Heroes

[Grimwell]

I like the direction, but what was the point of digging up Coyote Sands? 

Character development. Sometimes they do things to give you more insight into a character, not to advance a story line.

I had to watch it tonight, and thought it was pretty good. Angela is likely to become a bit more important to the show which is why we got all that character info. Her sister could be a future BBEG if they want -- she's a wildcard now that they eventually have to play.

Everything else, it was all character driven and sets up the end of the season (heroes have a motivation and targets of opportunity) and the next season (no way they can do anything other than take the first few footsteps in this season's remaining time.)

I'm all good with that.

[raydeen]

The casting choice for young Angela was so dead on it was scary.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah it was.  It had me thinking that they surely must be related IRL, but I can't be bothered to actually check.

[Samwise]

I went and checked.  No relation.

[HaemishM]

Maybe Peter needed to see how fucked up you get if you cut yourself off from everyone else rather than forgiving them for their mistakes.  And Mohinder and Nathan needed to have it drilled into their heads further why what they were doing before was a bad bad bad plan.

The problem with using Coyote Sands for all that was that to any non-fucktard, that should have been self-evident. I mean, the idea for Coyote Sands was good, but the execution was meandering weaksauce monologues where characters don't really talk to each other at all. It felt like filler masquerading as REALLY IMPORTANT DECISIONS. When in reality, it was just filler and not good filler at that. It didn't feel like any real decision had been made, and it made characters go distinctly against type to make the decision they did, especially Peter. The whole Mohinder's "I gotta go walk the Earth" thing was ultra-lame.

If not for the cliffhanger, I might have quit. Halfway through the episode, I wanted to turn it off. It was only the last reveal that made me want to keep watching.

[Grimwell]

The whole Mohinder's "I gotta go walk the Earth" thing was ultra-lame.

I will debate you profusely on the fact that everything Mohinder has done in recent memory has been ultra-lame. 

Edit: Therefore it was entirely in character.

[Lakov_Sanite]

To me peter's decision made morse sense than many other things he's done. From the very start he was supposed to be the kind and caring one. Hell they even made his powers empathy based. I would say much of what he's been doing these last two seasons was very much outside of what he was originally intended to be. Somewhere along the line when it came to peter they started confusing emotional with emo and turned him into a petulant 16year old boy.

I agree there was a lot of monologue in this ep but I appreciate it because for a long time the show had been pandering to what I would say is their hardcore audience. They same people who wanted more powers, more character and more 'cool stuff' on a tv drama budget. The problem is the writers stopped feeling the need to explain anything, characters just did things with very little explanation as to their motivation. Lest we forget mohinder injecting himself or peter just going along with adam for the heck of it.

What's happening is a season reboot at the end of the season so you are getting a lot of dialogue lumped together to try and make sense of what's going on but not enough episodes to spread it out. I don't like it but it's still a million times better than what it was. It was a very solid episode and while not the best ever it was certainly not filler. If anything the episode packed a lot of minutia into it that should have some out throughout the season prior but didn't due to poor writing.

Fake edit: Mohinder has sucked from day one no matter who the writer is.

[HaemishM]

The whole Mohinder's "I gotta go walk the Earth" thing was ultra-lame.

I will debate you profusely on the fact that everything Mohinder has done in recent memory has been ultra-lame. 

Edit: Therefore it was entirely in character.

You have me there. I loved how everyone who talked to Mohinder and tried to convince him "you're a good guy" completely ignores the coccooning random fuckers on the street to experiment on a fomula to save myself from the formula I created to give myself powers history of the character. I mean, really, why haven't they just like punched out his heart already?

[Lakov_Sanite]

A lot of talking again but, I liked it.

also, at the end with parkman? took me a second to realize what he was doing but 

[Cyrrex]

What Parkman thing were you referring to?

The whole Sylar thing...I dunno.  I realize the character is a bit of a schizo, but I wish they'd make up their minds with him.  So close to redeeming himself again, and then he goes completely the opposite direction.

[Tebonas]

I didn't see that as redemption. Its his character flaw (strength). The only thing he supposedly has empathy for seems to be children (or maybe orphans). Might have to do with his own childhood trauma of his father killing his mother and selling him. Fact in all his rampages he never killed a child. He didn't slaughter Molly when he had the chance to, he (sadly) didn't slice Aliens in America brat, so rescuing Micah was in-character.

Plus, Micah called him special, and Sylar loves people telling him that!

[Merusk]

What Parkman thing were you referring to?

I think he meant the part where Parkman told them to get close to him, and then they didn't run for their lives.  The whole "I'm here but you don't see me" bit of his mental abilities.

No, the thing that bugs me about Parkman as a character is that he's emotionally flightier than a 16 year old prom queen.  He's ready to snuggle up to the wife who kicked him to the curb PDQ after his 'love' Daphne bit the dust.

[voodoolily]

No, the thing that bugs me about Parkman as a character is that he's emotionally flightier than a 16 year old prom queen.  He's ready to snuggle up to the wife who kicked him to the curb PDQ after his 'love' Daphne bit the dust.

Plus the whole part where right before she kicked him to the curb, he read her mind to find out that the baby wasn't his (it was his coworker's, a vestige of the affair that ruined their marriage). I did think his whole "Daphne who?" emotional turnaround was pretty funny.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There's definitely a lot of ret-con going on, you can tell the daphne character wasn't well liked by the new staff and while she was cool and all she'd have made for a better love interest to ando or something. Lest we forget that parkman fell in love with the girl 'just because' there was no real set up, just that they were married in the future so obviously he had to fall head over heels for her. From a human standpoint, he'd been with his wife for many years already and wanting to get back with her even after a lot of bad stuff does still make sense.

[NowhereMan]

This show has left me seriously wondering if there are some decent writers working with severely fucked characters and storylines or if they actually have a separate writing team for Hiro and Hiro related stories.

Also thinking about Hiro's stories reminded me of Adam Monroe who has been the best villain I've yet seen on the show and got killed off so fucking Pa Petrelli could get out of bed before being killed off as part of a plot-line noone really gives a shit about anymore. On top of that he was a much more menacing figure while he was bedridden.

[Hawkbit]

Can't agree more on all those points.  They've wasted a lot of good characters/actors, and Adam's was one of my favorites.  He went out like a bitch.  I also liked the guy who played Bubbles on the Wire.  He was the character that could create pockets of negative force (or mini black holes, w/e).  Also wasted. 

As far as the writing, we're what, 4 chapters/3 seasons into the series?  And writers have changed hands at least twice that I know of.  I hope the new writers can stabilize the show.

[Triforcer]

The deaths are only a problem until they give someone the Pushing Daisies power.  Then, the show will be pure 

[Tebonas]

Bonus points if that someone is Lee Pace. 

[Hawkbit]

Soooo...

[Samwise]

I don't think healing powers like Claire's can ever bring someone back from the dead; just back from the brink.  Dead is dead, at least as far as we've seen.

I didn't think it was out of character for Angela at all.  She's always been about doing questionable (morally and sometimes intellectually) stuff for the greater good.

[Merusk]

Yeah I saw it as pretty in character for her.  I called the water-bitch thing as soon as we saw the guy's apartment was flooded.  Woo.

[Tebonas]

So they went the Mimic/Proteus route.

Lets see how that works out.

[Grimwell]

So they went the Mimic/Proteus route.

Lets see how that works out.

Hopefully with more dead characters.

[Xuri]

Meh.

[Morfiend]

[Lakov_Sanite]

They probably are done with him but in true shitty comic fashion they can't let anyone ever truly die so if there's popular demand or a lull in ratings he'll be back  . Though sadly I think this is the end of quinto on the show which annoys me because he was one of the few good actors.

[Hawkbit]

I strongly doubt he's gone for good.  Parkman took away all of Sylar's memories (including DNA sequences for all the people he's touched) except for Nathan's. 

Just as he's getting some of his Sylar memory back by fixing the clock, he'll unlock the DNA memory at some point next season.

[Tebonas]

I'll put my money down on Sylar sleepwalking as Sylar as first manifestation of his "return". Remember when he changed into that agent during the night?

[Morfiend]

This review by i09 was pretty spot on about how I feel for the show.

http://io9.com/5231488/what-the-hell-is-sylars-deal-anyway?skyline=true&s=x

[Lakov_Sanite]

Quinto was the only reason Sylar was a good villain. Without the actor, it's just a lame plot device that needs to die.

Edit: I can't quite place my finger on it but something about that review comes off as terribly annoying to me.

[Hawkbit]

It's a rant, not a review.

But I agree with most of it.  It's not all the writer's faults; the strike boned things hard for this show.  But they've done a terrible job with one of the coolest premises I can remember.

[Jain Zar]

Just got to see it.  UGH.  Sick of Sylar.  Good actor, STUPID character.

They just had to give him an out to come back didn't they?

Its like the writers really want to make sure everything stupid and shitty about superhero comics ends up on this show.

[voodoolily]

I still have a soft spot for Quinto (mostly as Sylar, but can't wait to see Star Trek ), but I thought the io9 rant was hilarious and apt.

[HaemishM]

Finally watched the finale. Meh is right. Just when the good shit is about to happen (Sylar/Peter/Nathan fight), the door closes and we get to see nothing. Fuck that.

Oh, and at the upfronts for NBC today, they announced Heroes IS renewed, and Sylar WILL be on the show, but there will be a new big villain.

[Hawkbit]

Hello Aunt Petrelli.