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"Lizards" and "Kindred"

October 9, 2007 12:49 AM

ue to a DVR mishap, I wasn't able to watch last week's episode of Heroes until tonight. And, of course, there was a new episode on tonight. So I'm going to discuss them together. I'm going to do this by character this time.

Hiro
God, I love Hiro. And I really want him to hook up with the swordsmith's daughter. Too bad he's got that whole "maintain the integrity of the timeline" thing going. Still, I think it's almost certainly going to happen. There's no way Hiro pretending to be Kensei was a one-time thing. And there's no way that the girl's stupid enough not to realize what's going on eventually. Also, I think that Hiro's character's coming along nicely. He's much more confident this time around, and he no longer has Ando to lean on--he's got to stand up for himself, and he doesn't seem to be having much trouble doing that, so that's awesome. And it was also awesome the way he kicked those guys' asses. He's becoming more and more like Future Hiro every day.

What I didn't see coming was Kensei's ability. I was sure that when he got shot, he'd be dead, and Hiro would realize that it was his destiny to become his own childhood hero. But, no, in stead Kensei's can heal himself like Claire. That was interesting, and I think it'll be cool to see where that goes. Some people might be bothered that we've now got sets of characters with duplicative abilities, but I don't mind--more than one person has blue eyes, so it stands to reason that more than one person would have any given ability.

What I did find rather strange was that Kensei, after being teleported into a situation where he had to kill ninety people for no apparent reason, decided "fuck being rich and famous--I'm going to be a stand-up human being." I hope they do more with that.

Mohinder
I refuse to believe that the Company's as clueless as Mr. Bennet and Mohinder seem to think they are. There's just no way. They know something's going on. I bet Mohinder won't make it through the season.

I did, however, find the return of the Haitian very interesting. I can't wait to see what happens with that. And is it just me or was there some jealousy on Matt's part when Molly was so excited to see Mohinder come back?

Claire
I love that Claire's only desire is to be herself, even if she's not normal, when only a year ago all she wanted was to be normal. It shows how far she's come. I also love that she's taking such complete ownership of her abilities. She's one of the few people--together with maybe Peter, Hiro, and Sylar--that is completely embracing her abilities. That scene with her toe was awesome, and I'm excited to see just how far her abilities can go.

I'm really conflicted about the whole thing with West. On the one hand, he's a fucking creepy fuck. On the other hand, he can fly, just like Superman. Still, his personality is fucking flat. I don't know what the writers are doing, but there's nothing distinctive about him at all. He's clearly being written as someone that's supposed to be Claire's love interest and someone with powers rather than as someone with a personality that just happens to have abilities. His existence seems forced, to say nothing of his often stilted and barely tolerable dialogue. Still, I loved the scene with him flying Claire away but, again, mostly because of the Superman connotations. At least the writers are demonstrating that they read DC comics as well as Marvel.

Mr. Bennet
He gets his own section just because, holy fuck, he's going to die. And Claire's going to make out with West over his corpse. Fucked up. We've seen that Isaac's paintings don't necessarily come true, but I guess now we've got an idea of what our characters are going to have to avoid this season. I also think that the tension between Claire and Mr. Bennet is awesome--I hate to see their relationship shaken up, but that's exactly what needs to happen. Claire needs to understand what her father used to do and then decide whether to forgive him. And Mr. Bennet needs to decide whether all that stuff he's been saying about trust is true.

Niki and Micah
I guess it was asking for too much that these characters never come back. But at least D.L.'s dead. Now if only someone would put a bullet through Niki's head. Seriously, we haven't seen her since last season, and the first thing we see her doing is making more terrible fucking decisions like dumping her son off with some stranger who bears a striking resemblence to Lieutenant Uhura? What a horrible mother and what a horrible character! If I hear her say "I have to do this" one more fucking time . . . . Seriously, I hope she dies. Hopefully, she's looking for a cure for the virus and doesn't get it. That would be awesome.

Peter
Goddamnit. I saw that coming a mile away. It's not so much that I mind that Peter the amnesiac is confused and unsure what he should do. I just mind that Peter was 100 percent good and true and now he's almost killing someone. Peter and Hiro were the heart of the series and, though I understand that things have to get stirred up, I just miss Peter, that's all.

Sylar
Now this is kind of interestng. Why doesn't eating brains give him the person's abilities? And what happened to all the ones he had before? And why the hell was Candace helping him? And who didn't see her death coming a mile away?

Alejandro and Maya
These might be the new most annoying characters. Seriously, what the fuck? What's her power, exactly? To temporarily kill people by crying black oil? And what's his? It's too close to the Wonder Twins, only their power seems even more worthless than turning into anything made of water and any animal. So far, I'm not impressed at all. And, also, not all Latin Americans are superstitious, stupid fucks.

On a side note, the guy that Alejandro and Maya broke out of jail with had a Conquistadores sticker on his car. Unless I'm mistaken, that's the mascot at Claire's new school. So, I bet they'll all be meeting each other pretty soon.

Kaito and Angela
This is probably one of the more interesting storylines going on right now. I really want to see what happens with this, and what exactly Matt and Nathan are up against. Mostly, I'm just hoping to get more backstory about the Company.

All in all, these two episodes were pretty good, but they still haven't approached the levels of awesomeness reached by, for example, Company Man.



3 Comments


frank x. said:

I like the series a lot, but I don't really expect too much of it to be as good as Company Man. If you look at the first couple of episodes, none of those were as good either. The same was true about the end of season episodes. You also seem to forget that this isn't the first time we've seen Peter lose control of his powers and let the anger take over. Remember his encounter with Isaac. With respect to Maya and Alex, the people who reacted superstitiously were associated with the curandera, which by the very nature of the profession depends on superstition and is more respected than say a fortune teller. Now I don't think much of the characters, but only three people have reacted with superstition, and if I was killed and brought back by a girl with black tears, I might call her a devil too. I'm not saying I like them as characters, but I do understand why people react to them the way they do. I'm actually kind of shocked the dumb American kid acted so nonchalantly about dying and being resurrected. On a side note, what I see happening is that Alex will die while trying to undo what Maya has done. Then you will only be annoyed by one character.

October 9, 2007 8:52 AM



kristin said:

Maya and Alejandro are the Nikki and Paulo of Heroes. They are annoying and one-dimensional, every one hates them, they take time away from the storylines of an already-huge ensemble cast, and (I can only hope) they are destined to die a horrifying, excruciatingly painful death when the fan backlash gets out of control.

In the spirit of killing four obnoxious birds with one metaphorical stone, I suggest the following scenario to the Heroes writers:

Maya and Alejandro finally reach America, leaving a trail of superstitious Mexicans napping in their wake. They try desperately to reach Dr. Suresh, Sr., who is unfortunately already dead. At some point, Maya and Alejandro are separated for an unrealistic and obviously fabricated reason. I'm sure the writers can come up with something, since they have done it at least 5 times already.

Because she is incapable of doing anything on her own, such as avoiding people she doesn't want to kill accidentally, Maya goes to Lieutenant Uhura's house. Why? Maya and Lieutenant Uhuru are secretly related. Everyone else on this show is related to some random person, so why not? Micah opens the door and, believing that the Starship Enterprise has been conquered by hobbit-looking child actors, Maya starts to cry black tears of doom.

Micah falls to the ground. Nikica's spidey-sense starts tingling; she climbs off of whatever guy she is currently banging because "she has to do it" and starts running toward the house. Alejandro, who has disentangled himself from his plot-advancer of the week, also comes running in from the sidelines to absorb the black tears of doom. BUT - he's too late! Micah is dead!

Nikica rips a parking meter out of the ground and smashes Maya in the head with it. The black tears of doom explode out of her eye sockets, all over Nikica's face. Let's be honest, that's not the first time something similar has happened to Nikica. "Unfortunately," Nikica isn't built to handle the black tears of doom, and she falls writhing and screaming to the ground. She dies, faster than anyone really wants.

Alejandro, distraught at the idea of getting a real girlfriend intead of acting out his semi-incestual impulses toward his sister, tries to absorb the parking meter out of her head. It works - the parking meter hurtles directly into his tear ducts. It kills him instantly, before he also has a chance to absorb the gaping hole in his sister's head.

Lieutenant Uhuru comes out of the house, just in time to see the carnage. She quickly digs a mass grave in the back yard and throws in the bodies, Nikica first. She figures no one will notice a couple of missing illegals, but people might complain if they found a dead white chick on her sidewalk. As she throws dirt into the hole, the eyes of all four victims open. They can't speak, because they have been bitten by a deus ex machina, I mean spider, with paralyzing venom. She doesn't notice and fills up the grave, "accidentally" hitting Nikica with the shovel a few times and packing the dirt a little harder than necessary.

What she didn't notice was that she was being secretly filmed the whole time. After the story is broken on the local news, the entire United States of America throws her a parade.

October 9, 2007 10:39 AM



Ismael Tapia II said:

Mr. X.,
I don't expect every episode to be as good as Company Man, but I'd appreciate it if they were all at least interesting and watchable. In other words, I want them to play last season's finale in a constant loop in the writers' room and say "This is exactly what we're not going to do. This is exactly what we're not going to do" over and over again.

The woman that was trying to get them across the border reacted all superstitiously, as well. I don't know if you were counting her. But, in any event, the very fact that there was a fucking faith healer in there at all is ridiculous, I think. Yeah, I know those people actually exist, but come on!

On a side note, the only thing I could think when Alex was in jail was "Kenny, I really don't think you should pee on that wall." Good times.

Kristin,
Your comment was totally worth the hassle of getting it posted. God, the show would be so much better if we wrote it. First, Alex, Maya, Niki, and Micah would all be gone. Second, the second-season finale would be unbelievable.

October 9, 2007 11:13 AM



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