Season 2, Chapter 11 - Powerless

So…there’s the end of Season Two. I would say that “Powerless” is better than the sum of the season…the highs were pretty high, but it didn’t drop to the lows that we’ve seen this year.

Let’s start with the Niki/Micah storyline, because it’s been pretty much just filler. The only connection that it had to the meta-storyarc has been the Mohinder was looking for a cure for her, primarily. Beyond that, it’s existed primarily to remind us that, yes, the two of them are still alive, and there’s another hero, Monica, that we may be seeing more of soon. In this episode, the powerless Niki and the powerful Micah team up to track down the captured Monica…and they rescue her. The end.

Beyond that, everything else clicked pretty well.

Mohinder rushes home to find Sylar holding Molly hostage. It’s so nice to see Zachary Quinto back in evil mode, and he really let loose in this episode. Maya inadvertently let it slip that Sylar is powerless, which results in a showdown between him and the good doctor, and you know that Sylar will always win in a staring contest. They end up in the late Isaac’s loft, which now serves as Suresh’s lab.

Bob managed to prove that he is a Grade-A ass. “And to think of all the work I put into raising you.” Man, dude…what did you expect Elle to do after that? After going to Noah, he dashes her image of her dad even more, by telling her that he brutally tortured her to learn the extent of her powers when she was seven. Elle still wants to find a way to please Bob, however, and, discovering Sylar’s location, she hightails it to New York. Apparently she found a teleporter laying around or something, because she made that trans-American trip from California to New York in just a couple of hours. Impressive.

In Texas, Bob makes a deal with Noah. The Bennet family will be completely left alone (yeah, right) if Noah will come back to the company. HRG agrees, and that’s pretty much that. I’ve really liked the Bennet storyline this year, but the resolution was really lacking.

Elle drops in just as Sylar is preparing to be injected with the blood that will heal him and restore his powers. She starts to fire bursts of lightning at him as he runs, but apparently her short range aim isn’t as great as her long range aim (she knocked West out of the air at a couple hundred yards a couple of weeks ago). Anyway, she gets one good shot in before Sylar manages to escape.

The real meat was in the Odessa storyline this week. Leading up to it, Angela Petrelli tells Nathan and Matt that Peter and Adam must be stopped, and even goes so far as to give pointers on how to do the deed to her favorite son. At Primatech, the brief showdown between Hiro and Peter at the beginning was fantastic, but, like I said, brief. It managed to plant the seeds of doubt in Peter’s head that would grow later on. The fact that Nathan could fly created a much more believable excuse for a quick NY-to-Odessa flight, and the scene right after they land was priceless.

Peter uses his telekinetic powers to rip the vault door off the wall, giving him and Adam access to the virus. Hiro pops in again to try to stop them, but he’s no match for Adam and Peter’s combined abilities. As Adam quickly rushes in to “dispose” of the vial, Peter stands guard. Nathan and Matt arrive, and after a brief, but gratifying fight, they convince him that Adam is a nutcase bent on the destruction of the world. Hiro flashes in and manages to “flash” away with Adam, but not before the villain drops the vial. Peter catches it just in time, and uses his radioactive powers to destroy it.

Hiro manages to drop Adam in my personal worst nightmare…being buried alive. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we’ll see of Monroe…to see him in league with Sylar next season would be amazing.

Finally, Nathan is convinced that it is time to go public about the heroes and their abilities. Before he can make his revelation, he is shot down by a sniper. While I really felt like something like this would happen (surely the show won’t let the whole world know about this yet), I was pretty surprised that they capped Nathan. Now, the question remains, will he stay dead? The thing that I hate about the deal with Claire’s blood is that no one has to stay dead for long. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another resurrection next year.

And that’s the end of season two. All in all, it was…pretty middle of the road, I thought. Some of the episodes, like Episode 9, were phenomenal, and in the same league with the best of last season, and some have been filler. But it remains a fantastic drama, and one of my favorite shows on television.

Episode grade: A
Season Grade: B

Volume 3 - Villains

Sylar’s back, baby!

Season 4, Episode 10 - Truth and Consequences

Tonight was a pretty thick episode. There was a lot of stuff going crammed into this hour in the buildup for next weeks potential season finale. So let’s dive right in.

While it was attempted to make Claire’s response to Noah’s death a very emotional, moving storyline, it just seemed to hit every wrong note possible. While I actually like West last week, my typical passive dislike of him transformed into just loathing this week. He’s just back to being creepy. I know that Tim Kring admitted that the romance storyline was a bad idea, and hopefully we’ll see the last of West soon.

And at the memorial service when Claire spreads Noah’s ashes, why would his two actual blood relatives just stand at a distance and let her do all the eulogizing? I understand that Hayden is the “star”, but that really just pulled me out of the moment. However, when she went of on Elle, it made up for it.

Speaking of Elle, my like for her is beginning to slide. At first, she was calm, cool and collected. Tonight, though, she was a bumbling fool. I mean, the whole deal with her fumbling with the keys and then spilling the drink in her lap…here’s a tip, if you’re on a stakeout, keep the keys in the ignition. Just a thought.

Mohinder is really beginning to frustrate me. I just can’t get a feel for him. Is he really as stupid as he is coming across? Or is he really just playing both ends against the middle? Now that he knows that Claire’s blood can heal others, he plans to use it to save Nikki. Then he goes and confronts Bob, telling him that he wants the Shanti virus destroyed, and appears to actually believe Bob when he says that they will work together to do so. Come on, dude. Bob hasn’t told a single truth to you yet, why are you still believing him?

Sylar is finally freaking back. And not wimpy Sylar that we’ve had all season, the real, mean Sylar. He plays evil Yoda to Maya’s Luke, and teaches her to control her powers, so that her brother is completely expendable. (They’ve both been expendable all along, in my opinion.) When she comes to Alejandro to give him the good news, he shows her what he found out about Sylar…that he murdered his mother. This was one of my favorite scenes this season…Sylar actually uses this to grow closer to Maya, and to show her that they are really not so different at all. They send Alejandro packing, but he has no intentions of leaving his sister alone with Gabriel. He returns to confront the villain, but Sylar quickly and easily dispatches him, leaving his run at Maya unobstructed.

Though there wasn’t much of him, Hiro had some of the coolest scenes in the show. It was great to see the flashback to November 2, 1977, where Hiro sees Kensei/Monroe being captured right after the attempted outbreak. I think it’s solidified now that Monroe’s gone just plain loopy. He’s spouting the typical bad guy dialogue about how the world has become such a terrible place, so everyone has to be wiped out. I guess living for 400+ years would drive anyone nuts.

Peter and Adam head out on a search to find strain 138 of the Shanti virus. Their mission is the same, but their motives are just a bit different. Peter wants to save the world, but Adam wants to completely destroy it, and apparently live all by himself…well, him and Claire I guess, since they can both heal.

So they track down Victoria Pratt, who was responsible for the mutated strain of the Shanti virus that is apparently going to destroy the world. After a bit of exposition, Peter pulls her thoughts out of her mind and finds that strain 138 is being held in Odessa, so they head back there.

Hiro is still my favorite character on the show, and he proves it in the last scene. He is ready to strike down Monroe, but Peter stands in his way. Hiro charges, and Peter charges (electrically), and…to be continued. Sweet.

Not as high-quality as last week, but a worthy addition to the lineup. Here’s hoping next week is a quality finale.

A-

Season 2, Episode 9 - Cautionary Tales

…and thus, the roller caster ride that is the second season of Heroes continues.

Hands down, the best episode last season was “Company Man”, a chapter that focused almost exclusively on the Bennet family, and ended with Noah facing death at the end of a Company pistol to save his daughter. So it should come as no surprise that “Cautionary Tales”, an episode which is primarily Bennet-centric, and which ends with Noah facing death at the end of a Company pistol to save his daughter, is the best so far of Season Two.

First, let’s get the secondary story out of the way. Hiro goes back to try to prevent his father from dying. Along the way, he meets a younger version of himself, and is taught a lesson about letting go. I hate to blow over this, because it really was quite moving, but there wasn’t much more to it, besides what is probably the least surprising twist ever…Takezo Kensei was Kaito’s killer. I think we’ve all seen it coming for a while, but it was a pretty big moment for Hiro, which is sure to have some bigger repurcussuions down the road.

Now, the meat. The Bennets are hurriedly trying to leave, and Claire and Noah butt heads. Claire tells him she hates him, before storming out.

There were a ton of twists here that I can’t even begin to describe compellingly…suffice it to say that Noah and Bob end up with each others’ respective daughters (oh, yeah…I called the Bob/Elle thing, too). I really liked the bond that developed between Noah and West. Tonight was the first time that West hasn’t annoyed the mess out of me.

So we come to the big, beautiful showdown on the beach at sunset. Mohinder was the one to put a bullet in Noah’s eye like most people thought, though of wasn’t immediately after the prophetic painting of him with the gun. I was actually really surprised by this. Mohinder shooting Noah virtually solidifies him as an antagonist, and that wasn’t somewhere I was expecting his character to go.

So when Noah died, I was devastated. Jack Coleman brings one of the consistently best performances on Heroes, and I was horrified at the thought that he might be gone. Some may have seen the deal with Claire’s blood coming from a mile away, but I was too engrossed to think about foreshadowing at that point. So when he woke up on that table, I hit an emotional high that the show has not managed to pull off yet this season. And the fact that it was identical to Claire’s reanimation from Season One was icing on the cake.

I hate to say “Heroes is back”, because I’ve already said that a few times this season and gotten burned. I’ll just say this…it’s chapters like this that make me love this show. I pray that they can keep it up for two more episodes so this season can go out with a bang.

Episode grade: A

…in oh, so many ways.

A few weeks ago, Heroes’ Hayden Pannettiere was a part of a sting operation with a group of surfers to free a group of dolphins from a pretty gruesome fate in Japan. (You can check out the full video after the jump.)

The local government apparently supports the fishermen, and so an arrest warrant has been issued for Hayden, along with the group of friends she was with in the video. So I guess we shouldn’t expect any location shooting in Tokyo for Hayden in the near future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Season 2, Episode 8 - Four Months Ago

I think I may have overhyped myself on this episode. My favorite episodes of Heroes have always been the time-hopping episodes, and I expected this one to follow suit. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

My main beef with this episode was the same problem I had with this week’s Desperate Housewives…there was nothing that really pushed the story forward. I was expecting some deep revelations that would resound in what was going on in the show in the present, but it didn’t happen.

Niki is back with yet another personality, which is apparently already cured where we are in the story. DL came back from the dead, only to be killed off again. Maya, (un)shockingly, killed a whole host of people.

The episode wasn’t completely without merit, however. It’s nice to finally see the demons that Nathan is facing…what with thinking that his brother is dead and all. And, dang it, if David Anders isn’t so stinking likeable as Adam Monroe…for a while there, I forgot that he’s out to destroy the world because of Hiro.

Major, major kudos to Kristen Bell for bringing what is probably the sexiest, bravest performance that Heroes has seen yet. We knew that she was just a little bit nuts from when we ran into her a few episodes back, but now we see that she’s a full-blown sociopath who brings a whole new meaning to the term “getting off” on her powers. Watching her character develop is going to be a lot of fun.

All in all, it feels like Heroes is slipping back into mediocrity. I really hope that they can pull it off before the end of this arc, since it’s entirely possible that it will be a long time before we see it again.

B

I thought you might get a kick out of this picture from UnitedHollywood.com, showing a few of our favorite Heroes cast members in the picket lines.

The more I see this strike, and the more I read about it, the more that I’m amazed by it. These greedy corporate [expletive deleted] really seem to think that they can get away with calling the Internet “promotional only”. Even though they are producing original content, selling advertising, and selling shows online…just like they do offline. It’s amazing how stupid they think their creative people are.

Man, what a strange week it has been. The whole strike thing has thrown a real wrench in everybody’s works, so every news story seems to have a completely abnormal tilt to it.

Well, add this to the list. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he literally phoned in from the picket line, Tim Kring apologized for the lackluster offering Heroes has presented this season.

”We assumed the audience wanted season 1 — a buildup of intrigue about these characters and the discovery of their powers,” he said, one of many great quotes. “We taught [them] to expect a certain kind of storytelling. They wanted adrenaline. We made a mistake.”

Besides poor pacing, Kring cited mistakes such as not introducing the apocalyptic stakes early enough, bringing in newcomers in disconnected storylines, leaving Hiro in the 17th century for too long, and forcing an unconvincing romance down our throats between Claire and West. It’s always great to hear a showrunner admit when they’ve made mistakes, and that they have intentions to rectify them. There were rumblings earlier this week that Kring had left the production of the show, but it’s apparent now that he’s still in the process.

This is great news. I know that many have been pretty upset about the direction that this season has taken. Some people that I’ve talked to have even said that it’s turning into Lost, with a phenomenal first season, and a major sophomore slump. Hopefully, Kring will address the mistakes and bring back this potentially stellar show.

The question, however, is when. Just pray it’s before 2009.

Season 2, Episode 7 - Out of Time

What was there not to like about “Out of Time”?

The two most popular complaints I’ve heard were addressed/not addressed in this episode. First, no Nikki and Paolo wonder twins. Hallelujah. Second, the stories are starting to intermingle again. I remember a lot of complaints during the first season that it was difficult to keep up with all of the storylines. That was rectified at the end of the season, but it reared its head again at the beginning of this season. Finally, seven episodes in, the heroes are coming together again.

Mohinder, Parkman, Nathan, Bob and Niki are connected now. As Maury closes in to kill Bob, they all have to team together to hold him off. First, it was nice to finally see Bob flustered a little. He’s spent the whole season as this guy who is always in control, but here he was genuinely afraid of Maury…and for good reason. We got another dose of what Matt’s dad is capable of as he uses Niki’s memory of DL to send her after Bob. Finally, Parkman steps up and tests the limits of his abilities, locking Maury in his own nightmare and escaping with Molly. Niki uses the cure/Shanti virus to stop herself, which, I assume, will be the breaking point for the coming pandemic. And Mohinder completely sells out Noah, and seems to be fully aligned with the Company now.

In the future, Peter is separated from Caitlin, but reunited with his mother. She helps him to regain his memory (I’m still not sure what her power is…persuasion, maybe?) so he can finally become the hero that we’ve been waiting for. We find out that Nathan was killed in the first outbreak of the virus (first outbreak…maybe it comes in waves), and Angela convinces Peter to go back to prevent the outbreak. Before he can return, though, Caitlin is taken away into quarantine, and they are separated. So is Peter going to have to go back to the future to rescue her, or back to the past to prevent her from going in the first place. Ah, the mindfreak continues.

Obligatory Claire/West storyline. He forces himself into her house (creepy). He realizes that Noah “bagged and tagged” him a few years ago. When Noah realizes that they’ve been exposed, he orders the family to move, which royally pisses of Claire. While I’m really interested in the strain that’s developed in the family, I’m needing more from this storyline.

Finally, Hiro’s story comes to a conclusion. I was really digging this subplot during the beginning of the season, but it seemed to plod along and become more and more mundane. Its resolution was a great payoff. I’m sure that everyone had guessed that Hiro was going to be the Kensei of legend for a while now, but the really beautiful part for me was the deal about “cutting out his heart”. I wasn’t sure how it fit in when it was used last season, but it was really a beautiful moment here.

So, in stealing Yaeko, Hiro essentially drove Kensei to be a complete madman. Kensei vows to destroy everything that Hiro loves, which drives him to murder the elder Nakamura on the rooftop (confirmed by Greg Beeman in the latest Beaming Beeman update). And in the future, he is Adam Monroe, the man behind the scenes, ordering the deaths of the Twelve. I can’t wait to see a rematch between Hiro and Kensei.

Honestly, despite my love for this episode, it frustrated me more than any episode thus far. This season of Heroes has been more of a roller coaster ride than any other show that I’ve ever watched. I’m ready for them to get back to ranging from good to great, rather than from mundane to great, you know? Also, I’m concerned about the formula rut that the show seems to fall into. The heroes journey into the future to see a catastrophe, and then have to return to the present to avert it. I’d like to see a change, but with only four episode left before the potential second season finale, I feel like the show is running out of time.

Regardless, much improved episode over last week. A-

It’s been reported that Tim Kring, creator of Heroes, would not comply with a weekend rewrite that would change the last script written into a season ending episode.

Apparently he is now off the show.

There is no word if that is a temporary situation, or if he has been permanently removed. Either way it doesn’t bode well for Heroes.

The gravity of this Writers Guild strke has just hit me.

According to TVGuide, the writers of Heroes are writing an alternate episode to air in December that would serve as the season finale in the event that the strike lasts that long. The episode was originally going to be a finale to the “Generations” arc that’s going on now, but it could be the last episode that we see until next fall.

Man, I hope this thing gets sorted out quickly.