“The Nevers” is an HBO sci-fi/fantasy show set in Victorian London. After this thing called The Turn, mostly women get strange powers. Amalia True, a mysterious widow, leads a group called The Touched. Along with her sidekick Penance Adair, they fight for their own and dig into what is behind their crazy abilities. The show dives into power, identity and society’s rules through a wild lens, making a world that is both unique and captivating.

Meet the characters from The Nevers

Hugo Swan

Oh Hugo — the gruff, put-together fixer who looks like he could tackle a whole gang with one eyebrow raise. He’s loyal to a fault (and also stubborn, like mule-stubborn) and somehow good with both a fist and a diplomatic shrug. He’s the kind of person who hoards tea tins and knows every alley shortcut but will insist he “doesn’t do feelings” while handing you a blanket. Also, weirdly, he hums old marching songs when he’s nervous — or proud? I can never tell.

Amalia True

Amalia is pure combustible charisma — a scrappy, leather-jacketed whirlwind who punches first and asks questions later (sometimes never asks). She’s fierce, protective of her crew, and hides a soft, bleeding center under layers of bravado and soot; also she has a terrible habit of adopting stray dogs and impossible causes. Watching her is like watching someone constantly rewrite the rules, which is thrilling and terrifying — in the best way. Oh and she’ll wear a dress if the mood strikes her, despite saying she never would (contradiction! love it).

Penance Adair

Penance is the mash-up of sweet tinkerer and heartbreaking grief-museum; she’s brilliant with gears, blueprints, and the best, weirdest inventions (pocket-sized wonders that somehow spit tea). She talks fast, apologizes for nothing, and smiles like sunshine even when the inside is quietly breaking — brilliance and sadness in the same breath. She’s awkward but precise, clumsy in a charming way, and definitely keeps an emergency jar of buttons for reasons. Also, she swears she’s not sentimental but cries at shoeboxes — every time.

Lavinia Bidlow

Lavinia is eccentric aristocracy personified — lavish, theatrical, endlessly generous (and a little bit meddling), with a taste for the odd and the philanthropic. She runs salons that feel like dream houses and maybe runs a little experimental science lab in her spare room? She’s sweet, honestly, and grand gestures are her love language; she also hoards hats like they’re small suns. She plans manners like military campaigns but will randomly declare a pajama day — regal contradiction, obviously intentional.

Augustus ‘Augie’ Bidlow

Augie is the gentle, eager-to-please scion who radiates kindness and a faint air of perpetual confusion (bless him). He’s polite to a fault, loves his mother terribly, and has surprising courage when it counts — kind of a “soft at first, steel later” vibe. Also collects weird little things (feather collections? stamps? tiny teacups — pick one), and will faintly panic at the idea of confrontation while secretly practicing speeches. Shy and showy, somehow at the same time.

Lord Massen

Lord Massen is frosty, elegant, and deliciously sinister — the industrial mastermind whose smile comes with a quiet menace. He’s brilliant, composed, loves control like a hobby (and a religion), and makes tech look like haute couture. He reads philosophy at breakfast and gives you a business card that feels like a threat; conversely, he sometimes hums a lullaby when alone, which makes no sense and I adore it. Calculating but cultured, the kind of villain who would sign a condolence note in copperplate.

Annie Carbey

Annie is sharp, quick, and just a little wild — the scrappy guardian with a laugh that can cut glass and a heart that’s way too big for her own good. She runs with a crew of misfits and dishes out tough love like candy, also has a stern “no nonsense” look that melts if you bring a cat or a sad kid. She’s practical, fierce, excellent with a rolling pin (or a pipe — depends on the day), and kind of proud of being the family’s problem-solver. She swears she’s not sentimental but keeps a ridiculous stack of paper cranes in her pocket for luck.

Maladie

Maladie is gloriously unhinged and mesmerizing — chaos in a corset, paint-smeared, mask-tossing and terrifyingly charismatic. She’s driven by obsession more than sense, speaks like poetry sometimes, and makes the worst and weirdest choices with a grin. She can be heartbreakingly childlike one second and monstrously fierce the next (which is, like, the whole point), and she insists on making everything theatrical, always. There’s this tiny tenderness she reserves for certain people…until she doesn’t.

Horatio Cousens

Horatio is the weary, sharp-eyed investigator who smells trouble the way others smell rain — grumpy, precise, and quietly haunted. He plays by the rules until the rules break him, then he improvises in ways that are both admirable and morally questionable. He’s the type to chain-smoke and apologize for it, and also to keep meticulous notebooks full of observations and terrible doodles. Stubborn, lonely, competent, and secretly oddly sentimental about stray dogs (I think he fed one once — don’t tell).

Frank Mundi

Frank is rough-around-the-edges practicality personified: blunt, loyal, and a little tired, like someone who’s seen too much but keeps showing up anyway. He’s dependable in a fight and surprisingly good at small kindnesses (hot soup on a rainy night, that sort of thing), with a face that tells stories and hands that do the talking. He claims not to care about ceremony but will polish a pistol like it’s a family heirloom — very specific standards. Also, he has an inexplicable fondness for crossword puzzles — don’t ask why, he won’t admit it.