Heroes: Just Plane Silly

“Previously on ‘Heroes’, a hell of a lot of people were shot with tasers.” Seriously though, how (intentionally?) funny was that episode-opening recap of our heroes getting rounded up last week?

Stuff like that confirms my suspicion that the writers and producers behind “Heroes” are no longer pretending this is a serious drama. Another clue was last night’s thoroughly silly (yet mostly enjoyable) episode.

Exhibit A is the continuing Sylar “daddy issues” storyline. There’s really no reason why this should work or be as engaging as it is, since (the captured Agt. Simmons notwithstanding) it appears to have little to do with the season’s main storyline.

Most of the credit, of course, goes to Zachary Quinto, who, more than anyone in the cast has really cut loose and decided to have fun. Sure, he sometimes (often) crosses over into cartoon villain territory, but he’s also the most fun thing on the show by far.

Last night he visited Mary and Luke Campbell — who live down the street from his dad — and terrorized them to make Agt. Simmons talk. Since Simmons had no link to the Campbells and appeared to be a trained military man, I don’t really understand how this was supposed to make them talk, but whatever. Not surprisingly, we found out that Luke (who’d gotten in a fight at school, hates his mom and pacemakers, and had an obvious mean streak) has the ability to shot microwave rays. When Simmons was about to get the jump on Sylar, Luke nuked him.

I’m totally willing to accept the guards couldn’t hear Claire on that cargo plane last week, but I’m NOT buying that Sylar didn’t hear Simmons fidgeting around (the screwdriver binding him fell to the ground!). As I mentioned, the show had already done a decent job at hinting that Luke had a dark side, so having him melt Simmons was a bit of overkill. That the show often hits its audience over the head with its lack of subtlety is one of the more frustrating things about “Heroes,” but I’ll let it go because I’m liking the Luke/Sylar mentor-protégé pairing so far. It’s already yielded at least one great line from Sylar — “I spared your life. That’s kind of a big thing for me.”

The rest of the characters’ storylines didn’t grab me quite as well.

(This is the part where try I overlook the completely unnecessary “Nathan is the narrator of the episode’s action, despite the fact that he couldn’t have known what happened in the scenes that didn’t feature him” conceit.) Sorry, but I can’t do it! It’s just sloppy storytelling. And why were we told it was 43 hours later (why the hell was it 43 out of all numbers!)? Also, who cares that he was talking to his mom the entire time? Not exactly a major reveal there (though it’s always good to see Cristine Rose). The one thing I did enjoy was the apparent revelation that Nathan isn’t quite as capital E Evil as last week’s premiere suggested. I’m looking forward to finding out exactly what his (and H.R.G.’s) motivation is.

I know the volume is called “Fugitives”, but are we sure these people understand the word? When I think of the word fugitive, the first thing that comes to mind (after Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones) is running and hiding (at least they got the “hiding” part right). I realize the show manufactured some reasons for almost everyone to stay near the plane crash site, but the whole thing came off as more contrived than anything.

After knocking out a couple of the Hunter’s men (we learned last night his name is Danko) Tracy decided she didn’t want to run and felt that she could reason with Nathan since they both think alike. She also had something he wanted — Peter. (That came out slightly creepier than it actually was.) Anyway, as Tracy considered double crossing Peter and really turning him in, she should’ve realized that Nathan would also be thinking double cross. Danko’s men caught her, but Peter absorbed Nathan’s flying power and took off before H.R.G. could no longer credibly pretend he didn’t have a shot.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the show has now decided that Peter can only have one power at once? Either way, I like the change A LOT — Peter had grown too powerful, and this change give the character some limitations (apparently he has to touch people too and can no longer simply absorb powers). I’ll just chalk it up to a side effect of Peter’s power coming from the formula.

As for the rest of the heroes, Parkman, Hiro and Mohinder found refuge in a trailer. And by “refuge” I mean tacky T-shirts and paper and pencil for Matt to draw up the future. I kinda wish the show would dump this over done device, but it looks like the team will be heading to India at some point.

Another drawing also predicted that Daphne would be shot near the wreckage. She’d teamed up with Ando and come to Matt’s rescue. Unfortunately, Danko’s men shot and apparently killed her (I guess they were out of taser darts). The move appears to confirm my other major suspicion about the show — they’re trying to pretend Volumes 2 and 3 never happened. (Seriously, you can count in one hand the number of characters introduced in those volumes that are still around — I’ve got Usutu and even HE’S dead.)

I liked watching Matt indulge his dark side and rage a little bit after Daphne’s “death” by having Danko’s men shoot one another, but of course, the episode cut away from this and merely had Nathan describe it as “a bloodbath.” Thanks for shielding us from something that could’ve been interesting.

Matt was still in angry, revenge mode when he, Peter, Ando, Hiro and Mohinder decided they were going to bring the fight to Nathan and Co. I liked this scene a lot because I’ve wanted the characters to team up and kick ass since their wish for a relatively normal life is not realistic as long as the current threat is out there.

Of course, “Heroes” had to trip over itself once again. Around the time Matt was saying “We’re going to bring the fight to them with everything we’ve got”, some pseudo-Vertical Horizon/Three Doors Down, mid-tempo rock music kicked in and took me out of the scene completely.

The moment was awesomely, entertainingly bad — which is pretty much what “Heroes” is now. And I’m ok with that, as long as the show’s not just plain “bad.”

So what’d you think of this episode? Will Hayden Panettiere ever stop over-acting? Was I the only one who thought the scene with her weirdly-out-of-focus mom was odd? (It’s like they weren’t even in the same room.) What are they doing to Tracy? Do you think we already know the “rebel” who texted Claire or will it be someone entirely new? (It’s probably Angela [old people text now], but I’d like for it to be someone like technology-manipulating Micah.) Finally, do rednecks really make better lovers?