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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Heroes: How To Stop An Exploding Man

The first volume ended last night with something of a bang and a whimper. The finale was good in a very straightforward way - it just brought everything together very smoothly and succinctly. It didn't feel like anything had been left by the wayside as we finally got the showdown between Peter and Sylar.

The "Generations" epilogue (is that what it was) was very classic setup for the next volume. Reminded me of Army of Darkness more than a bit, actually.

My only real complaint is the Sylar pulling a Joker on us. I can't think of a villain who made more annoying "swept under the waves" or "we think we exploded but can't find a body" or ... well, "pulled his near lifeless body into a sewer to get away."

OK, sure, we've seen Sylar fake death once before. Still, I think he had a good storyline which got a good ending. Pulling out one of the oldest comic cliches in history wasn't terribly endearing as a footnote to me.

Oh yeah and... can someone explain to my Peter couldn't fly on his own?

Still, the show totally sold me for next season.

7 comments:

Winkyboy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Winkyboy said...

"Bang and a whimper" is exactly it. Couple of good moments, but overall not what I was wanting...

(Sorry, reposted for spelling)

Josh said...

For a second there I thought I had one of my infamous typos :)

Deacon said...

I'm not sure if it's been established, but maybe Peter can only manifest one power at a time - so if it's blowing up, that's all he gets. I'm pretty sure there was a moment there when he looked at Claire and said something to the effect that he was no longer in control, and I assumed that meant of anything.

My big question was why didn't Claire shoot Peter in the back of the head to shut him down? Maybe the explosion would've gone off anyway, but that's the first thing I would've tried - if he was still going critical after that, then let big brother "Superman" him up, up and away.

Wasn't a bad episode, but I too was annoyed at Sylar getting away - just dismember the guy (this is a guy who doesn't get away because he's good, but because people just forget he's even there . . . maybe that's a power he stole). Also, maybe I'm wrong but I thought locator-girl said something about someone even worse than Sylar - it kind of lessens the impact of new mystery villain when old villain is still around.

Josh said...

That's a fairly sound theory. I can't remember if he's used two powers at once (invisibility and TK?) before.

Plus, I think there was an established line of dialogue between him and Nathan where he still didn't think he could really fly. Felt like a dropped explanation or something.

It's not the worst plot skipper around ... just an odd one for that moment and especially considering how tight the writing got by the end.

Greg Tannahill said...

The Nathan/Peter ending totally missed the boat. Here's the ending that SHOULD have happened:

Peter starts losing it. Claire goes to shoot him. Nathan turns up, takes the gun from her. Peter looks at Nathan and talks about how he tried, but he just can't control it, and he's going to blow up. Nathan looks at him, and tells him the words that the subtext between the brothers has been building to all season: "You CAN do, because you're my brother and I believe in you."

Instead Nathan flies Peter into space, where presumably Peter explodes, killing Nathan, then falls to the ground, then regenerates, then explodes again and again as he still can't control it and yet can't die... or did I miss something? How did this ending solve anything?

Other than that gripe, I liked it. It was strong without being awe-inspiring.

Josh said...

Well we don't know how far Nathan can fly - if he can reach orbit then Peter might still be floating up there Major Tom style.

Or once Peter "releases" he might have gained control again.

Any way you fold it - lots of questions over the big event of the season.