. Tilda’s regeneration doesn’t have the same effect because it developed naturally as a byproduct to support her sound based powers, whereas Sarkov’s later experiments failed to produce powers without detrimental effects.
While there is no word on whether Netflix will renew The Imperfects for a season 2, the season finale definitely prepared for such as Abbi and Juan believe themselves to be cured only to find their powers stronger and stranger than ever. Not only would season 2 contend with more powers, but there is so much to explore with Sarkov, Dr. Burke, and the mysterious Flux organization. The Imperfects is a hit with casual audiences and continues to cement itself in Netflix’s global Top 10 list, as it gains in popularity like Netflix’s The Sandman.