Heroes: Powers Outage

So the much-hyped eclipse finally occurred on “Heroes” and the results were, um, interesting.

In my continuing attempts to stay positive in regards to this show, I’ll say that there are many words that can be used (and that I’ve used myself) to describe the past season and a half of “Heroes.” That list includes sloppy, uninspired, repetitive, embarrassing, silly and suck. However, one word you won’t see on that list is “boring.”

As bad as “Heroes” has gotten recently, I don’t know that anyone could ever accuse the show of being “boring” (the same way no one can say a train wreck is boring).

Thanks to NBC’s relentless promo department, we knew two things: 1.) Rosie O’Donnell has a surefire hot mess of a variety show airing this Wednesday and 2.) the eclipse would cause the heroes to temporarily lose their powers.

Of course, this came at a most inopportune time for everyone. Sylar (not Gabriel since he’s apparently evil again) and Elle were looking for Claire the Catalyst per Arthur Petrelli’s orders. Meanwhile, Matt was trying to win back his (alleged) beloved Daphne with Hiro and Ando’s help, while Nathan and Peter tried to recruit the Haitian to help fight Arthur. Also, Mohinder grew increasingly scalier.

I was happy to see that the show still maintains a(n intentional) sense of humor about itself and its characters. It was a delight seeing Nathan and Peter crash land in the swamp after Nathan lost the ability to fly. It was even funnier to watch a few other characters try to use their power (Sylar and his finger, Matt and his turning his head sideways) with no results. I was also amused by the failing-light effect to convey the eclipse was still happening, though it did put a bit of a strain on my eyes.

Most of all, I enjoyed the triumphant return of Jack Coleman. After sitting out last week’s episode, H.R.G. was back and surprising me (and his daughter, and the powerless Sylar and Elle) once again by how much ass he kicks.

Sylar and Elle crashed H.R.G. and Claire’s training session right after the two appeared to make a breakthrough following Claire’s admission that she resented her father for always being gone. I’m not really sure why that issue came up last night, but I’m just happy that Claire can stop acting like a melodramatic hardass all the time and maybe go back to being a relatable, well-meaning young woman.

Since one of the complaints about this show was that there are too many characters with too many powers and last night’s episode mostly focused on the core cast, I was hoping that the eclipse taking their powers away would be the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into each character.

Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, most of the characters — besides H.R.G. and Angela Petrelli — are not very interesting. So, what we got was a series of scenes with characters getting in each other’s face.

Besides Claire and Bennett’s argument, we got a Nathan and Peter dustup in the Haitian jungle. I wasn’t very clear as to why they were mad with each other, but it all ended with Peter calling Nathan a puppet and Nathan calling Peter a nurse. Ooooh. They eventually caught up with the Haitian before being besieged by gunfire leading to Nathan’s capture by a Level 5 escapee (Did he HAVE to be the Haitian’s brother?) who’d been alerted to their whereabouts thanks to Tracy, who’s still working with Arthur.

Even more puzzling were Elle’s actions last night. Make up your mind, writers — does she feel conflicted and guilty about turning Sylar into the killer who was eventually responsible for her father’s death or is she just a power-hungry psychopath who just wants to take anything she wants. You can’t have both. And don’t give me that “she’s just crazy” talk. There’s a difference between writing a mentally unstable character and bad writing.

Finally, there was Matt, Hiro and Ando’s field trip to Kansas after Daphne freaked out for reasons known only to her and went home. The less said about this storyline the better. Hiro is still acting like a 10-year-old and Masi Oka’s performance continues to not be that different than his usual acting (maybe Future Hiro can show up and slap some sense into the 10-year-old). I’m also still not buying Matt and Daphne’s love for each other at all. The revelation that Daphne’s legs were useless without her power was meant to be a big reveal, but, I imagine, instead inspired a chorus of, “huh, ok” across the country. (Not exactly the same impact as Locke in the “Walkabout” episode of “Lost.”)

Then again, perhaps the big purpose of the trip was to introduce Seth Green and Breckin Meyer’s comic book nerd characters. Maybe they’ll become the new Hiro and Ando — I’m kind of over the old Hiro and Ando. Well, Hiro, at least.

Still, as is now customary with this show, JUST enough things happened to make me roll my eyes AND have me tune in to see what happens next week, when we’ll get part II of “The Eclipse.” I can almost certainly say it won’t be boring.

So what’d you think of the episode? Anyone else dreading, I mean looking forward to, the potential return of Maya? (This is only a good thing if it leads to more accidentally hilarious sex scenes with Mohinder.) Do eclipses typically last nearly an hour? How the hell did Mohinder cocoon himself like that? Finally, do you think H.R.G. will actually take out either Sylar or Elle (Please take Elle out before I start disliking Kristen Bell more than I already do thanks to this show.)