Monday, December 15, 2008

Thoughts on HEROES, Season 3, Chapter 13 - Dual

Duel? Dual? Nobody seems sure.

One thing is certain - they have an uphill battle getting me to keep watching into Season 4.



7:59 - LAST TIME: Sylar killed Elle, killed a human lie-detector, killed Arthur and generally acted more like himself than he has all season. This was a great relief until I remembered that most of the season was squandered with a bunch of soap opera drama regarding his parentage and his powers that ultimately changed nothing! Meanwhile, Hiro is trapped and powerless in the past while Ando, Matt and Daphne are working on a way to rescue him. Claire just got blasted back to the future after preventing herself from being given the catalyst. And Nathan, Tracy and Mohinderance are now building an army of dirt-stupid, PTSD-afflicted super-soldiers.


8:01 - Sylar narrating. Nice speech here.


8:02 - Heh. Watchmen moment there. "You're too late, Pete. We injected a dozen marines already."


8:03 - NICE fakeout!


8:04 - And... Sylar's back. And not happy with "mommy". But with Bennet, Claire and Meredith there... and Sylar pulling the Saw act, ready to show everyone they're all monsters too.

You know... that's actually a neat little conceit.


8:07 - Dammit! I know it's icing over, weatherman! Quit interrupting the show!


8:09 - WHEW! They didn't interrupt the show. And yay - Claire believes her dad can fight Sylar. Nice pep-talk.


8:10 - "And now I'm talking to a pigeon!"


8:11 - Nice to see Matt finally remembering his roommate. And our only hope of saving Hiro is Mohinderance! Well, Hiro is screwed...


8:12 - Peter's becoming quite the Bad Ass Normal. And... wow. Knox and Flint working for the good guys. Okay - it's for the wrong reasons but Peter needs all the help he can get.


8:14 - Wow. Matt being the voice of reason and NOT an idiot about injecting yourself with an untested formula. This is a day for miracles.


8:16 - How much trouble can Hiro cause without his powers? Oh... quite a bit. :)


8:17 - "I'd like to give him a good spanking". I can hear the fan-fic being written already.


8:18 - Sylar wangst. "I could have been a nobody." And yet, I find this much more appealing and real than the characterization we've had the rest of this Season.


8:23 - Okay. I know this will come back to bite Bennet in the ass... but yeah, use the desperate killers as bait for the other desperate killer. Definitely acceptable losses.


8:24 - Yeah. A speech on morals and ethics from the guy who has been kidnapping random people off the streets of New York, putting them in cocoons and experimenting on them. Broil his ass, Flint!

8:25 - And - yeah. All the other desperate killers got punked. Bad.


8:26 - And... the Puppet Master got Sylar!


8:27 - Well, for a bit.


8:28 - Oh GODS that is brilliant! THAT is the Sylar we know and hate. But I know Bennet is going to find a way out of this.

Bennet injected Meredith full of adrenaline, making her unable to control her fire. He put her in a room and then locked Bennet into an air-tight Level 5 cell. The choice? Kill her to stop the fire from eating the oxygen... or kill himself to save her.


8:33 - THAT was sudden. Tracy with the body freezing for the win.


8:34 - Oh... Wow. Ando doesn't make Red Lighting.... he's a booster! Fits my theory of how the formula just amplifies a person's natural personality or wants. So Ando - the ultimate support player - just became... the ultimate support player. :) So... yeah. Daphne can time-travel now.


8:37 - I said it before and I'll say it again. Jack Coleman. Bruce Wayne. Batman: Dark Knight Returns.

Claire fought her way past Sylar to try and unlock the door. Naturally, Sylar broke the panel. But Sylar didn't count on Bennet having Meredith touch the bullet proof glass, him weakening it with one shot and Claire breaking the glass with her body. :)


8:38 - And again - thankfully - the weather-man waits until the commercial to tell us that yes, yes, yes, Dallas is icing over. Insert joke about Heroes being good again and hell freezing over.


8:42 - Oh, wow. He fired her. Didn't see that coming.


8:43 - "How do you know about Einstein, Einstein?" Priceless.


8:44 - I love Hiro running as his dad says "Go to bed". :)


8:45 - And that's how it got split in the first place! :D


8:46 - "Like a Flash." That was so cute I don't mind the bad pun or the reference.


8:47 - Hee! Of course a samurai is forbidden from striking a lady. But Tracy is no lady.


8:49 - And yay! Peter gets his powers back and does the stupid, but moral thing by saving his jerk-ass idiot brother. And yes, Mohinderance is doused in flammable formula and left in the burning lab. I'm not naive enough to think they actually killed him - we couldn't be that lucky. But oh he is going to suffer for his stupidity.


8:52 - And here we go. Sylar alone with Angela. And Angela playing mind-games.


8:53 - And yes... lie-detector time again. And yes - Angela is a monster. But she knows who Sylar's real parents are. And she's telling the truth.


8:54 - And Claire just got him. Back of the head.


8:56 - You know... there's no reason I can think of that Claire can't try and carry Meredith up a few floors before she goes off. It's not like she can be hurt by the fire. Of course then again jostling her at this point might set the "bomb" off. Hmmm...


8:57 - And yeah. Peter did the right thing. And Nathan is still an asshole.


8:58 - Yeah. I knew it. He survived. And is apparently back to normal. And now he's working with Tracy.

So here's the final tally sheet, for those who want the big summary.

Peter: Has his power back. Dunno if he got back everything he's ever had but he can, at the least, fly.

Nathan: Lost everything except his Senate seat. Is now using his authority and his knowledge of The Company to track down and secretly imprison every person with powers he can, similar to what he was doing as President in Season One. Creepily, this goes along perfectly with what Sylar said Nathan was doing BEFORE Sylar replaced him in the original Dark Future in Season One. Though I am still smarting on how his motivation goes from "give powers to a bunch of people to make the world a better place" to "get rid of all the people with powers to keep them from throwing their weight around" in the course of a week. Of course given that he just had his plans blown up by two rogues and his powerless brother...

Claire: Got dad's respect. Grew to love her birth mother. And oh yes - killed Sylar. Probably.

Bennet: Still a cool bastard and the person Most Likely To Take Down Anybody. 10 To 1 he'll be the first against the wall when Nathan makes a play to bring down all the rest of the HEROES.

Angela: Alive, for what that is worth. The Company appears to have been set back quite a bit, but at least they don't have to worry about all the Level 5 escapees. Well, all the ones that aren't still on the run, anyway.

Hiro: Powerless, but he destroyed the formula so it can't be used again.

Ando: Now has the power to increase the effectiveness of other people's powers.

Matt: Free to pursue guilt-free relationship with Daphne. Probably wondering where the hell Molly is.

Daphne: Redeemed herself in her own eyes. Free to pursue guilt-free relationship with Matt.

Sylar: Probably dead.

Meredith: Probably dead.

Mohinderance: Unfortunately not dead. Possibly back to normal. Appears to have hooked up with Tracy to salvage what is left of Pinehearst, even though they have no formula, no samples and a burned-out building with a bunch of dead marines in it.

Tracy: Fired. Apparently hooking up with Mohinderance to salvage what is left of Pinehearst.

The Haitian: Ummm... he got out of Pinehearst before it burned up, right?



The Final Verdict: Okay. I'm going to stick around for Season Four, if only because it looks like Micah is coming back. And because Nathan as the big bad should be interesting.

4 comments:

  1. No, the guy who plays Mohinder is actually married to the actress who played Angela's personal assistant in a few episodes.
    As for why Kring allows Mohinder to live... He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I'll chase him 'round the moons of Nibia and 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round Perdition's flames before I give him up....

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  2. My theory on Nathan's rounding up the "specials" is that they'll be used for scientific experiments to recreate the formula. I don't think Nathan has given up on giving people powers.
    The ending was very good and at least made the idea of watching Season 4 palatable.

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  3. Teehee.. few more thoughts.. Michael Dorn as president. Win.
    All in all itwas a good episode. But I'm sorry I'm very burned from the 'round up the mutant's shtick'. Its been done so many times in Marvel that all I can do is sigh. They better do this right.. or at least bring in giant robots... I mean if I have to endure this story line I want the giant robots.

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  4. Yeah. I've been hearing a lot of grumbling that they're just ripping off X-Men.
    What I'm wondering is why it seemingly took everyone else 2 1/2 years to notice this. Seriously. The shows are based on the same broad concept. And given current events, it's not too shocking that the idea of imprisoning people the government would rather not acknowledge the existence of without a trial is hardly an original idea even if you know nothing of Genosha.

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