After critics (ok, ME) called last week’s episode “stupid”, “Heroes” hit us with one of its patented flashback episodes last night.As the show revealed what happened at Coyote Sands in “1961” we didn’t get a ton of forward movement on this volume’s “Fugitives” plot. That was to be expected. However, I was a little surprised that, in my opinion, we also didn’t get much in the way of interesting new information.
Sure, we met Angela Petrelli’s “Storm”-y, weather-changing sister Alice (pictured, right). We also saw how Mrs. Petrelli/Ms. Shaw first hooked up with Company co-founders Charles Deveaux, Charles Linderman and Bobby Bishop at Coyote Sands, a compound surrounded by armed guards where people with abilities and their families were taken.
However, Angela’s interactions with her fellow teenage mutant non-ninja mutants weren’t very developed beyond, “Let’s sneak out and have fun with our super-powered selves.” Oddly enough, telepathic Charles Deveaux, so benevolent in the present time of season 1, seemed to have the darkest (I don’t mean literally) edge.
Still, what the show may have lacked in exciting new twists, it more than made up for in intriguing character development. While the flashback scenes may not have revealed too much about this season’s current plot, they proved to be relevant to the present-day characters and they helped shine a light on Angela Petrelli, arguably the show’s most enigmatic character.
Why is Angela always so obsessed with bringing her sons together now? Maybe it’s because she knows what it’s like to live with the pain of abandoning her own sister almost 50 years earlier. During the Coyote Sands days, Alice had become so upset when Angela snuck out with her friends that she caused a storm during an examination by Dr. Chandra Suresh which escalated into a shooting, and (supposedly) the carnage at Coyote Sands (we don’t know because the show cut away right when the killing started).
Even if the show doesn’t revisit Coyote Sands again, we can thank this episode for giving us the best Nathan/Peter material in years. LOVED their scene in the café where Peter revealed that he could see through Nathan’s snake oil salesman charm (older sister Angela definitely “conned” Alice by lying to her about where she was going the night all hell broke loose). I also loved that by the end of the episode, Peter had finally found it within him to forgive Nathan.
Hayden Panettiere even got to shine a bit during the scene where she realized how unaffected she is by the current crisis given all traumatic experiences in her life. Sure, she wasn’t exactly forced to fend for herself in the desert as a little girl, but Claire has still been through a lot.
Oh did I not mention that Alice somehow survived the carnage of Coyote Sands and has been living in the desert for nearly 50 years in a state of mild psychosis/batty old lady-it is. As unbelievable as Alice surviving for so long with no one at all finding her is, I can see where it makes sense from a storytelling perspective. When Angela’s family saw what had become of Angela and Alice’s relationship, maybe they glimpsed their own future unless they worked on their severed family ties.
In my opinion, only good things can happen when you have the core characters from this show together and interacting with each other.
Except for Mohinder. I felt like his appearance and participation in this storyline was a bit forced. (Though I generally feel that way about him.) I get the point that, like Mohinder, his father was well-intentioned, but WAY over his head in dealing with people with abilities. I also get that he thinks his father was partly responsible for the atrocity at Coyote Sands (despite HRG’s assurances to Mohinder [and himself] that not everyone involved with a catastrophe is necessarily bad) but instead of contributing to the Petrelli/Bennett new plan and atoning for his father’s perceived sins, he seems content to go all emo on us in the desert. Then again, maybe stranding Mohinder in the episode alone isn’t the worst thing.
Either way, the plan is now for Angela, HRG and friends to go back to the way things were and start their own company. Before that, Nathan has to fix the mess he made. The problem is that he’s too busy because he’s already on TV. Oh wait, that’s shape-shifting Sylar (perhaps during the start of his disguised-as-Nathan march to the White House foretold in season 1).
So what’d you think of this episode? Was it boring because of the flashbacks with people we don’t really care about or interesting because of the stuff we hadn’t seen before? Is starting a new company really the best idea? Finally, how long could you survive in the desert with nothing but strong winds and an old children’s book to sustain you?
2 comments:
Was this episode
a. contrived
b. stupid
c. the best of what American telivision has to offer these days
d. moving the plot of Heroes to a place where it can get interesting.
e. all of the above
Too bad one of the heroes is gonna die at the hands of sylar in an upcoming episode, better not be someone who time travels and is asian, all I gotta say. Really though, I'm still pretty effin sick of the Petrellis, and the whole Hayden P. and Milo having dated/f*ckd is messing with me. Uncle - blood relative sexual tension on screen, gross! I did soften up about the whole Nathan Peter thing, but the past season, with Arthur in villains was pretty far out and stupid at times--how much father/son my daddy never accepted me hooey are they gonna make us sit through? And Mohinder's angst, come on writers! Stop rehashing the same material already! Some character somewhere in this has got to get interesting. The writers strike is over! I'm gonna watch the next two episodes, but I'm not holding my breath for quality television. If it doesn't improve...sylar for president! No need for nu-cular weapons...ahem... weapons of mass destruction...
Except for C, I'd probably say "All of the above".
Here's my take: this is just NOT a good show anymore. In the first season, it was a genuinely interesting and gripping action/drama, but now, it's kind of become a joke. There's definitely been some improvement in Volume IV, but this is still not close to being a really good show...it's just considerably less awful.
Ironically, the show kind of became a victim of its own success. I read an interview where creator Tim Kring said the original plan was to have a rotating cast of "Heroes" and let the mythological stories of people with abilities evolve naturally. What happened instead was that the show became such a big hit that it became almost impossible for Kring and his team to write off the characters/actors that had become so incredibly popular.
As a result, we have exactly what you're talking about: recycled Petrelli/Mohinder drama and the writers desperately trying to find ways to tell the same story a new way ("I know, let's do another flashback episode!")
I still watch partly because I'm incredibly loyal to shows that I've started watching, and partly because I think the show's premise still has potential. If nothing else, I still think it's an interesting failure.
By the way, thanks for responding, and you're 100% right about the creepiness in Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia's scenes - the fact that they dated, broke up we're still supposed to buy them as uncle/niece is BEYOND creepy.
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