“This whole night was like a bad Fellini film,” was how Gretchen summed up the most recent episode of Heroes. Okay, she was actually talking about her and Claire’s night in the Sullivan Brothers carnival. But either way, she was wrong, because a bad Fellini film would have been perfection compared to last night. Federico Fellini made plenty of bad movies, but his bad movies were never boring, mundane, or static. They were completely bats—. Just look here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Context doesn’t help! I’ve seen Satyricon five times, and I still can’t tell you what the hell is going on ever. (The movie’s also got a minotaur fight and a hermaphrodite heist; seriously, go watch Satyricon!)
If you ask me, Heroes could take a page from Fellini. Because considering the fact that this is a show about people with superpowers, it never really feels all that crazy. It feels like the most sanitized way to make a dark entertainment; like someone walked out of Batman Begins and said, “We want that, but nicer!” The only character who ever seems to have any fun on the show is Sylar, and what’s funny is that he’s not even really the villain anymore. He’s basically just there to keep things spicy. Instead, we keep getting a faceless parade of Big Bads with shadowy motivations who literally seem to be improvising their entire existence every two minutes (Bob Bishop, Papa Petrelli, and now Samuel Sullivan.)
Really, the show almost seems to be punishing Sylar for having any fun. Last night, yet again, somebody pulled the ol’ power drain on Sylar. “What the hell did you do to me?” Sylar asked. That’s practically his catchphrase. Peter spelled it out for Sylar/us: “You remember our Haitian friend?” A Haitian friend? I don’t think I remember him. What are his character traits? Where’s he from? I think I would remember having a Haitian friend. Does he have any nicknames?
Let’s run down the three plotlines:
Noah and Lauren: Detecting Detectives
Samuel had a task for a Carnival minion, a fellow with the ability to project copies of himself. (I marked down “Duplicater?” but Lauren later called him a “Multiplier,” which unfortunately recalls the Michael Keaton film Multiplicity.) Samuel: “I want you to go to the home of a man named Noah Bennet, and steal a box marked Primatech.” It’ll be right next to the box marked “Top Secret” and the safe marked “My Life’s Savings, the combination is 1-2-3-4, Stay Out Please.”
Noah was busy getting ready for his date with Lauren. Lauren showed up, they exchanged some banter (He: “I skipped over the sexual revolution.” She: “Who said anything about sex?”), but when he figured out that Claire stole his magic compass, they sprung into old-timey Company action to track her down. Bennet decided that now was the best time to tell Lauren about their retcon affair of the heart. (Line of the night: “I Haitianed myself?”)
Then Michael Keaton, sorry, the Multiplier attacked. I thought that his power meant that he actually duplicated himself, creating twins and then triplets (etc), but when Noah shot one of him, the body disappeared like a dead body in the PS2 Grand Theft Auto games, so I guess the copies aren’t autonomous beings? Noah and Lauren fled to the bathroom to plan a counterattack, but by the time they came out, Michael Keaton had already ran off. And he took the box marked Primatech! Noah hit himself in the head. Should’ve put those files in the box marked “Totally Unimportant Stuff,” they would’ve never looked in there.
Nathan and Peter: The Least Twisty Death Twist Ever
I’m going to skip over the vast amount of stuff that happened in the land of the Petrellis this week, because most of it was bad. Okay, okay, quick recap: Mama Petrelli had a complete personality makeover and told Peter to just move on already about his dead brother. That’s last year’s news, Pete! Yesterday’s tweet, you feel me? Peter wouldn’t have it, though: he wanted his brother back. Sylar surprised him in the hospital elevator, and because extras cost money, him and Peter fought on the one abandoned floor of the hospital. Peter totally Haitianed Sylar, and then nailed him into the ground, and then Haitianed him some more, until Sylar morphed into Nathan.
Peter was happy to have his brother back, but Nathan just looked miserable. “I’m tired, Pete.” Peter tried to cheer him up by bringing him back to that same old rooftop from way back in season 1, the one that Peter fell off of, right before Nathan learned that he could fly. I can still remember that moment – it was the show’s first cliffhanger, and it ended the first episode with a moment of zippy revelation. You felt like anything, absolutely anything, could happen on this show.
So I got a genuine pang of nostalgia during this scene. How could you not? Especially since so much of what Nathan was talking about – regret, exhaustion, a fond yet sad remembrance of better times – feels just about right for a show this far into a downward spiral. Even the dialogue had some of that season 1 pop! Nathan: “I told you we could both fly.” Peter: “You denied it.” Nathan: “It was an election year.”
Nathan decided to throw himself off the building. Peter grabbed him, and as they held hands, Nathan literally yelled out every Go On Without Me cliché in the book. “Tell Mom I love her! Take care of Claire! You can do anything, Pete! I gotta feeling the world ain’t seen nothing yet!” And down he fell.
Here’s the thing: even though the shot of him falling looked silly and green-screeny, there was something addictive about it. As he fell, he slowly morphed into Sylar, and even though the specifics of it all didn’t make much sense, the beautiful weirdness of the image – seeing Nathan’s reserved, peaceful face fade slowly into Sylar’s dark grin – was, frankly, breathtaking. I wish the show were brave enough to do more things like this: real emotion, instead of aimless plot teases that go nowhere.
The Carnival of Shadowy Motivations
Speaking of shadowboxing! Over in the Carnival, nothing was making any sense. Samuel didn’t seem worried at all that Hiro disappeared into thin air last episode. Nor did he seem concerned that the Tattoo Lady knows that he killed his brother. Nope, the Morality Switch on Samuel’s back was switched to Good this week, and he spent the episode in full-on Santa Claus mode.
He welcomed Claire and Gretchen into the Carnival like a practiced Ringmaster. “Free passes! The whole night’s on me! Everything!” The bulk of the episode was spent on Claire learning all about the Carnival. And what did they learn? Well, I’m still kind of sorting it out. The treatment of the Carnival changes every other week on this show. One week, it’s a safe haven for harmless superhumans who just want to live in peace. The next week, Samuel calls up any one of his random minions and says, “Go, do crime!” and they do it, no questions asked. The next week, Samuel seems to have an incredibly fragile hold on his people. The next week, he seems to be their unquestioned emperor.
I’m genuinely interested in the Carnival, and I’m willing to admit that, in this one situation, the writers might possibly be a bit smarter than us. So let’s examine this like we believe the truth won’t turn out to be stupid. Samuel says that the point of the Carnival is for his folk to live out in the open, and “To make money, the most honest way we can.” This seems to be like flawed logic, based on the workings of the carnival. We saw a telekinetic guy purposefully ruin a loutish former Minor League pitcher’s throw in the old Milk Bottle game, but then give a cute girl some help so she could win a pink unicorn.
Why would a loutish former Minor League pitcher care about a pink unicorn? And more importantly, isn’t that just another form of dishonesty? It’s not as if any of the carnival folk are really living “out in the open,” as Samuel regularly suggested; they’re allowed to show a bit more of their powers, but only because they’ve trapped themselves in the carnival. Heck, as we saw, even the subtle use of telekineticism was enough to incite violence: the loutish former Minor League pitcher gave Samuel a good beating.
If I’m to understand the end of the episode, Samuel’s big long-term goal is to build a Promised Land for superpowered people, which, again, isn’t the same as living out in the open. A Promised Land is great if you want to hang out with earthy pseudo-hippies and follow the orders of anyone named Sullivan, but what if you want to live anywhere else on earth?
Listen, one of the hardest things in serial narrative television is believably filling the actual existence of a society of characters who were invented to seem mysterious. For the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, the Cylons mostly existed as space phantoms with spider-like ships who could jump into orbit at any moment, plus a few sleeper agents who looked just like us. In the third season, the show worked hard to establish a believable system for Cylon society, and it changed the entire central conflict of the show.
Conversely, on Lost, the third season took the viewer into the society of the Others, another phantom band of villains, and the result was ruinous, because the whole society made no sense. The Others seemed to run on a system of government based half on Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and half on Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The show only really recovered when it sent the Others to the Temple for the entirety of the fourth season. (Unfortunately, the fifth season was all about the Dharma Initiative, another shadowy organization that made hardly any sense at all when some light was shined upon it.)
Based on the end of last night’s episode, we’re only going to see more of the Carnival folk, and I’m cautiously optimistic that, with a bit of actual narrative forward momentum, they might become a bit more sharply focused than they have been so far. But let’s be fair; this half of the season ended pretty miserably. Samuel was back at his brother’s grave, giving a speech that was practically a carbon copy of the speech that started this season. As if daring us to turn away, the show then did a mid-season finale montage of all our favorite characters, including a completely non sequitur shot of Hiro running with Mohinder and Ando through the woods. Oh also, that deaf girl who sees sounds was playing some music. I forget if we saw Parkman, but I’m sure that when the show returns he’ll be useless yet incredibly important for some random reason.
I’m trying to think of something nice to say, but honestly, Nathan Petrelli was my favorite character. I’m having a hard time trying to be optimistic. I hope that Claire turns evil, because that would be crazy. I hope that when the show returns, all the Heroes will join together against Samuel. I hope that the show’s narrative can become more focused. I hope that Sylar never has to suffer from power blockage, memory loss, or any other power the Haitian comes up with to sap all the energy from the plot. I hope that Mohinder will die again, this time for real. I hope.
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I think your just look for reasons to hate Heroes. I thought it was a pretty great episode. And we do know the Haitian pretty well for the fact he’s been in a lot of episodes and even had an episode almost exclusively about him in season 3. I feel like you have prejudice and make a small flaw enormous. I bet if this was season two, you would have liked it because that would be before the bad seasons. I think that even if this was the greatest episode of all time, you would have not liked it because of you forced your mind to believe that all Heroes episodes will now be bad.
The ending was awful. Admit it. They should have left for the month long break with some sort of cliffhanger
Agreed
I think the cliffhanger did SUCK
That was a cliffhanger? This program is complete nonsense. A great show in this genra requires willful suspension of disbelief. Too many problems with their stories at this point to suspend anything but contempt.
lol, it was extremely aweful. you must have really low expectations for a show if you actually thought that episode was good
To consider last night’s episode anything but lethargic and regurgitated monotony with a fractured plot line and characters acting outside the parameters of their elements is like defending an abusive spouse. Sure he smacked me in the face last night, but he didn’t mean it! In disagreement with the initial author, I find that the Big Bad villains, (i.e. Papa Petrelli, Samuel Sullivan) are crippling any attempt at a worthwhile storyline. Season one showed us how all these special people were somehow connected and that fate would be the determining factors in the outcome of the world, but now we’re finding that there are hundreds of thousands of people, without a single connection to one another and they also have lame powers that make no sense. (Tattoo Girl, The Nurse who Sees Sound?) Nobody is saving anyone and nobody is saving the world…we’re simply engulfed in the lives of the characters, who now seem to show us how normal they are. I’ve loved this show since day one, but just like Peter did for Nathan…I might just have to let it go. I’ll tell season one we loved it.
Comparing the post-season 1 “Heroes” experience to spousal abuse?? So incredibly wrong, and yet so right!
Look, you can say what you want about Heroes….but do not, repeat DO NOT disgrace LOST by mentioning it in the same column as Heroes.
Here, here, Dave!
Amen!!
AGREEEEED. I felt inappropriately insulted haha
ha. I did too. Which is funny but I love lost. These shows are apples and oranges.
I hope Doc Jensen walks over to your desk and roundhouse kicks you in the face. LOST will forever be the single greatest show on television.
I don’t know, I found it refreshing to read something other than mindless fanboy hagiography about Lost for once…
Fanboy or not fanboy I see no comparison between the shows. If you want to compare Heroes by showing how Lost overcame its mistakes and Heroes fails to thats fine, but season 5 was one of the best in my opinion.
So as long as it isn’t fanboy-hagiographical in nature but still mindless, you’re onboard with it?
i agree to that too! such words you use “the result was ruinous” “Unfortunately, the fifth season….hardly made any sense..” made me crazy! where’s Pig E.Vil when you need him?
i stopped watching heroes like the last season. there’s a difference between watching something you know is bad but is fun to watch and watching something that was fun turn sooo soooo bad.
Definitely agree! LOST is one of the best shows on television
LOST is horrible..it’s cliffhanger after cliffhanger..almost like a hyperactive child trying to tell a story. “and then the monster ran off the cliff..and then he flew because he had wings…and then the firey volcano exploded..and then the monster flew up as fast as he could…but then his tail got caught in the fire…” etc.
HEROES sucks because none of their characters have stories worth telling anymore.
LOST is not for people who can’t hold a thought beyond the end of an episode. Go watch CSI or L&O to have everything wrapped up neatly at the end of each episode.
Thank you, Dave. This Darren guy was out of line, writing something like that.
Lost is even worse.
You know, for someone who thinks this show is rubbish, you’re giving me a lot of reasons to keep watching…mostly so I can keep reading these brilliant recaps! Keep ‘em coming!
I am in the same boat. I think I still watch so that I can commiserate with these recaps! This show is so BORING lately, but it is fun to read the recaps and people’s comments.
I have to admit, there were a few times I said “Are you kidding me?” as a result of what some of the characters did (Noah running to the bathroom to later realize his files were gone, Claire defending Samuel during the fight, Peter going all evil with the nail gun to name a few).
That is one of my biggest problem with this show. I don’t understand how the heroes can suddenly act completely out of character. Why would Claire’s friend go with her to the carnivale if she was scared of getting killed at college?(was she haitaned?) When Sylar was nailed to the board by Peter, and was still Sylar, why didn’t he get off the board? It’s Sylar! Were Nails the secret to catching him? When the multiplicator appeared at Noah’s door, why wasn’t Noah be more cautious? And why did Claire greet the puppet man so warmly? Yes…she cautiously helped him escape, but really Claire? All the things he did to you and your family and now your buds. Maybe I missed certain scenes to decribe why they were acting so out of character. Until last weeks recap I guess I never totally paid attention to all the Petrelli’s blue scenes…but they were kind of distracting tonight. Ha. And what was in that popcorn?
But was happy there wasn’t 5 storylines going on at the same time. No Mohinder, Parkman or Hiro. I like Sylar, always have…but they need to decide with his character. If he’s going bad again…then he needs to go all the way.
That’s my biggest problem with Heroes, the inconsistency. Characters do things that their characters would never do just because they are needed to advance the plot. Also the insonsistency in the powers and the plots. It was so important that Sylar was stopped from getting Claire’s power, then he got it. The powers cause an illness that need to be cured, then it doesn’t. They just need to look at the previous episodes and create a set of rules and character traits and write within that.
your comment about why sylar didnt get up………………..did you not watch the whole episode or are you new to the show? Peter was blocking his abilities so he couldnt heal. He got nailed down to the ground and couldnt heal. his abilities were BLOCKED.
I agree with you on claire. i dont know what she was thinking. She’s a mess right now. Her character has become boring and useless. The only reason i hope they keep claire on the show is because Hayden is a bombshell
Pablo…your right about Peter blocking his powers. I have watched the show from the beginning. I forgot that the Haitan blocks powers as well as erases memories. That type of scene has been rehased so many times on this show. The Haitian needs to stop hanging around the writers.
How is it that Peter’s ‘Haitian’ powers blocked Sylars powers except for when he was in the elevator or transforming back into Nathan Petrelli? This show is getting so inconsistent and frustrating to watch.
Peter grabbing the nail gun was sweet
Everytime I turn around, there’s a new idiot recapping this show. I don’t know what you saw last night, but I think the episode was great! You guys are like a hive mind of robots–whatever one says or does, that’s what the others do and say. In that, there’s no individual thinking. I admit the show went downhill over the past two seasons, but you’ve got to be crazy to think the recent batch of episodes were bad. And, let me say one more thing: IF YOU EVER–AND I MEAN EVER–INSULT THE MYTHOLOGY OF ‘LOST’ AGAIN, WE (THE READERS OF THIS INSULT-SLINGING COLUMN) WILL RISE UP WITH A MOUNTAIN OF EMAILS AND PETITIONS TO HAVE YOU AND THE REST OF YOUR HIVE-MINDED, LACK-LUSTER WRITERS FIRED. Go ahead and block me from posting anything else…and be afraid.
It’s a bad show whose plot always seems driven by main characters making stupid choices. I’m not a fanboy and can’t overlook the bad writing of this show. Enjoy its last season while you can!
Wouldn’t that action on the reader’s part also be “hive minded”? ;P
Most definitely…lol. You fight the hive with a more formidable one…hahaha
“hive mind of robots”. We are the borg. We have to watch and recap because residence is futile.
This is a show now were you just have to let it go and watch…then make fun of it the next day.
Read the rest of the comments – when the majority agrees that the show has serious problems, maybe the problem isn’t just a “bad recapper who hates the show” and needs to be threatened. Maybe it’s time to ask yourself why you see no flaws at all in a show that makes so many of its fans want to pull their hair out in frustration.
It was a JOKE, Darrin…get over it…And, I never said I saw no flaws in the show. Plus, I’m bald by choice. No need for hair-pulling, seeming I’m a shaver. lol
lol, no we won’t. And I say this as a Lost fan.
For someone trying to talk about thinking for themselves you just made a really narrow-minded cult-sounding statement. And yes Heroes did go downhill–it all started in the crappy finale of the generally great season 1.
We’ve contacted Doc Jensen to go to your cubicle and melee you with old EW magazines…
Shows so bad… you can’t compare the Sullivan Carnival to The Dharma Initiative, The Others, or Fracking Cylons.
Heroes is fun now just to see what ridiculous horrible move theyll make next. Plot holes and endless questions are like icing on the cake.
Peter took “Nathans” power last week to fly after him… wouldnt it have been Sylars awesome powers too?! I was thinking about that all week how cool it would be to suddenly peter to realize HE HAS TONS OF EFFING POWERS and instead he takes the Haitians… and they never speak of it again. I wonder how long until someone flies again.
Gossip Girl is better than this and thats insane.
And why didn’t Peter use his Haitian ability to block all of Sylar’s abilities during the fall, so he would die on impact? Heroes is definitely yell-at-the-screen bad at this point, I keep signing up for the punishment.
HA! Gossip Girl was good last night, first time I checked in in 2 or 3 weeks and suddenly Serena is involved with a “congressman” who looks like he is 13.
Because he cant stay with Sylar forever. If Peter blocked his power , than as soon as peter left the roof, even to go down to him, sylar would have healed.
Why is everyone so stupid to not get this concept it happens every week on this web page. PETER CAN ONLY HAVE ONE POWER AT A TIME! Just because Sylar has a ton of powers doesnt mean he can absorb all of them. He can take one specific power from him. Its not that complicated
actually kyle it is. Sylar’s one power is the ability to take other people’s powers so there fore why doesn’t peter take that one power from him…it’s because it would put the writers in a corner they can’t write out of. Science Fiction/Fantasy has to have a certain set of rules and Heroes seems to break it’s own rules consistently. I hate that I am compelled to watch it everyweek just hoping it might be good again.
I find myself agreeing with you. Ok everyone don’t make me a Heroes Hater, because I watch the show every week. And I’ve been on here EVERY WEEK commenting ‘kill someone, kill anyone’ but Nathan? (even though we all knew that spoiler) I was so mad–you keep around all these terrible actors and whiny characters and take out Nathan–the show’s most enjoyable character. If that was going to happen, you should’ve just left him dead last season instead of dragging it out for 12 terrible episodes. Why does Claire have to be someone who can’t get hurt? And why oh why were Hiro, Ando and Mohinder running? Probably trying to escape the bad writing of this show. Then when I heard ‘new episodes start Jan 4′ I said ‘oh great, bc they have to figure out how to write themselves out of this disaster!’ I don’t know what’s worse, my ripping of this episode or the fact that I’ll be back watching on January 4.
You’re right: they should kill someone. We need a new “hero” to write out dry.
I believe, knowing how the writers of heroes work thus far, they killed Nathan for the second half of the series. However, I believe that in the season finale in May, they will have some big finish where Sylar is going to be in a position to do something “plot changing” and then right before he is about to do it, Nathan comes back. Think about it. The writers are not going to kill off Nathan after all this time. Its just a way for them to make more plot, even though I truthfully feel that Nathan getting killed and having his brain in Sylar’s body was one of the most horrible ideas to ever be brought onto the show! I think they just needed more plot lines…
Based on your complaints as it spread from Heroes to BSG to Lost – is there anything you do like? I have a feeling every show you watch eventually disappoints you, since clearly it doesn’t turn out the way YOU would have written it.
I didn’t see anything negative written about BSG at all. In face I think RDM and David Eich did an amazing job comprehensively creating that society. And as for Lost, I think everyone can agree the show has had ups and downs (what show hasn’t?)… and then ups. Lots and lots of ups. Miles of ups. Heroes? Not so much.
they should just kill off most of this crowd and keep just a few….claire…hiro….hard to make a case for much of the rest…focus plot on those two or maybe one or two others….would be a great season/series finale…could wrap up stories..for fresh start..or make way for a new direction next year with some excitment in store
Actually, Hiro should be the first one they kill off. His time travel ability means that every previous episode is potentially meaningless, as the writers can change the storyline at will.
This is the first time I’ve not watched the episode and just read the recap and comments. 5 minutes on Tuesday morning is more than enough Heroes for me now.
Wow. Slaughter someone for having an opinion! Lost ISN’T perfect (remember the cages? the couple they buried alive in the sand??) but it is the best show on TV by far.
I just don’t get Heroes. They all have these amazing powers but walk around sluggish and mopey like life sucks.
I wish they all had the same energy as Sylar.
I’m so opposite you on the Nathan thing, he was my least favorite character. I’ve stuck with Heroes so long, mostly because it has SO much potential year after year, but I’m always disappointed. I wish the writer’s would just go all out. http://www.orble.com/teevee-heroes-1130/
I have to say that I have disagreed with all your reviews for Heroes until now. I have genuinely liked most of the episodes this season, but I thought last nights episode was a terrible way to go into the midseason break. Other than Nathans death, who was my favorite as well, it was goofy. I as well think Claire should go bad, since the writers can’t seem to smarten her up. I only have 2 complaints about your review and they both have to do with the 2 shows you mentioned, Battlestar and Lost. Your bad mouthing of these 2 shows, one quite possibly the greatest show ever written and the other just a great show in general made me realize that you are not fit to be a critic for this genre. Like I said last nights episode was not good, but dragging Lost into this to bash its middle seasons made no sense. You are dumb and I look forward to the day when you are stuck reviewing soaps.
I disagree – his take on both Lost and BSG was pretty spot on. I think he liked BSG’s handling of the Cylons (though tbh the writers got overwhelmed with the storytelling in the last few seasons) – and the others in S3 were the weakest part of Lost, and many fans agree.
I have to disagree, season 3 had its issues but not enough to label it ruinous, no season of Lost was bad at all. And to throw season 5 under the bus somewhat is beyond my comprehension, it was one of the better seasons in my opinion. Season 3 mainly suffered from a how long can we drag this out without an end date in sight plague, but that was all taken care of and redeemed within the finale.
I didn’t understand why Nathan jumped off the building. Can someone explain that to me? Was it just to get Sylar away from Peter? Or did he think he could kill Sylar/himself because Peter was blocking his powers? And if that was the case, why wouldn’t it have worked? What is the distance range on Haitian powers?
Anyone? I’m not trying to be critical here, I just really want to know. I didn’t get it.
I think he was just letting go. Accepting his own death.
As much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE heroes… There was something very lack-luster about last night’s episode. And I’m a fan who defends anything… Anything. But I do agree that last night’s episode was a bit disappointing while still giving enough “forward momentum” as you say…. to keep us hanging on. I was so, so very mad about Adrian Pasdar. How are we supposed to end a season without seeing him “sort of die” every year? I’m very sad to see him go. I really honestly do agree that some deaths should stick, and in Heroes… more deaths should stick than actually do… Oh, by the way… Love references to Lost and BG… It’s always nice to get a view from the other side… and sometimes that view makes less sense than you would like, and sometimes that view encourages you to hate the other side more, or sometimes… and rarely that view will allow you to enjoy another character that you otherwise wouldn’t. I just love Elizabeth Mitchell…..