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Heroes: 3x01 The Second Coming and 3x02 The Butterfly Effect
Greetings all! I aten't dead, I've just been having trouble with my modem, and with the parental units visiting I couldn't keep scuttling across the road to the library. Luckily, my internet is all better in time for Heroes and The Sarah Jane Adventures. So while I wait for tonight's episode to finish *aheming*, belated commentary on last week.
First of all: rest in peace, Bob Bishop. Bob was one of the best things about Season Two, and I am sad to see him succumb to brain theft. On the other hand, if no Bob means we get to see Angela every week now, I can probably live with that.
while it is entirely possible that cutting Sylar's head off would not kill him now, I feel that somebody should at least try. It would at least slow him down, and be a lot more sensible than trying to keep him prisoner or make a deal with him. The Company has tried that twice already, and look how it worked out before. However, if Angela Petrelli is indeed his biological mother, I think we have our explanation for why they've been keeping him alive all this time. Cannot wait to see Nathan and Peter react if this turns out to be true. I consider myself Sylar neutral - I'm happy to have him around if he's doing something interesting - so I shall reserve judgement on this plot twist and see where it goes.
Either way, Angela keeping Sylar alive pales in comparison to the stupidity of certain other characters in the opening two-parter. I don't mean that as a criticism of the writing - I was actually impressed by the way they managed to have several of the characters do mind-bogglingly idiotic things that seemed perfectly in character on the basis of the previous two seasons.
For example, I think it's completely in character for Future!Peter to try and change the past by shooting his brother rather than, say, travelling back in time ten minutes earlier and just telling him to shut the hell up. This would have been a less extreme approach, but Future!Peter has obviously seen a lot in four years and I'm guessing whatever it was made Nathan's death seem like a fair trade-off. Now because of his messing around in the time stream, Sylar has Claire's powers and a bunch of dangerous criminals have escaped from the Company's vaults. This is why we don't let Peter do the planning, people. It's equally in character for him to go to his brother one episode later, spill everything and beg his forgiveness. Oh, Peter. Some things don't change in the future.
Nathan, for his part, is crazy like a fox. Maybe he's really seeing Linderman and maybe his brain went without oxygen too long, but either way his near-death experiences and religious revelations have reignited his guttering political career. It's nice to see Linderman again even if he turns out to be a figment of Nathan's fevered brain.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Hiro's adrenaline addiction gets him into serious hot water. After a couple of years spent saving the world (due to his trips to the past, it's been longer for him than the other characters) he finds it impossible to settle back into mundane life. Mind you, I doubt his father would have told him about the safe if he really intended him not to open it *g*. Who knows what deeper game Kaito Nakamura was playing?
Even with the strain between them caused by Hiro's trip to the future, it's lovely to have the dynanic duo back together again. I really missed that last year! Good on Hiro for telling Ando what he saw, even if he can't entirely stop it affecting his reactions. I do think he's making an awfully big leap assuming Ando was the villain up there. Not only do we not know why Super!Ando wants the formula, he attacks in self-defence after Hiro draws his sword. (Also, it's not like Hiro goes over and checks his future self's pulse.) All in all, I think it safe to assume that Hiro did not see quite what he thought he saw.
While this show has too many blondes already, there's a rule somewhere that says speedsters must be fair-haired, so Daphne gets a free pass *g*. She's a fun character so far, and a good match for Hiro and Ando. When I saw him at Supernova, James Kyson Lee said Ando might get laid this year, so I'm wondering if she has something to do with the split between our heroes.
The award for stupidest action of the episode doesn't go to the boys for not looking behind the Mona Lisa, though, it goes to Mohinder. Oh, Mohinder. So pretty and so clever at TV Skience, and so lacking in common sense. Obviously he has never seen The Fly, or any other movie where the scientist tested his invention on himself. THAT NEVER ENDS WELL, MOHINDER.
Speaking of The Fly, I predicted at the end of last season that Maja would turn out to be pregnant. After her hot but ill-advised sex with Spider!Mohinder that plot twist would be even twistier. Usually getting female characters pregnant is a bad idea because it derails their role in the story, but Maja doesn't really have a role beyond angsting about her powers right now. I think it could actually work here, especially with everyone freaking out about whether the daddy is the idiot mutated scientist or the serial killer.
Elle gets in trouble all over again, through little fault of her own this time - I don't blame her for shorting out the entire building rather than letting Sylar take her brain. That said, given her record, I can see why Angela doesn't want her as an operative any more. I'm a bit surprised she's going to let the girl run around loose, but maybe Mama Petrelli knows something we don't.
Elsewhere, Matt Parkman avoids the effects of the stupidity ray, using his powers of deduction to great effect, and gets sent to the middle of nowhere for his trouble. Where he talks to a tortoise and meets a Magical Negro. I'm sure this is going somewhere, I just hope Matt gets back with the rest of the cast soon. If only so he can yell at Mohinder for being an idiot.
I really liked Claire's characterisation here - maybe her inability to feel pain is due to something Uncle Sylar poked in her brain, or maybe it's psychosomatic. Her reaction to Sylar's violation of her is well-drawn, and I was pleasantly surprised to see her biological mother back!
The other surprise here is Tracey Straus. When you look at the time line, the obvious explanation - that she's another personality of Niki's - doesn't seem to work. It's been, what, a few days at most since that warehouse explosion? And it looks as though Tracey has a serious career and an ongoing thing withPresident Sherdian Governor Malden. Hard to see how she could have had time to go to work a high-profile job and maintain her other life as well. Either she's a long-lost twin, a clone, or time travel is involved somewhere. (Or the writers have completely forgotten how little time has passed since the end of Season Two.) In any case, at the moment this looks like an attempt to get rid of Niki - at least for a while - while keeping Ali Larter around. After the negative reactions of many fans over the past two years (not me) it's interesting that they seem determined to make the character work somehow. They've unceremoniously dumped Isaac, Simone, DL and West under similar circumstances. Either they really like Ali Larter or she has an iron-clad contract and formidable lawyers. Anyway, it's all good with me. I've always been cool with Niki, and Tracey seems interesting so far.
Little things, in dot points:
- I miss Monica, Molly and Micah. Especially Monica :(. I assume they'll be back, although maybe not 'til Volume Four. Come home soon, guys!
- After two seasons, the reveal of Angela's powers was very anti-climactic, and what we'd been expecting all along. They really could have handled that better.
- Apparently Sylar does not eat brains after all! Or so he says, and he does seem surprised when Claire asks. I actually am more disturbed by thinking about what he did with them instead than I was thinking he'd eaten them.
- Speaking of stupidity ... Noah Bennet has files on dangerous powered criminals sitting around in a box in his house. Not smart, Noah!
- Mohinder is back! No, not that one, Papa Suresh's bearded dragon. Who was feeding him while Mohinder the Larger was in India is one of those questions we may never know the answer to, but there he was in his tank basking on his stick.
- Um, where is Hiro's sister? Surely she would have been a better choice of heir to the business, as Kaito declared in Season One. I guess she's actually running everything from behind the scenes while Hiro sits in the big office playing with his clock.
- I think it's safe to assume that the guy with Magneto's powers being called 'the German' is a deliberate ironic coincidence.
First of all: rest in peace, Bob Bishop. Bob was one of the best things about Season Two, and I am sad to see him succumb to brain theft. On the other hand, if no Bob means we get to see Angela every week now, I can probably live with that.
while it is entirely possible that cutting Sylar's head off would not kill him now, I feel that somebody should at least try. It would at least slow him down, and be a lot more sensible than trying to keep him prisoner or make a deal with him. The Company has tried that twice already, and look how it worked out before. However, if Angela Petrelli is indeed his biological mother, I think we have our explanation for why they've been keeping him alive all this time. Cannot wait to see Nathan and Peter react if this turns out to be true. I consider myself Sylar neutral - I'm happy to have him around if he's doing something interesting - so I shall reserve judgement on this plot twist and see where it goes.
Either way, Angela keeping Sylar alive pales in comparison to the stupidity of certain other characters in the opening two-parter. I don't mean that as a criticism of the writing - I was actually impressed by the way they managed to have several of the characters do mind-bogglingly idiotic things that seemed perfectly in character on the basis of the previous two seasons.
For example, I think it's completely in character for Future!Peter to try and change the past by shooting his brother rather than, say, travelling back in time ten minutes earlier and just telling him to shut the hell up. This would have been a less extreme approach, but Future!Peter has obviously seen a lot in four years and I'm guessing whatever it was made Nathan's death seem like a fair trade-off. Now because of his messing around in the time stream, Sylar has Claire's powers and a bunch of dangerous criminals have escaped from the Company's vaults. This is why we don't let Peter do the planning, people. It's equally in character for him to go to his brother one episode later, spill everything and beg his forgiveness. Oh, Peter. Some things don't change in the future.
Nathan, for his part, is crazy like a fox. Maybe he's really seeing Linderman and maybe his brain went without oxygen too long, but either way his near-death experiences and religious revelations have reignited his guttering political career. It's nice to see Linderman again even if he turns out to be a figment of Nathan's fevered brain.
Meanwhile, in Japan, Hiro's adrenaline addiction gets him into serious hot water. After a couple of years spent saving the world (due to his trips to the past, it's been longer for him than the other characters) he finds it impossible to settle back into mundane life. Mind you, I doubt his father would have told him about the safe if he really intended him not to open it *g*. Who knows what deeper game Kaito Nakamura was playing?
Even with the strain between them caused by Hiro's trip to the future, it's lovely to have the dynanic duo back together again. I really missed that last year! Good on Hiro for telling Ando what he saw, even if he can't entirely stop it affecting his reactions. I do think he's making an awfully big leap assuming Ando was the villain up there. Not only do we not know why Super!Ando wants the formula, he attacks in self-defence after Hiro draws his sword. (Also, it's not like Hiro goes over and checks his future self's pulse.) All in all, I think it safe to assume that Hiro did not see quite what he thought he saw.
While this show has too many blondes already, there's a rule somewhere that says speedsters must be fair-haired, so Daphne gets a free pass *g*. She's a fun character so far, and a good match for Hiro and Ando. When I saw him at Supernova, James Kyson Lee said Ando might get laid this year, so I'm wondering if she has something to do with the split between our heroes.
The award for stupidest action of the episode doesn't go to the boys for not looking behind the Mona Lisa, though, it goes to Mohinder. Oh, Mohinder. So pretty and so clever at TV Skience, and so lacking in common sense. Obviously he has never seen The Fly, or any other movie where the scientist tested his invention on himself. THAT NEVER ENDS WELL, MOHINDER.
Speaking of The Fly, I predicted at the end of last season that Maja would turn out to be pregnant. After her hot but ill-advised sex with Spider!Mohinder that plot twist would be even twistier. Usually getting female characters pregnant is a bad idea because it derails their role in the story, but Maja doesn't really have a role beyond angsting about her powers right now. I think it could actually work here, especially with everyone freaking out about whether the daddy is the idiot mutated scientist or the serial killer.
Elle gets in trouble all over again, through little fault of her own this time - I don't blame her for shorting out the entire building rather than letting Sylar take her brain. That said, given her record, I can see why Angela doesn't want her as an operative any more. I'm a bit surprised she's going to let the girl run around loose, but maybe Mama Petrelli knows something we don't.
Elsewhere, Matt Parkman avoids the effects of the stupidity ray, using his powers of deduction to great effect, and gets sent to the middle of nowhere for his trouble. Where he talks to a tortoise and meets a Magical Negro. I'm sure this is going somewhere, I just hope Matt gets back with the rest of the cast soon. If only so he can yell at Mohinder for being an idiot.
I really liked Claire's characterisation here - maybe her inability to feel pain is due to something Uncle Sylar poked in her brain, or maybe it's psychosomatic. Her reaction to Sylar's violation of her is well-drawn, and I was pleasantly surprised to see her biological mother back!
The other surprise here is Tracey Straus. When you look at the time line, the obvious explanation - that she's another personality of Niki's - doesn't seem to work. It's been, what, a few days at most since that warehouse explosion? And it looks as though Tracey has a serious career and an ongoing thing with
Little things, in dot points:
- I miss Monica, Molly and Micah. Especially Monica :(. I assume they'll be back, although maybe not 'til Volume Four. Come home soon, guys!
- After two seasons, the reveal of Angela's powers was very anti-climactic, and what we'd been expecting all along. They really could have handled that better.
- Apparently Sylar does not eat brains after all! Or so he says, and he does seem surprised when Claire asks. I actually am more disturbed by thinking about what he did with them instead than I was thinking he'd eaten them.
- Speaking of stupidity ... Noah Bennet has files on dangerous powered criminals sitting around in a box in his house. Not smart, Noah!
- Mohinder is back! No, not that one, Papa Suresh's bearded dragon. Who was feeding him while Mohinder the Larger was in India is one of those questions we may never know the answer to, but there he was in his tank basking on his stick.
- Um, where is Hiro's sister? Surely she would have been a better choice of heir to the business, as Kaito declared in Season One. I guess she's actually running everything from behind the scenes while Hiro sits in the big office playing with his clock.
- I think it's safe to assume that the guy with Magneto's powers being called 'the German' is a deliberate ironic coincidence.