Weekly Heroes analysis saves backpack, world.
Well that felt a little rushed. Hindsight is 20/20 and everything, but I wonder whether Tim Kring didn't miscalculate when he rewrote this episode as an impromptu season finale. Instead of leaving a bunch of threads hanging sort in a sort of enormous cliffhanger, he's instead capped them off in a really unsatisfying way. In my mind, this actually provides far less incentive to tune in for the next season whenever that may occur.
My biggest criticism of the episode is that we still don't have a terribly good explanation for why Adam wants to destroy humanity. It feels lazy to chalk this up to insanity, yet what other information do we have? With his biblical name and explicit references to God and his flood, it feels like the show's writers were intending to create something much grander with Adam. But in the end all we got was a vague speech about wars and plagues, before concluding that the world would be better off without humans. Humans suck - there's no getting around that - but the inner-grade-school-teacher in me really wants Adam to show his work here, instead of just blurting out the answer.
Also ruined by being rushed: the Noah-Claire reunion. What could have been a timeless piece of slap-stick comedy got compressed down into one of the weirdest two minutes I've seen on TV. The dialog was weird, the timing was weird, and the reactions were weird. It was all weird. The whole scene could have been acted out by monkeys on a trampoline and come off more fluidly. What a wasted opportunity.
Other things:
Mohinder, knowing that the world's most dangerous man is in his apartment and is holding his adopted daughter hostage, decides that he can handle it on his own. I've been joking all season about Mohinder's growing stupidity, but this is actually insane. Did he think even for a second of telling Bob about this? Doesn't Bob have guys with guns at his disposal? Or an old black lady who can breathe fire or something?
If Mohinder wasn't bluffing when he analyzed Sylar's blood, we now know that Sylar had a strain of the Shanti virus, specifically the same strain they used to "cure" Niki. This seems reasonable Sylar was held in a Company facility in Mexico but it again raises the question: what was Sylar doing down in Mexico? Why was he saved, then infected, then hidden? Given all the other crap going on this episode, I guess it's probably better that they didn't try to shoe-horn this explanation in. Still, what point did Sylar serve to the story this season?
Unintentionally Funny Moment Number One: Maya to Sylar: You lied to me!?
When last we saw Parkman, he didn't know where Victoria Pratt was. This episode, he returns from Maine, where he evidently found her house with ease. Adam and Peter found her really easily last episode as well. This is ridiculous. Did she go into hiding as a TV weatherperson?
Elle really backpedaled away from becoming an interesting character this episode. Nothing terribly complex or deep about this one: all she wants is her Daddy's approval. Now that I think about it, there's actually a lot of father-issue stuff in Heroes. What did Tim Kring's dad do to him as a child? I'm picturing a pickup truck rolling down a lonely desert highway when Tim's father pulls over, tell his son to get out and says, "Boy, if you don't create a moderately successful comic-based serial drama on network television, you are nothing to me."
Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Two: The picture of Bob holding up a fish. The only thing that would make him any less menacing of an evil mastermind would be if there was a picture of him splashing water on the Haitian in one of those peddle boats.
I'm still not too sure about Peter's motives; i.e. how does he think he's going to rescue Caitlin from the future, by changing it? I wasn't entirely sure I understood this correctly, yet in this very episode, Adam actually confirmed Peter's motives for both his benefit and the viewers. It still didn't make a lick of sense, but to Adam's credit, he did manage to keep a straight face the whole time.
Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Three: Parkman riding Nathan across the country, bareback.
The employees of Primatech Paper are really good at not noticing things. Two dudes stroll into the Primatech Paper warehouse and no-one questions them. Then another dude appears unconscious on the floor beside them with a sword, and no-one bats an eye. If the Primatech employees are in on the conspiracy, shouldn't they be doing something to stop everyone from strolling into the ultra-secret vault? And if they're not, why are they so non-chalant? At my office, work stops for hours every time someone gets new office supplies. How on earth these people didn't notice the parade of men who were armed, flying, or Japanese is beyond me.
Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Four: When Molly cant find a person it sounds like someone trying to start an engine that won't turn over. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick.
For everyone sitting on the edge of their seat, anxiously waiting to find out the fate of Micah's backpack, you can sleep easy now. It's OK. I have nothing else to say about this subplot.
Ok, one thing. If a building explodes while Niki's in it, and no-one's around to care, does it make a sound?
Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Five: "Sylars gone; my dad is going to kill me."
Special Cliffhanger of next season's Heroes Analysis!:
Sylar will discover that his powers, impressive though they may be, can be enhanced with the power of spinach. He uses this knowledge to defend his willowy girlfriend from the local town bully.
Luggage Sets...
ReplyI found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you....
The thing I hated most about this season is the continuation of universal solutions to almost any problem, leaving every single conflict or cliffhanger completely uninteresting. Now that we know Claire's, Adam's, and possibly Peter's blood can cure/heal/revive anyone, it will no longer EVER matter if a character dies or is horribly injured. It was bad enough when soap operas and X-Men comics started doing this kind of crap, I thought Heroes would have learned a few lessons about how not to piss of your fans.
ReplyThere need to be way more stringent rules and constraints on some of these powers and technologies, or else all tension, drama, suspense, will be lost forever.
Never mind the fact that Niki could have easily crawled under the burning timber blocking her path.
ReplyDamn... a lot of my post got messed up.
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As stupid as it was of the company to shoot Nathan Petrelli in public, it was even more stupider of Petrelli to do all that speechifying at the podium. The guy... is able... to fly. A party trick like that is its own introduction. Just whizz up >overThat'sright before your very freakin eyes, man
ReplyI can't understand burying Adam. Sure he doesn't have anything besides immortality but if a fricken zombie can dig through a grave then Adam could. Since he doesn't have to eat or breathe he can just spend his entire time smashing the coffin open and digging up. Burying him in concrete. Since he seems to be the same as Claire you could just bury him up to his head and drain him of blood.
Reply*lack and not like (never post at 1H30 AM)
ReplyYet another moment of stupidty in the show. In every episode we hear " no more secret, we'll going to be honnest now". Every next episode people start to hide things AGAIN and bad stuff happen. People don't learn.
ReplySo here come our heroes going to tell the truth to the world. The compagny knows it, how do they act? They kill them in the middle of a press conference. If I'm a stupid tv-watcher, I now know that what that guy was about to say is really important. The compagny has no style, or brain really. They could have come down to Nathan and Co and say " well it's not a good reason to tell for X,Y,Z reasons ". Then if he refuse, having Mother Petrelli comme to them and try to talk them out of it. The if he refuse a "Listen, if you'r going to go public some things might happen to your health" seems a good warning. Then while he think you can kill them from a " heart attack" or wipe thier memory out. But no, the compagny decides to shoot them in public. Wouldn't at been simplier to wait they go public, abduct them, shoot them with virus, ask them to prove what they say, and then discredit them ? At the VERY least kill them BEFORE the press conferance.
For an illuminati-like organization, the compagny like some real intelligence and style.
I can't wait till Adam returns. Sure he's buried underneath several feet of dirt in a coffin with a concrete shell, but his imprisionment seems nothing less than temporay considering he has nothing better to do than punch his regenerating fist at his confines again and again.
ReplyAlso, I was expecting some sinister link between Bob and Adam to be revealed. I thought it was all too convenient that Peter, a man with unlimited power, and Adam, an immortal criminal mastermind with a genocidal fantasies, were jailed side by side with minimal surveillance. They apparently have cameras everywhere except they neglect to install ones monitoring the movements of two potentially dangerous men? They seemed to have no idea Peter was spitting his "no power pills" in the toilet or have a clue Peter and Adam were hatching a "great escape then torment our captors" plan. Despite the fact they were talking loudly through a shared air vent. No listening devices? cameras? seems unlikely. But it also seems like all the other retarded plot holes this season.
Anyhoo, I hold hope it wasn't a plot hole and actually Bob was ensuring Adam's escape so he could off the other board members and then release the plague and arouse no sus**cion on himself. Bob having Mohinder shuffle around for a cure was so Bob could be protected from the super plague and he could pick and choose who would survive the epidemic.
But one thing I didn't get was why they went through all this hubbub about Claire's regenerative blood and going through needlessly difficult means to get some when they had a guy with the same powers locked up for 30 years. They never thought to drain him dry during that time? The guy regenerates in seconds. They could have gallons of cure-all blood in hours. An entire lake of blood after 30 years if they did it on the regular.
Meh, that kinda thing just pissed me off. I'm hoping the 3rd season is better.
Well, Mrs. Petrelli seems to know damn near everything about what's going on. And she saw Peter die from a glass shard in the head and then get back up from it once he was healed, so I guess she knows how to kill super-people.
ReplyI also wondered about the shoot him in the head thing. They seem so sure that it works, but how do they know? The only way they could possibly know that is if there was another immortal healing character in the past that they had done that with and it worked.
ReplyAs far as Adam buried alive I was actually a little dissappointed because I had this flash when Hiro dissappeared with him that they were going to cut to Adam lying on the ground. He rubs his head and sits up and says "what happened?" Then he turns around gets this "Oh shit" expression on his face and the camera pulls back and what does he see? A dinosaur. A FUCKING DINOSAUR!!! Human race got you down, asshole? How ya like me now bitch?
ReplyBut buried alive is OK too, I guess.
Good point on the "old hole in the brain is the only way to kill him." Peter had a glass hard through his head and whn that was removed he regenrated. I really wish Kring and the team would get their shit straight. All these episodes this season didn't have me saying "Oh my god. . . !" but "what? that makes no sense?" Maybe that worked for being John Malkovich but not Heroes. It all strated with the ultimate mind dump of season ones' finale. Awful.
ReplyAnother thing, what kind of Company is Dr. werner Brandes running here? The security is inexcusabel, and no one montorint the camera's. Even my HS had someone doing that. You would think after Marty Bishop broke into his toy company 15 years ago he would no better.
Could peter have saved nathan by pouring his own blood onto nathans bullet wounds? Since he has Claire's and Adam's powers inside him would that work?
Replyi dont get how Sylar "persuaded" Parkman to leave him with molly in his and mohinders apartment, i assumed he was locked up in the bedroom or something but nope, hes flying around on peoples backs and being no help atall. =D
ReplyBoy, I've heard of sophomore slumps, but this is ridiculous. Heroes needs to have an amazing Season 3 to make up for this. Also, I doubt Nathan will stay dead since he has a daughter whose blood could bring him back to live.
ReplyAnd, the best moment of the last episode was Hiro burying Adam alive. That was badass.
It annoys me that Peter is so trusting of everyone. He's way too dramatic and never seems to calm down. He let's his emotions get in the way (so caught up with trying to save his irish girlfriend), not unlike Anakin Skywalker.
Reply"Did he think even for a second of telling Bob about this? "
ReplyActually there's that scene where Mohinder's taking Sylar's blood and he looks up significantly, and you can see he's looking at a hidden security camera. So yes, he did tell Bob about the hostage situation, indirectly.
Not that Mo hasn't made plenty of other WTF moves this year. I feel so sorry for that actor sometimes.
The final episode of the season did seem quite rushed, though it was badass. Especially with what Hiro did to Kensei. Rob's comment about the characters trusting people that they shouldn't have is just silly though, Maya had no knowledge of Sylar's past actions, Peter had no reason to doubt Kensei (although he should have suspected something was up after finding out that Kensei had made an enemy of Hiro), and Mohinder has always been a dumbass. Also, (relating to Brian's comment) why would Claire and Nathan have a father/daughter relationship anyway? Noah is Claire's dad, Nathan is merely the guy who sired her.(That may sound sarcastic but isn't meant to be.)
ReplyI thought Adam wanted to destroy humanity because he was pissed at Hiro. I also thought Sylar lost his powers when he had a ventilation hole put in his torso, so while Claire's blood may cure the virus, I doubt it would bring back his stolen powers. Maybe his original one though. I also think their "shoot him in the head and he'll die" theory is wrong cause A.) Claire did die back in season 1 when she got raped and a metal stake went through her brain. But, as soon as the offending object was removed during the autopsy, she woke up. B.) Noah was shot in the head and died. But he also came back from it when he was injected with Claire's blood. So since Claire and Adam have the same ability, it stands to reason a shot to the head wouldn't be permanently fatal to Adam. Or Peter for that matter. Who also had his brain impaled. But hey, what do I know. I'm just a viewer.
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