Volunteer Fire Detective and Drunken Pickle have mentioned most of this.
But, I'm going to say some of it again.
I just finished watched episode #OHWHO****INGCARESANYMORE and was, surprised.
Because, yes, it really is getting worse.
Bass said:
I bet HRG gets a call from his wife and leaves Sylelle alive because he has to rush home that instant to watch his daughter be ill even though in two seconds Sylelle would be dead and Claire would still be in the same situation.
I thought this was a stupid, stupid idea. But, the writers came up with a better one.
HRG, ultimate badass, has Sylelle in his sights, and he's going to kill them to protect his "on death's door" daughter.
First, he watches them have sex.
Then he misses.
Just to retiterate:
HE WATCHED THEM HAVE SEX.
AND THEN HE MISSED.
AND THEN HE MISSED A LOT MORE when Sylelle are running towards the door and they have no cover. He missed so much and then hit Elle in the thigh.
Mohinder can shoot HRG in the eye. HRG can't shoot Sylelle.
Rubbish.
And while we're on the subjects of the Bennets... WHERE IS ZACH?
You know - THEIR SON. He's kinda absent... ALL OF THE ****ING TIME.
Then we have Hiro.
Well, the explain that Isaac Mendez is indeed doing a Tupac and producing stuff after his death. I'm wondering, how far in the "can" was Mendez? It seems he HAD to have been six issues ahead.
So, Isaac Mendez was a diligent fellow. Because he only had one unpublished issue (the Sylar-stabby issue) when he died. So he had to have several issues in the can, or it took several months to print.
Except, you know. He was a crack addict. I doubt a crack addict can keep to a deadline and Bryan Hitch can't. So that's a big damn stretch.
But it's okay, because the rubber band of consistent plotting was broken when we find out 9th Wonders is still being published and no one thought to ****ing read it.
Not only that, but it seems the BACK ISSUES have scenes from the future still to come, and no one gives a ****.
Let's forgo the fact that every precog-painter can only paint a single picture at a time, and Isaac was able to write an entire comic book (presumably while on a LOT of crack) and no one's replicated this ability (although Matt came close - maybe going on drugs turns paintings into FMV sequences) - we'll forgo it because the comic is cool.
But the idea that no one cares is idiotic. (As is the whole "Bruce Lee girl" from New Orleans being a prominent super hero in 9th Wonders and it never being mentioned again.)
Much like no one knowing where Hiro went. HE GOT THE IDEA FROM THE COMIC. Sure, he took it and left but... THERE'S MORE THAN ONE COPY IN THE STORE.
And the comic book nerds and the 'heroes' are surprisingl brazen about the abilities that everyone possesses.
First, Matt is quite happy to just blurt out he has superpowers without arousing suspicion. Secondly, yes, Seth Green is skeptical and Brecklin Meyer is 'open-minded'.
But here's the thing: If two Japanese men walked in to your comic store looking like comic characters, and one of them is
pretending to be 10 years old and then another friend walks in and starts talking about how they have
super powers you might, go along with it. Or you might complain thinking it's some kind of cosplay.
Or you might call the ****ing police and tell them to ****ing
leave.
I'm going to try it.
I'm going to go into a comic store and pretend I'm 10 years old, and then have a friend walk in complaining he can't fly anymore and see how long I last in the store.
Regardless, Hiro provided awesome: "Bad man."
It does however, make me wonder how anyone can ever be a credible threat to Hiro ever again since, you know, he can, if he wants to, just teleport them in the blink of an eye, to the North Pole.
In 200000000000 BC.
Also makes me wonder why Papa Petrelli doesn't do it.
A LOT. Bear in mind, Hiro thinks he's
ten years old while doing this.
But then, Papa Petrelli's crap, so I wonder about him a lot. And Mohinder is doubly ****. Any plonker could've realised that the eclipse effect was temporary, but no. And why doesn't Mohinder ask Papa Petrelli to take his powers away? Maybe, Papa Petrelli could say he doesn't want the ****ty skin condition power, but then, you know... HE ALREADY HAS IT.
He has Peter's powers remember? Ergo, he has Mohinder's. And he seems to be controlling it fine. Same with Maya's plague power.
That scene should be there. Mohinder says, "Take away my powers, and I'll help you." Papa Petrelli says, "First, you get me the formula I want. Then I'll cure you."
So Mohinder is trying to make the formula.
And you know what I don't get? Why doesn't Mohinder try injecting the formula that gave him powers back into Flint or Knox (who's surprisingly absent)?
The idea, surely, is that since they already had powers, it might just jumpstart them without the side-effects. You test it on someone expendable and see what happens.
Why was this never a suggestion?
And now, let's change our focus to the two Petrelli brothers.
First of all, Nathan is part-douche part-sensible.
The sensible thing is this: if you regulate who has powers and make sure those who get them are nice, you could indeed save the world. The only reason this is a 'bad thing' is because Peter says it was because he went to the future. Nathan, I'm sure, isn't fully in his dad's camp. I think he's got his eye on the crux of the situation: Peter isn't lying when he says this is a bad thing and he knows his dad is a criminal, but the formula is a good idea and he wants to know how to make it work. Something Peter could've brought up if we wasn't so brash.
The douche part is that he's left his brother in Haiti. The man can fly. He flys him to Pinehearts and he talks it with his dad. He brings Peter with him and says, "Listen to each other. The formula is a good idea. The future says it isn't. Can we please sort this out properly? Dad, you don't want to destroy the world, so let's work it out."
See - his father
doesn't want to destroy the world. So he'd try to stop this. But maybe his father
does want to destroy the world, maybe
that's why he's killing all the precognitives.
I bet the writer's don't know.
I can imagine this being a 'twist' like Sylar not being a Petrelli.
Remember how last week I said Samedi is an awesome villain in THEORY? Well, he still is. But he sucks ***. His brother comes up to him to steal his thoughts, and Samedi
doesn't even fight back.
Wasted.
Also - Peter Petrelli is a NURSE. Not Rambo. Peter Petrelli can't pick up an automatic rifle and go toe-to-toe with a
guerilla outfit and come out unscathed. Not only will he
not kill because he's ETHICAL, but he's a NURSE. Not some bad *** nurse, but a guy who pushed Shaft around in a wheelchair for a few weeks. Before that, he was a trust fund baby.
Obviously, Shaft taught him how to kick ***.
Or maybe the Haitian sucked HRG's ***-kicking powers and put them into Peter.
HRG is so stupid. Pulls a gun on Sylar. He knows he can't die. What does that even accomplish? And Claire has no bargaining position. Why isn't HRG dead? Oh that's right, even if Sylar kills HRG, Claire can regenerate him.
You know, I wish he died in season 2. He's not going to get a better death scene, and this 'cat and mouse game' is ****ing thin.
Almost as thin and Sylar's motivation for doing anything. He's just decided to be bad again and killed Elle. Or did he? He looked like he stopped half way through. (I'm surprised that "season 2 didn't happen" rule trumps "hot blondes can't die" rule.) And why didn't Elle fight back? And why did he do it anyway? He already has her powers.
And Hiro read the comic. So I'm wondering - did he know he was going to kill Elle?
And Sylar might not be a Petrelli.
The retconning here is atrocious. They start season 3 with all this BS about how Sylar is a Petrelli and a good guy, and then they just go, "Nah, not really". What did the Petrelli-twist actually
do for the show?
Nothing. Sylar is in the same position he was prior to all this nonsense, except Arthur has him in his 'camp'.
Kinda.
My friend, Vampire Will, told me, "If Elle or Sylar turn out to have an as-of-yet unrevealed mental disorder, it could all make sense." And then he laughed as I pointed out that if you're relying on characters needing as-of-yet unrevealed mental disorders to make sense of their actions, the show is on pretty thin ice.
Here's something else about the 'hunger': apparently, Sylar's power also possesses the mental disorder of pursuing ambition for power with murder. So does super strength make one a victim of multiple personality order like Niki/Jessica? Of course not.
Because it's retarded.
And then there's Matt and Daphne who did nothing all episode. You know what Will told me? If Daphne had turned out to be completely paralysed so she couldn't even talk (like Arthur Petrelli) - it would be a really good. She'd be justified in considering letting others murder to keep her mobility. And you know what would be beautiful? She'd be paralysed and unable to talk... and Matt
stays by her side and talks to her with telepathy. Matt is the only guy willing and able to have a relationship with her in that condition.
That would've been awesome.
I find it offensive that her having cerebral palsy is such a handicap that she's a villain. Lots of people have cerebral palsy and aren't killers. Lithium, when I met you, I couldn't help but notice that you weren't going around stealing paintings and eating brains. Obviously, you have not fulfilled your destiny. Go out and do bad things. It's okay, you have a handicap. This gets you a moral bye.
I wear glasses. That's a handicap too. Tomorrow, I'm going to kill a dog. It's a moral bypass proportionate to my handicap.
What a ****ing disgrace this 'eclipse' was.
It was a big reset button. Everything is in the same place it was three weeks ago. The differences are...
Hiro thinks he's 10 years old.
Nathan Petrelli now wants to help his father.
That is all. Everything is in the exact same position it was before Hiro lost his memory.
Sylar is a bad guy, Matt and Daphne are still 'talking', Hiro knows how to beat the bad guy (I wonder where Meredith is since she seems key), Mohinder doesn't have a cure, blah blah blah.
**** all has happened. Everything's the same. It's artificial. Season 2 was 'slow' apparently, but actually, no, it wasn't. Stuff happened every episode and the stories progressed. By episode 11 in Season 2 the entire volume had finished. Season 3, we're on episode 11 and actually, we're on episode 7.
Behold! Five ways to make the eclipse worthwhile:
1. This is not the first Eclipse. During an eclipse, people get powers. This is the rule. Instead of bizarrely saying, "They lose powers this time round" (which is idiotic), we discover a new rule. An eclipse temporarily switches off the powers of everyone who has them (except for Adam since he'd 'die') and grants new ones. The eclipse ends and people get their powers back. This happened before when the "Heroes" got their powers. And it doesn't contradict Hiro in ancient Japan. (As I say, only Adam Munroe doesn't work with this.) So, Papa Petrelli knows his powers are gone for a short time (as does anyone else of the previous generation) and decides to try to find the new powered people to win them over. Their spontaneous development of powers might just be the catalyst Mohinder needs. Suddenly, we have dozens of new Heroes about the place, all of whom can be more consistently written than the rubbish we have had so far.
2. No one has powers. Mama Petrelli gets all her employed men with big machine guns (they HAVE them at the company), and tells them to storm Pinehearst and kill her husband. HRG goes to kill Elle and Sylar. HRG kills them. Mama Petrelli kills her husband. Claire dies. The eclipse finishes and they all stay dead. Mohinder flips a coin of fate; he dies or ends up with Maya. I don't care. It's a **** ending, but at least something actually happened.
3. The eclipse doesn't take away powers; it gives the entire world's populace powers. All of them. This begins tearing apart the world. Mohinder discovers the cure. That and Arthur Petrelli are now the most powerful weapons on the planet. It turns out that Future Hiro and Ando weren't fighting over the formula that grants powers, but the formula that
takes them away.
4. The eclipse takes away their powers. Boring stuff happens. When the eclipse finishes, everyone gets their powers back...
but not the power they originally had. The deck is completely randomly stacked. Hiro can't teleport, instead he gets Maya's doomsday plague power. Nathan Petrelli gets Isaac's painting the future power. Matt Parkman now has Papa Petrelli's ability to steal another's powers. And Mohinder now has Sylar's 'I know how things work' power and thus, the hunger. This is just off the top of my head, but notice how this completely changes the status quo: Hiro, the guy who loves his awesome Star Trek powers, now has a power that can only kill lots and lots of people and has no 'good side' to be optimistic about. Nathan Petrelli, who's found his powers a nuisance to his career, now has a power than means he can completely plot is ascension to the White House and give him all the control he needs. Matt Parkman, the guy who doesn't really know what to do with his powers, now has the only power that can 'police' the other powers, turning him into the 'superhero' cop. And Mohinder now has the power that killed his father and all the crap he has to wrestle with that evi, while at the same time dealing with this simple fact: it's the best power he could ever have. He's a scientist trying to work out how superpowers work, and his power is, "working out how superpowers" work. There's enough dramatic irony here to write a whole volume with.
5. The Eclipse was, in fact, a reset button. No, not of plot, but of power. Peter immediately gets his basic power back, but none of the ones he's accumulated. Papa Petrelli ends up bed-ridden and unable to breathe (but he can still do his mind-mojo and leeching power). Adam Munroe comes back to life. Claire's powers work but she can feel pain once more. And Sylar loses
all his powers and has to get them back. This would have the added side-effect of making his good guy switch
matter. See, with Sylar reset, and in a position to
want to be a good guy, he's in the position he was when he became
evil. Does he, powerless and 'not special', truly redeem himself by becoming a good guy and not eating everyone's brains? He tries to do the 'love' power, but it doesn't work. He tries to wait out Mohinder's looking for the formula, but he's looking for a cure instead. Despite it all, Sylar falls. And in a moment of terrible frustration with Mohinder, the two fight. Mohinder wants to kill Sylar so badly. But Sylar kills him. He's killed his chance to get powers nicely. It eats at him. It really does. He bashes in Elle's skull and he eats her brains. He's completely fallen. He had his second chance, and he ****ed it. Now, he has lightning powers. And he snaps. He thinks he can be 'good and bad' and decides to only eat 'bad' people's brains. Starting Knox. Using the fear-strength power, he tears off Flint's head and takes his power too. And Papa Petrelli. And Ice-girl (I forget her name). Sylar is broken. He's trying to be good, but there's too much evil. He's insane. And Adam Munroe walks up to him and explains that humanity is just EVIL. They have wars. Humanity needs to be culled to extinguish the evil. He tried it with a plague, and it didn't work. But he has a whole bunch of other plans stocked away in the company. Like the formula. He knows how to make it kill a huge population of the planet and leave a select few as superpowered gods to protect the smaller, more primitive mankind over. He's going to make Eden again. And Sylar and Adam Munroe will be the gods of it. Cue Sylar + Adam Munroe vs Everybody Else fight.
What we got: Nothing happened, except Sylar had yet another change of heart and killed Elle, something he tried to do in episode 2 and failed because Elle fought back. Matt discovered pretty Daphne used to be on crutches, but now they care about each other a bit more maybe. Oh, and Mohinder discovered he might be a bit of prick after all.
Dear TV-land,
Please hire me to fix your shows. I think I might actually be quite good at it.
Sincerely,
Bass
Arrogant Fanboy #01303-242327-B.
- Claire's situation would have been mildly interesting if we as an audience would have thought for a minute that she had an even remote chance of actually dying.
I know. It's dire.
- Are they deliberately trying to make the villains a nonthreat? If even Mohinder can beat the crap out of them, why should we fear for anyone's lives? I had the same problem when Peter outsmarted them ... they are just not threatening, even in the slightest (oh, and WHY do you put another villain out of commission just so that Mohinder can show up at Maya's and she can have a five second, completely pointless cameo?).
The volume should've been called "n00bs" or "Fluffy bunnys".
Villains, there are not.
- On a related note, why would Arthur Petrelli not want to access Mohinder's deep-seated aggression and use it for his own ends? Instead of saying, "Gee, you need to fix that anger issue," why doesn't he say, "Hey, let's make you even angrier so that I can manipulate you into fighting for me!"
Good point. I agree wholeheartedly.
I think it would've been awesome if Mohinder got worse and worse until it cracked his mind (as it does in the future) and he's in the lab, making a mess, being incoherent. Papa Petrelli sees that he's 'lost' Mohinder and instead of taking his powers... dumps him in the street without a second thought.
That would've been
cold.
Hell, you could have NikiJessTracey say that line for the delicious pun.
- I love how Elle is convinced that Sylar has changed for the better, when just one episode (ONE EPISODE!) ago, she practically forced him to kill a guy. Speaking of Elle, of course she died, she's proof season 2 happened. Can't have that. I'm surprised they had an eclipse ("But what if they remember the eclipse from season two?" "Don't worry, we'll only mention the one from season one!")
As Will has said, it all makes sense if she's mentally handicapped.
Elle and Sylar I think deserve an award for being the most inconsistent and capricious characters ever written.
- I love how Matt is all angry at Hiro and Ando for being in a comic shop when they have a hell of a lot better reason to be there than he does.
HOW DID HE EVEN KNOW TO FIND THEM THERE?
- Also in the comic book shop (easily the worst from tonight): Why is everyone confused about where Hiro has gone? Did they not JUST read the issue where Hiro has to go find Claire to get his memory back, and he's like, "Hey, I should do that!" and then he goes? What's confusing about that?
I'd've loved it if Hiro, being all of 10 years old, complained that 9th Wonders was boring and crappy and wished he was in a cool comic like Spider-Man.
- Finally, the Nathan and Peter storyline was easily the best of the night, but then they had to go and ruin it with another random, 180-degree character switch that hasn't been prefaced by another previous development. A few episodes ago Nathan thought it was horrendous, now he thinks it's great. It barely makes sense - only barely. But it really needed some better development. And I like how Tracy had absolutely nothing to do with the change, thus making her character completely useless.
Good point. I had forgotten how utterly useless Tracy was.
There were some good bits tonight. Sylar vs. HRG was pretty great, both at the store and at home. The prospect that Sylar isn't actually Angela's son is exciting, because that whole idea is just ridiculous to begin with. Other than that, though ... I guess Daphne hugging her dad was sweet?
It was. Kinda.
Urgh. I'm running out of reasons to watch this show. At this point it's like watching a train wreck, one that kills all of my favorite characters from literature and film and among whose wreckage I find cannonized continuations of my favorite stories that completely ruin everything that made them great in the first place. Hey, it could happen!
Oh wait, it is.
My reason? The above 'review' seems to please people. I watch it for you guys. I'd've stopped otherwise.
Then there's Peter the idiot. Doesn't think to use his powers in smart ways but knows how to use an AK? A ex-nurse knows how to use that?!?!
Peter played Rocky's son. It's not much of a stretch to say he's Rambo's son too, I guess.
Anyone notice Hiro buying Coliete's UXM #96?
I didn't notice, no. It was too quick. There is, however, in the background a huge ULTIMATUM poster.
There's no DC love in this store at all, and yet... DC produces the comic. As Megatron would say, "How ironic!"
I loved the episode, though. Except for the insanely anti-climactic death of the Haitian's brother(who should have been dressed as something more than a standard guerilla trooper, by the way).
Best. Heroes Villain. Ever.
