Re: Heroes: "Orientation" and "Jump, Push, Fall" 9/21 - Grade & Discus
Okay, got around to watching this last night. I'll call it
Above Average, but that's AA for
Heroes, which puts it a peg below something like
House for me.
Peter's storyline makes sense so far, and I figured out as soon as he asked Noah "how fast?" that the only reason he was coming along was to get Ray Park's speed power. Peter using his power intelligently?! When did this start?! It was a nice change from the Heroes being raging idiots when it comes to their abilities.
Noah's characterization is still good, even though I wonder where this whole "New Company" story is going. I assume they will butt up against the Carnies at some point, and form the central conflict of this volume.
Matt's Sylar problem was only interesting for a couple minutes, and then it started to feel overdone. The first scene, where he couldn't find the baby? Should have been cut. Sylar should have first appeared during the interrogation or maybe during the group session. Either way, this storyline will fail to deliver unless Matt becomes Onslaught.
I take it I'm not the only one who thinks Claire's new friend killed her roommate. And once again, Claire does a stupid: "let's jump out a window and hope nobody sees!" Of course somebody will see! This is fucking
Heroes! Someone
always sees!
The Hiro story was very frustrating as it was obvious from the time we heard about the "slushy incident" that Hiro was going to go back and prevent it. And it took
forever to do it. Get a clue, writers: the audience isn't stupid. You don't have to telegraph these things for 20 minutes before we "get it." Just
get on with it already. And I will be surprised if they really kill him off. They can't ever seem to bring themselves to permanently off any of the regulars on this show.
I hope Tracy becomes a character at some point, instead of a walking swimming pool with tits. But that might be asking too much of Ali Larter.
The Carnies were interesting, although the woman playing Lydia (I think?) is just
terrible. The acting was so wooden, I thought I was watching a
Voyager episode for a minute there. At least there is a mystery to unfold here, and I hope it's an interesting one with some complexity, and not a simple "Danko killed my brother, now everyone else is going to pay" sort of thing.
SylarNate has turned out a little better than I expected. He really does seem to believe he's Nathan, to the point that having other powers pop up is really
freaking him out. I like that. I also like how worried everyone else is that Sylar is going to come barging out of him at any moment. I give the writers too much credit here, but it would be nice to see everyone else's
fear of him returning to the Sylar persona turn out to be what actually causes him to do so. Having Matt's rewriting of his mind just gradually degrade kind of sucks the drama out of it, since it takes the situation out of everyone's hands and we're just watching a ticking time bomb.
On the somewhat controversial topic of whether SylarNate "is" Nathan Petrelli: he is if he
believes he is. One's physical composition--the matter that makes up your body--is a poor measure of what makes you "you," since that is turned over on a regular basis. That leaves you with appearance, personality, and memories. I think most would argue your appearance does not determine who you are. Someone who goes through a disfiguring accident is not suddenly a brand-new person. So, personality and memories--both of which, SylarNate has. He is, at the least, "a" Nathan. He can't be "the" Nathan, but then if the original was still around, that would only be "a" Nathan, as well.
So, if they really want him to be Nathan, they have to keep reinforcing his belief that he is. I suspect Angela has been acting weird and shifty around him, and making him doubt who he is. That's not gonna help, Ma.
is Nathan or Sylar. Of course he is Sylar (or Gabriel Gray, if you prefer) who believes he is Natahn! His conversation with Angela contained two big hints to the audience - one was his line about feeling invincible and not like a mortal; the other one was when he said that when he looked back at his life, it didn't feel like his life...and that he felt he had been a lousy son, brother and father, and wanted to be better from that point on: "I want to be a better me!" Remember what Sylar told Nathan in the last season's finale? He basically felt that Nathan was a pampered loser who was given everything on the plate, but never really managed to do as well with it as he should have. Sylar/Nathan now feeling that he can be a better Nathan than Nathan had been, is totally consistent with this.
