“Heroes” - Kindred
Lost?
I don’t know what it is about this season (maybe the sophomore slump?) but I’m just not digging it this year. If it weren’t for the superpowers and colorful, flashy , and incredibly easy-to-watch cinematography, I’d probably be bailing right now. The storylines are either unfocused and all over the place, or they’re not going anywhere. Out of the five stories that were continued from the last two episodes, only two of them progressed at all, despite the fact the the other three dominated the running time. The return of Sylar was minorly underwhelming, and I don’t really know who was looking forward to Nikki and the kid coming back. More after the jump…
Hiro did some more stuff in Japan, though I’m not sure what the point of all of this is. It seems to me like they’re just trying to stall and don’t have anything for him, or Ando especially, to do. Ando all of a sudden is back in Japan, somehow with his old job back, like nothing happened, even though he witnessed a murder a week ago? Overlooking the fact that that’s quite possibly the least plausible thing that this show about superheroes has ever tried to put over on us, they have nothing better to do with him than have him receive Hiro’s letters, “Marty McFly”-”Back to the Future II”-style? And have him read it as narration? It was almost like they were trying to recap the story for people who haven’t watched the last two weeks. Hiro stayed behind to play Sancho Panza. At the end, the status quo wasn’t changed.
Maya and the other guy hit a minor glitch on their way to America, but are still on their way to America, now with a car. At the end, the status quo wasn’t changed.
Peter robbed a bookie, but he isn’t planning on looking at his identity box or doing anything to change where he is right now. At the end, the status quo wasn’t changed.
Mohinder is working for the company, and they’re watching his every move…. sometimes. At the end the status quo wasn’t changed. I guess you could say that he served as an impetus for a big plot development with HRG, but that goes into the HRG/Claire story.
I didn’t understand why Claire felt the need to make excuses to that creepy kid about her toe, but not grill him about staring at her through her window. He then proceeded to rudely try to out her in class as a freak worthy of Larry David’s book, and she, in quite possibly the stupidest way to hide whom he was talking about, stormed out of class, surprisingly without a word from the teacher. It was all kosher though, because she was allowed (presumably) to go hang out outside of school and cry, and, it appears, forgive the kid when she found out he had her real dad’s power. In fact, they cut class (because who needs school when you can fly?!) and had a great picnic on the beach (which oddly enough had geese, and not seagulls, walking around and in the water), where he told her that some evil guy with horn-rimmed-glasses kidnapped him. Wouldn’t it be crazily ironic if they found out that Nathan was his dad too, considering all the people assuming that Claire and Peter would get together last year, even though he was in his 20s and she was in high school? In the end though, it added a nice dimension to this relationship between her and HRG, especially with the new painting that was discovered.
I’m afraid that these painting reveals are going to be handled like when the terrorist has multiple bombs on 24. On that show, the writers never seem to have a master plan, but they announce a certain number of bombs that the bad guys have, at the beginning of the season. When they don’t know what to do to keep the story moving quickly, they just introduce another one into the mix. The Heroes people are walking a very fine line with this quest storyline; too many paintings found, too soon, and it runs the risk of over-complicating the story (even more than it already is), and way too sparsely and you expose them as the macguffins that they are.
Nikki’s story was pretty sparing: She dropped off her son at the house of yet another former Star Trek actor, and is going to check in at The Wonderland Rehab Center Company. Knowing this show’s lack of non-abilitied supporting characters, I’d be very willing to bet that Uhura has powers.
Sylar came back and ate fake-Candace’s brain or something. Now it looks like he’s stuck in his fantasy world. It’s a cool premise, but I just don’t know where they can go with it.
In all, it just seems like the writers came together during the summer and threw out as many ideas as they could, and didn’t necessarily figure out how to make them work together. It’s all so disjointed and really doesn’t seem to be moving towards anything. By the end of the fourth episode last year, we had the one line that would drive the first half of the season: “Save the Cheerleader; Save the World”. Hopefully, by this time next week, they’ll be done positioning everyone, and we’ll have some sort of idea where all this is going.
