The sluttiest Heroes analysis in town
The big news in Heroes-land this week was the apology from series creator Tim Kring for the slow pace of the season so far. Apparently, the show’s writers “aren’t very good” at telling love stories, and maybe the new characters were introduced “a little slowly” and also maybe keeping Hiro in ancient Japan for seven episodes was “not fucking very bright.”
Those quotes aren’t verbatim, incidentally.
I won’t be too hard on Kring here, because frankly it’s refreshing to see someone from a show be so up front about it’s weaknesses. Nevertheless, Tim, it probably would have been handy if you’d noticed these things sometime before all those episodes were filmed.*
*Here of course I’m assuming that Tim Kring regularly reads this blog, as do countless other Hollywood writers and producers - an assumption I feel comfortable making, having seen no evidence to the contrary.
Which brings us to Episode 8, the dawning of a new age in the Heroes world. According to the omni-present ads, all the mysteries of the past 4 months would be revealed. Will this mark a turning point for the franchise, or has it slipped forever from the attention of today’s ever-fickle youth? I hear the kids talking about that new Kelsey Grammer show a lot these days. Maybe that’s stolen Heroes thunder.
Things We Learned: (after the jump)
The most critical revelations this episode centered around what happened to Peter Petrelli, namely, how did he go from blowing up over New York to a shipping container in Ireland? The somewhat convoluted answer is that he saved his brother, was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Company, escaped with Adam Monroe, then got handcuffed by the Haitian inside the shipping container and had his memory erased. Perhaps most importantly though was his time spent with Veronica Mars, who will now forever be celebrated as the person that finally gave Peter a haircut.
Speaking of Ms. Mars, for a girl who’s spent her whole life in a prison, she sure know how to dress like a slut. Although that does confirm many of my deep-seated beliefs about women’s prisons. Also, how’s this for a prediction: her casual revelation that she’d never been swimming all but guarantees her a watery, possibly electrified grave at some point in the future. At a bare minimum, it will complicate her relationship with The Water Boy, who inside sources indicate will be a character in Season Three.
It’s long been speculated whether or not Angela Petrelli has a power, and we saw a clue this episode: when she asked/told Heidi Petrelli not to reveal Nathan’s “mental illness” to the world, the camera cut to her grasping Heidi by the elbow. Is it possible that Angela Petrelli has the power of persuasion? Maybe, although she doesn’t appear to use it much – it probably would have come in handy during those police interrogations. At this point the only thing I’ll state confidently is that she has the power to grasp elbows.
We learned a whisker more about Adam. He told Peter that he was 400 yrs old, which, if true, means he wasn’t lying about his age when he met Hiro, and also that he hasn’t traveled through time some how to the present. He could be lying of course, but Heroes hasn’t jerked it’s viewers around that much in terms of giving its viewers false information.
Where Heroes has jerked us viewers around is when it provides us tedious subplots centered around tangential characters. This episode we got some more backstory for the Honduran Wondertwins. Backstory which didn’t explain anything that we hadn’t already guessed: Maya kills people with her leaking black eyes, Alejandro heals them. WE. GET. IT.
Speaking of tangential characters, we also found out the specific fates of D.L., Niki and Micah, although I don’t recall many plaintive cries from the fanbase asking for them. D.L. had his heroes death replaced with a lamer one, and Niki managed to develop another, trampier personality. Although I’m all in favor of television characters - and indeed females in general - having trampy extra personalities, this all felt like wasted screen time to me.
Is Bob running the same Company as Linderman, or are we dealing with a splinter group this season? Here’s why I wonder:
1) Last episode Bob said that Linderman was Adam Monroe’s disciple. Yet Adam claims to have been held prisoner by the Company for 30 years, stretching well back into Linderman’s reign. Something isn’t adding up here. The math, obviously.
2) Sylar was rescued and imprisoned by Candace, who was last seen working for the Company. But she reported to Thompson and Linderman. Is that why Sylar was being held in Mexico, and not Bob’s woefully insecure holding area?
3) In Season 1, the Haitian was last seen on the run from the Company, after he gutshot Bennet and kidnapped Claire. Yet in this episode he’s seen working for Bob’s Company. This also raises another interesting question: what does the HR department of this organization look like? How the fuck do you handle paystubs when people on your staff have assumed names and are sometimes invisible?
As you can see, the Company sure is tasting a lot like New Coke this season. Hey, how well did that work out for Coca-Cola? I really should have looked that up before saving this.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Although the Honduran Wonder Twins are lame I think they will be very big later on in this Arch. If not that will be extremely LAME. P.S. Kristen Bell plays a very, very persuasive insane person.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I agree about Bell, and the Honduran’s are basically an afterthought a ton this season. I’d also like to point out, how did Adam teleport in the last episode, at the fire in the camp? I was going to say, please tell me there’s not 2 leechers and 2 flyers; they’ve been pretty good about introducing new powers, why start duplicating now?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:16 am
The sluttiest Heroes analysis for the sluttiest episode of Heroes to date, I think. How ’bout Mama Petrelli not only elbow-grasping, but playing with Angela Petrelli’s hair? How ’bout Veronica Mars impersonating a Tokyo subway fondler whenever she sees Peter? How ’bout Niki doing lines with Guido the Pimp in WeHo? Hot!!!
November 13th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I maintain that Angela Petrelli’s power is the opposite of the Hondurans, in that she enhances others’ powers and is able to restore lost memories.
And @graphmac1: He’s a healer. If Peter can survive being a 2 megaton nuclear explosion, facing off against a couple barrells of black powder is easy.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I felt that this episode had too much cheesy drama and not enough brain eating.
Delicious, delicious powah
November 13th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Here’s what I don’t get:
“Oh boo hoo, I’m Veronica Mars and I can’t go swimming or go to the prom because everything I love catches on fire. Poor, poor me. Oh, here’s your power-be-gone pills . . .”
Peter never asks the obvious follow up question?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
The Honduran Wondertwins will undoubtedly play a key role later on in the season or series. That’s not the problem. The problem is that this season they’ve now been on screen for 40-50 minutes in total, and haven’t done a damned thing. In Episode 1 we saw their powers, and found out they were on the run to America. In Episode 4 they met Sylar. Everything since then has been the same material rehashed. It’s like how in every X-Man comic the guys will explain their powers to the reader while getting in to a fight. That’s ok, because the X-men are awesome, and are constantly punching robots in the face.
As soon as Maya and Alejandro start punching robots in the face, they can be back in the show.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Adam must be like Claire so when the tent exploded he was blown in to bits and spices but the important pars survived and he regenerated. I bet he is also like peter and Nathan’s grandfather or even there real father cut to 35 years ago… we see Adam with a mustache and a half open leisure suite snorting coke off of a young still creepy and depressing Angela Petrelli’s tits while back door man plays in the background. p.s claire should give up on the whole lets save the world thing and just go make a killing doing snuff films!
November 14th, 2007 at 3:18 am
did anybody else pick up on the somewhat ominous line “she has the darkness to kill the devil himself” (or something like that) with reference to girly wonder twin? i’d hazard a guess that maybe, just maybe, she ends up tasked with bringing down whoever turns out to be the big bad this season, either adam or sylar.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:31 am
I actually really enjoy this season of Heroes, thus far. Yes, it was a little slow starting off–but I think things are starting to pick up. I’m super excited to find out what’s going to happen!
And, to cherrycoke, I’m not convinced that Adam is “bad.” He seems like a decent enough guy–maybe he’s matured a little in the last 400 years. I’m just curious as to what he will do with Hiro and him cross paths again.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
What I wanna know is who the hell killed Hiro’s dad.
I thought it could’ve been regenration Munroe over there but apparently he’s been stuck with bob for 30 years.
….anyone wanna enlighten me?
P.S. D.L.’s death made no sense. He has the reaction time to go intagible for a punch but he can’t do it when a dude presses a gun to his chest!?
November 15th, 2007 at 12:51 am
I think jess is right 400 years is a real long time to hold a grudge over some guy cock blocking you !
November 15th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
@Dudetron: Um, we just saw a FLASHBACK episode? Peter and Adam escape in the FLASHBACK episode. Every thing that happened in the FLASHBACK episode happens between seasons 1 and 2. Kaito Nakamura was killed in the first episode of season 2. Adam is still a suspect.
@Mikerz: I think Adam was more upset with Hiro preventing him from taking over all of Japan? He could just try a different scheme later, but his adventure in Japan is the only time he had access to knowledge of the future (Hiro).
December 4th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Me and my friends have determined that Angela Petrelli’s power is superbitchery. Its the only thing that makes sense.
March 9th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
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June 13th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Oh, it was her elbow. I was convinced she was grabbing Heidi’s boob.
Yes, I was a little worried then.