"It's a brave new world." - Sylar
After watching the last act of our latest season of Heroes I can tell you what my thoughts on it and the show in general is.
Now when we last left off, the new villain Samuel is clearly big trouble, Claire and Tracy have joined him it seems, Hiro was stuck speaking nerd, Sylar gets his body back, Peter loses his brother forever, and not a lot happened to get to that point. Now I must admit, this was a pretty dull season. Season 2 was more entertaining and I didn't really like season 2. Nothing happens for so many episodes that they have to have everything pick up within the last two.
Characters like Tracy Struass, Matt Parkman, and any number of the carnival folk are here just to fill space. The other characters just seem to be rehashing their same old dilemmas once again. I will never understand how after all of this Hiro has not matured even a little bit. Any growth in character in one episode dissolves by the next episode and Sylar going all redemptive doesn't count because he's already done that before. Also we are never given much insight into The Carnival's background, or the background of any of it's characters for that matter.
To critique a few character arcs for this season, I will begin with Matt Parkman. Parkman's arc was really cool before the hiatus. He had Sylar, his most hated enemy trapped inside of his mind and fought to maintain control of his own body and when he couldn't he still foiled Sylar's plans. That whole arc went from goofy to cool a lot and I really enjoyed. After that he seemed content with a normal life and didn't do much of anything after that. Lame. Claire broke from her "I wanna be normal" phase to her "I wanna save everything" phase right on cue just like last time. Thanks for originality Heroes. I also I'm quite positive the show was afraid to explore Claire's relationship with her roommate Gretchen. They just avoided it episode and episode again, until Claire was convinced she should stop being afraid and go for a more serious relationship at the end of an episode. But don't worry that was chucked out the window next episode for her fear of reaching out again. They kissed, we saw it, don't just glaze over it with holding hands. I mean Claire hasn't had a serious relationship since Wes the flying boy from season 2, give the girl a break or make her Sylar's evil wench already, you know he wants it and Claire just might go bad someday. Then there was Lydia from The Carnival, who really didn't fit well at all. Sure she was fine as hell and I cared about her on some level, but I had no idea what was going on with her. One moment she is a loyal squeeze than the head of an uprising. Also, what the hell was her power. First she could show what people needed or were through tattoes on her back, then she could feel it by touch, then she could reach out to people from far away places. Some fucking clarity here Heroes? Tracy Strauss' arc was dropped as soon as possible for reasons unknown, maybe it had to do with Ali Larter's somewhat substantial career. If you can't keep her on the show, than kill her off and if you need her back make up some lame ass excuse like you did with her other character Nikki. Yeah but essentiall Tracy just shows up to help Noah when he's in a particularly big jam. Mohinder shows up for two and a half episodes to burn a film, get pumped full of drugs and then build a compass. I was really confused when Noah Bennet was supplied a backstory before a backstory near the end of the season. I mean, really? Badass agent Noah Bennet got his start as the middle class car dealer/struggling playwright whose pregnant wife is killed by a telekinetic and he wants revenge. That is how he got his start?! I expected more from you Heroes. Hiro Nakamura was not very interesting at all during this season. The only time he was interesting was when he was with the love of his life Charlie, the waitress he went back in time to save. Otherwise, he was still nerdy, childish Hiro. Seriously, after four seasons of peril, loss of family and friends and pain, you would think this overgrown ten year old would act his age. Peter, the only real hero, was never uninteresting. He was always driven and then very disillusioned after the death of his brother and we felt his pain because we cared about Nathan too and didn't want to lose him either. He is full of hate that he and I wanted to dish out on his nemesis Sylar. Sylar, the villain always on a neverending journey of self discovery. Sylar is the only reason this volume of Heroes was titled Redemption. Yes, when the hiatus ended Sylar had already threatened and tormented Matt Parkman, killed innocent bystanders, attempted to massacre Peter and Angela Petrelli, and then destroyed the last inkling that was Nathan Petrelli. When it returned, Sylar, you guessed it, wanted to repent and be a good person. In an earlier episode Hiro went back in time to save his long lost love and told Sylar along the way that he would become extremely powerful in the future but would still die alone and unloved. This made him think a little bit and led him on a path of redemption. I liked where this went, especially when Parkman traps Sylar and then accidentally Peter inside his worst nightmare: a world where he is all alone. In what seems like years in the nightmare, Peter and Sylar work together and eventually Sylar completely repents and Peter lets go of his anger toward the man he once was. I liked that, but still I always imagined Heroes eventually leveling out to Peter and Sylar in a fight to the death. At the season finale, when Sylar states, with utter pride and sureness, "I'm a hero." I believe him. Hope he doesn't just drop this like he did last time he became a hero.
Heroes ends off with Samuel bringing his Carnival to New York. Here he forces Emma, the deaf girl with power of sound, to lure thousands of New Yorkers to Central Park where Samuel plans to run it into the ground as a way to show his power to the world. Most everyone arrives to stop him. Sylar quickly saves Emma and proves himself to be a hero. Claire, Noah, and Samuel's angered henchman Edgar manage to convince The Carnival that Samuel is evil, because seeing him destroy an entire town a few episodes before wasn't proof enough. They all start to leave and seeing as how Samuel needs super powered people around to amp his power he desperately begins to part the ground as they try to get away. Peter shows up however and copies his power so the two can duke it out. Hiro shows up and teleports The Carnival folk away and leave Samuel powerless. But oh, they blindside us at the end. Samuel is arrested, the heroes enjoy a victory, and Noah begins preparing a nice cover up. But then Claire goes into her "tired hiding" phase and reveals to the media her ability and changes everything. This is the start of the next volume of Heroes: Brave New World. A good start if you ask me.
With low ratings and reviews, Heroes may not get another season. But then ABC has a lot of spaces to fill in their line up, so a come back isn't out of the question. The actors certainly think it's possible. I'll still watch it if does return, I just pray it doesn't suffer again like it suffered here.
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