"The Line" or "It's Deja Vu All Over Again"

October 30, 2007 1:33 AM

think this was another decent episode. It was more good than bad, but not anything too special. We finally got a good amount of Hiro, a decent amount of Claire, and even a little Peter. Though I didn't mind the absence of Nathan and Parkman during the episode, in retrospect, I sort of wish they had been there. And, of course, I wish we had gotten significantly less of the Mexicans. They just make me so fucking angry. But the two things that really stuck out for me were Mr. Bennet's story and the fact that the big overarching storyline this season seems very familiar.

Hiro
It was good to see Hiro moving along. It was also good to see the girl finally realize who was really behind the mask. But the whole thing also failed to excite me too much. Aside from the fact that the whole thing was both extremely rushed and predictable as hell, it didn't seem believable. I mean, hadn't the girl developed feelings for the unmasked Kensei independent of those that she had for masked Kensei? It seemed to me like a significant amount of time had passed between the time masked Hiro saved the girl and the time that she realized that it was Hiro behind the mask. And, in that time, she had apparently grown to love Kensei. Therefore, I thought it was really unbelievable that she was then willing to forget about Kensei so quickly--it didn't seem to me that her feelings for Kensei were entirely attributable to her initial encounter with Hiro. I don't know, I liked the idea--Hiro goes back in time and steals the princess from his biggest hero--but the execution was lacking.

Claire
Ok, I'm back to not liking West. See, I want Claire to have someone she can be herself around, but West is just a bad influence. Claire's biggest attribute is that she's kind and caring. Remember when she saved that guy from the burning train station even though she was afraid that she'd get caught and experimented on? We've seen Claire be vengeful and mean--she nearly killed that guy in the car crash--but he had tried to rape her. The head cheerleader's worst sin was being an unpleasant person. Sure, I'd seek revenge on her, but then I thought Claire was a better person than me. So I don't like West's stupid influence on Claire--having powers and being hot don't make you better than anyone else, even if you are Hayden Panattiererere or whatever.

Still, I could buy them doing something to get even with the head cheerleader because, well, she had something coming. I could be convinced to like that idea. But here, again, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, seriously--it was really fucking lame.

Peter
I guess, of course, the real question is who Adam is. That was the most interesting part of the episode to me. It's finally a cool little mystery that's not--at least not yet--a direct outgrowth of the established characters. I like that it's come out of nowhere and seems to be a whole new part of the Heroes universe. I also like the clues we got from Mohinder's conversations with Bob--apparently the Company thinks that Adam is dangerous, so he's either a really good guy or really, really, really dangerous.

The Mexicans
I'm not even going to waste time enumerating how much I hate these characters and every second they're on screen. I will say that I'm having trouble deciding whether I hate Maya or Alejandro more: Maya's wide-eyed, trusting, optimistic nature is frankly nauseating, but Alejandro's just such a whiny bitch. It's a tough call, but I'm going to say I hate Maya more. I can't stand her, in fact.

Mr. Bennet
Come on! Come the fuck on! Wasn't the whole point of "Company Man," the best episode of Heroes to date, to redeem Mr. Bennet and to show us that, though he had once been comfortable with morally grey, he now saw what horrible effects his questionable ethics had on his family? Wasn't it all about his reconsideration of the decisions he had made and the effects of those decisions? Yeah, I guess it was also about how he would do anything for his family, but in the end he sacrificed himself, not others. So now he's in the fucking Ukraine killing a former colleague in cold blood? Come on!

Still, I thought that Ivan's comment about the liquid man or whatever was awesome--I can't wait to find out more about that. And I loved hearing about Claude--I still hope he comes back some how.

And finally, doesn't the whole plot with the heroes having to work together to prevent a foretold cataclysmic disaster that could leave New York in some state of all-fucked-up sound really fucking familiar? Seriously--the writers have borrowed heavily from other super-powered-human works, but now they're just stealing from themselves, and it's fucking lame. There'd better be some huge differences between this season's overarching plot and last season's.

3 Comments

Vice said:

One thing that is starting to bother me is the "isn't that convenient" feel of everything that happens. Yaeko and Hiro for starters. First that she put together the fact that Hiro had been impersonating Kensei in the span of one moment; second, in the next moment she realized that everything she loved about Kensei was actually from due to Hiro's actions as Kensei (which, as you pointed out, is crap); and third, that all the sudden she's in love with Hiro. Holy implausible claptrap, Batman.

Then the Claire's revenge scenes. First you've got a cheerleaders meeting on campus where all the cheerleaders are not only drunk, but drinking openly for everyone to see. Um, really? Are we supposed to buy that those girls are that stupid? Then Claire and West pull their prank, and the cops show up. They cart off Head Cheer Bitch, and then Nice Cheer Bitch runs up to Claire and informs her that Head Cheer Bitch was immediately suspended from the cheer squad, and now there's an opening, and Claire's totally invited to join. Are we to assume that the Cheer Squad Administrator was on call that night, and that the cops phoned him directly, and he ordered Head Cheer Bitch suspended indefinitely pending further review?

I don’t like nitpicking on stuff like this, because the larger point of the story is what really counts. And it’s a show about superpowers, so some degree of incredulity is to be expected. But this is just lazy writing, and there’s no excuse for it. Sure, you can say that the drunken cheerleader scene was a neat, tidy way of getting Claire on the cheer squad while using both her powers and West’s powers, which has to be the aim of every show. But there are always other ways to do things. Scenes can be written any number of different ways. This scene, for example, could have been completely replaced by another scene that accomplished everything the writers intended, but wasn’t done in a completely implausible way. It wasn’t, however.

And again, I could look the other way if this was a rare occasion, that maybe the writers just slipped up a couple times, as all writers do. But then there was last season’s finale, the epitome of lazy, completely implausible and uncreative writing. And I start to worry.

October 30, 2007 1:05 PM

kristin said:

I didn't really care for this episode at all. At this point in the season, I am too apathetic to explain why in a lot of detail and I agree with basically everything that has been said already. So, here are my main problems with it:

I thought Bennett was over acting like a psycho and lying to his family; I had hoped that Claire wouldn't start acting like a psycho and lying to her family; Nikkica and West are still alive and douchey as ever; Sylar hasn't eaten the Mexicans' brains yet; the writing is lazy and the plot developments are WAY too convenient; there was no Kristen Bell; and really, New York AGAIN? I keep telling myself that there has to be a set-up before there can be a payoff, but I really, really, really wish something cool would happen soon.

The extra-concise version: If this was Heroes' first season, I would have stopped watching already. The whole season has been blah and I have been more disappointed by it than the Season 3 Lost "pod." Which is saying something.

October 30, 2007 2:25 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

I agree with everything you guys said. Seriously, this season has so far very much continued the feeling I got from last season's finale about the writers being really, really fucking lazy. I was going to say that it's like they have good general ideas but fail in the execution, but that's not really correct: their general idea (save New York... again) sucks. So here's about the nicest thing I can say about it: their big ideas suck, but their small-scaled ideas on how to advance the plot from week to week are... ok. But their execution also sucks. There's just a lot of sucking going on right now, and I really hope that it stops soon.

October 30, 2007 11:53 PM

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