0.07
After a very, very long hiatus, Heroes is back!
Spoilers ahead.
Other than the part where they tried to pretend like any viewers anywhere might think that Peter died, I liked the episode very much. We all know Peter doesn’t die, or at least not yet; bets are still ongoing about whether or not he actually will die in the finale. But episode 19? No. The emotional resonance in that set of scenes was all off.
I did understand why they killed off Isaac, and I am sad to say I didn’t see it coming, even knowing that someone was going to die this week. I was betting on Mohinder, though that made me sad, as the actor is very attractive. (As is the actor who played Isaac, who even painted shirtless most of the time, for no good reason.) I would have really liked it to be someone in the Niki/Jessica/DL/Micah group, because they’re unbelivably dull. I wouldn’t've minded Sprague, either (radioactive dude, who is somewhat better this week).
I am not clear on what time-travelling and pre-cognition mean in this show. We have found all of Isaac’s pictures came true, and presumably the comic he sent off shows Hiro et al killing Sylar. (Which seems like an inconvenient way of disseminating the information, really; will Hiro have time to read the comic in advance? Or is it also in the sketchbook, including a “please deliver to”? I guess Isaac saw it work out, somehow.) But we’ve also seen his picture of NYC exploding, and I’m betting that the heroes will actually save the city. (We’ve also seen it in Peter’s dreams, an ability I assume he got from Mr. Deveaux, the old man he was taking care of initially, who owns the building that all the roof action takes place on.) Perhaps some of this will become clear in the next (5 years in the future) episode. Or maybe the time travel will be logically incoherent, like Back to the Future. This will not bother me so much, I think, once I know, whichever way it is.
I am curious if the only copy of the list is the one that was destroyed. (I assume that Sylar, who knows how things works, knows when things are unfixably broken, and that is why he couldn’t fix the computer. Possibly he can’t fix the computer anyhow; I’m not clear what powers are what.) And also why Sylar appeared to have taken Eden’s power.
Very pleased that this time there’s only a week’s wait, not 7.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:50 am
I’m kind of guessing the “5 years later” episode will go the way of Star Trek dystopic futures: “and then they fix the problem and everything goes back to normal.” On the other hand, the Heros writers are way more creative and skilled than I am, so I can hope they will do something even more interesting.
Yes, it was clear to me also that, as hard as they tried to fool us, Peter would not stay dead. My Love correctly predicted that the giant piece of glass would need to come out first. I thought Claire would just need to touch him. But I guess he has internalized her power by now.
Who is Eden? The shape changer? And what’s your guess as to Grandma Petrelli’s power? I haven’t caught any hints.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Well, I’m assuming it has to work out sort of like that. But the timelines being non-linear suggest there’s more to it than just “they figure out what they did wrong, don’t do it, and fix it”. I mean, clearly there was a problem when Sylar killed Claire, took her power, then came back to life after exploding. (Written out, it seems less clear. But I still think that was the original story. He must have taken Ted’s power, but not killed Peter, otherwise future Hiro wouldn’t've known to go to Peter in the subway.)
Apparently in one of the scenes where Claire dies, she only comes back to life after something’s taken out of the back of her head. I had not recalled that.
Eden is the one who can make you do what she wants by telling you to, who killed herself so Sylar couldn’t take her brain. The shape changer is named Candace, I think. I have no idea what Grandmother Petrelli’s power is (or late grandfather, who probably had one too).
I’m assuming that Linderman took Micah to fix the election for Nathan.
This show sounds really stupid when it’s described like this, doesn’t it?
April 25th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
That’s why we love fan threads, so we can blab with people who don’t think it sounds really stupid :-) I think the Lost Talk threads are probably just the same.
It was a tree, through Claire’s torso, in the rape episode early in the show. She woke up in the morgue when they cut her loose. (ML remembered, not me. You have a far better command of the details than I do — I have completely forgotten Eden. Or else maybe I fell asleep during that episode. Sacrilege, I know. I’m sleepy like that. ML is pretty patient with the re-explaining, and I just let the rest wash over me. Until I try to have a coherent conversation about it with you.)
April 25th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Nope, the tree branch was through the base of the skull. She woke up after it was pulled out. (I had forgotten it was a branch.) I’m not clear why she can spit out bullets but not things in her head.
The Lost talk threads are stupid, because Lost is stupid. (I still watch it. But if Jack doesn’t die this season, I might quit. If Sawyer does die, I will quit.)
Luckily, my aunt and her two children watch the show, so I can discuss it with them, too. Oddly, none of my friends are watching the show. Bad friends! My father watches the show, but sleeps through it mostly, just like every show. (He stays awake through the Sopranos, as I ask him which gangster it is every time someone comes on screen. I can recognise Tony and Chris, and that’s it. They all look alike! Same hairstyle! Same clothing!)
I have a great command for random useless details. I wish I had better memory for more useful things, but tv it will have to be.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I was excited to have Heroes back again, but it was gone so long that my give-a-shit had waned a decent bit.
I totally did not buy any of the Petrelli house interactions. They struck me as dissonant and fake. The minimal Hiro-ness bugged me too, but there was enough Grunbergosity to make up for it. Oh, but the Hiro^2 part was promising. And for a last bit of complaining, how exactly did Linderman’s plan of destroying everything to heal and unite people make sense?
I’m awfully curious to see what they do with the future episode. I’m prepared to be annoyed if it’s just a “look at how bad the future is, we must go back and fix it” thing.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
7 weeks is too long a break, yes. I wonder if we’ll have more all episodes at once for shows now, people seem to prefer it.
I bought the Peter-Claire, and even the Nathan-Claire interactions. Maybe the Mama Petrelli-Claire ones. But the ones not involving Claire? No, it struck me false. Maybe it was because they were trying to hard to make us believe something we all knew wouldn’t happen.
More Hiro would have been nice. But next week should be good for that. Parkman was good this week, finally — he’s been so wasted as a character and as an actor.
Linderman’s not destroying everything, just NYC. .07% of the population. Generally, I think the idea is that after a devastating tragedy, people need someone to take charge that they feel will do chargeful things (like, try and round up and kill off the Heroes) and that someone will be Nathan Petrelli. I assume the “but this will help” is just crazy psycho logic. I am curious what future Linderman saw that having NYC blown up is *better*.
You can be annoyed, but did you see the preview? “I’m the president of the United States. I’m the most special person in the world.” How can that episode be anything but amazing? I
Question: who the hell is running *against* Nathan?
April 25th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
About the destroying NYC thing, I’m confused. Parkman said he heard that the tracking device is there and they need to go destroy it. So maybe the big bomb is to get rid of the tracking device so the Heros can be free of the Big Bad Organization. But is Linderman good or bad? He refers to his old friends who betrayed the cause for personal gain (Hiro’s father and the Petrellis?) and how he wants to make a better future. But his means seem out of line with his ends . . .
Running against Nathan = red shirt.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Mr. Bennet also said the tracking device (hero?) was there. I’m letting this slide for a bit, just because I have faith they’ll answer these questions.
Linderman thinks he is good. But I think he’s bad for different reasons than Hiro’s father and maybe the Petrelli senior generation. Nathan I have no idea about. I also suspect there’s more to his wife than we’ve seen.
Well, the person running against Nathan could be a red shirt. But seriously, there’s this whole story about the mob and murders and heroes and a political candidate, and the opponent is missing? I don’t think there is room in the plot for this to be a character, but it’s still odd.