Heroes - season four, episode fifteen
Apr. 18th, 2010 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lathanyI will be writing up the Con, hopefully later today. However, first here's my usual Heroes write-up.
Last night's BBC 2 Heroes offering (the second of the two episodes which was also last Sunday's episode).
Details: Three main plotlines, as has become the norm.
Main plotline one is Samuel wooing Vanessa. At first, Vanessa is upset with him, but as he romances her throughout the day she gradually warms to him and comments that it always goes like this between them. When she finally seems to have come round and accepted him, Samuel takes her to the beautiful place he has had made where a cottage is waiting. He explains that he has constructed her dream. However, Vanessa explains that this was simply a fantasy and it becomes apparent that she sees Samuel as a romantic escape rather than a permanent thing. Samuel finally realises this and goes mad - destroying the land and announcing that he's sick of trying to fit in with Vanessa/non-Heroes.
The second main plotline is the Sylar asking Clairefor the plot what he needs to do. He finds Gretchen and pretends to have kidnapped her, then becomes her so that when Claire rescues "her" he can manipulate Claire into saying what she thinks is wrong with him. Claire's opinion is that, if she finds it hard to cope with one ability then having many must have eroded Sylar's sanity/humanity. At the end of the episode Claire accepts that she too is moving away from people and embraces Gretchen with all the indications that they will now become a couple.
The third plotline is Hiro and the brain tumour. He collapses and enters a strange dream where he is on trial for misusing time travel for his own ends - Adam is the prosecution, Ando is his defense and Kaito is the judge. Hiro is let off the "slushie" incident on the grounds that it was all for the good and no-one got hurt but condemned for saving Charlie at the expense of letting Sylar continue his rampage. At the end he is sentenced to death, but saved by his mother on the grounds of "destiny".
Asides - Sylar ends the episode on Matt's doorstep where Janice faintly recognises him, Mohinder announces his return to India and Bennett has a compass constructed for him (which a Hero must use for him, but, hey, he's got Ando and Hiro now).
General comments: I think the main plus of the episode is that it moved us on - Hiro has lost his brain tumour (or, at least, that's what I assume), Samuel is in full-on bad guy mode, Noah has a compass, Sylar has ended the period of dithering and, if anyone still cares, Claire and Gretchen finally get together. However, I didn't like any of the three plots that got us there and don't like the indications that we're about to lose Mohinder again.
Plot one: I didn't enjoy this in itself, but I did find Vanessa gradually coming around to Samuel as plausible and in character. Also, whilst I felt that Samuel's turn to the dark side was slightly undramatic given where he started from, it didn't suffer the huge lack of plausibility that Peter acquiring the hunger did back in Villains.
Plot two: Hmmm. Claire seeing herself as building walls and being less human than others didn't quite work for me. Also, when Sylar talks about her being alone - she isn't as that's her main link with Peter (as they state at the end of The Hard Part back near the end of season one) even before you consider Noah, Sandra, Angela, etc. I'm not sold on the whole "Claire and Sylar are alike" line, but it makes a change from the father-daughter Noah-Claire stuff that the writers have been too obsessed with for too long. Oh, one other nice point, in a welcome contrast between Sylar and Peter (which I've felt has been needed ever since the writers randomly gave Sylar empathy) the implication is that lots of powers can suck someone's humanity and sanity which didn't happen to Peter.
Plot three: On the plus side, good to see David Anders (although I'm less fond of Adam) and George Takai/Kaito. Also, nice to see a rare reference back to season two. However, I didn't see the need or the justification (as in it didn't fit the world background) for Hiro to be cured in such a deus ex machina manner (if I can use the phrase I've just looked up in that way).
Character by character:
Themes: Quests and romance vs realism.
Refer back moments: Kaito, Adam and Ishi. Also there's a gratuitous sword fight in Hiro's brain tumour dream. Plus Sylar listing all his victims.
Continuity errors and other weirds: I really should have picked up on this earlier but... Joseph giving Danko a compass is stupid as he's a non-hero and can't use it. Claire's new found wisdom seems wrong (if anything she's suffered fewer traumas than the other characters - for example, she missed the incarceration in Fugitives) as does her feeling of isolation - she, more than anyone else, has half a dozen people looking out for her, Heroes and non-Heroes (Angela, Peter, Noah, Sandra, Gretchen).
Last night's BBC 2 Heroes offering (the second of the two episodes which was also last Sunday's episode).
Details: Three main plotlines, as has become the norm.
Main plotline one is Samuel wooing Vanessa. At first, Vanessa is upset with him, but as he romances her throughout the day she gradually warms to him and comments that it always goes like this between them. When she finally seems to have come round and accepted him, Samuel takes her to the beautiful place he has had made where a cottage is waiting. He explains that he has constructed her dream. However, Vanessa explains that this was simply a fantasy and it becomes apparent that she sees Samuel as a romantic escape rather than a permanent thing. Samuel finally realises this and goes mad - destroying the land and announcing that he's sick of trying to fit in with Vanessa/non-Heroes.
The second main plotline is the Sylar asking Claire
The third plotline is Hiro and the brain tumour. He collapses and enters a strange dream where he is on trial for misusing time travel for his own ends - Adam is the prosecution, Ando is his defense and Kaito is the judge. Hiro is let off the "slushie" incident on the grounds that it was all for the good and no-one got hurt but condemned for saving Charlie at the expense of letting Sylar continue his rampage. At the end he is sentenced to death, but saved by his mother on the grounds of "destiny".
Asides - Sylar ends the episode on Matt's doorstep where Janice faintly recognises him, Mohinder announces his return to India and Bennett has a compass constructed for him (which a Hero must use for him, but, hey, he's got Ando and Hiro now).
General comments: I think the main plus of the episode is that it moved us on - Hiro has lost his brain tumour (or, at least, that's what I assume), Samuel is in full-on bad guy mode, Noah has a compass, Sylar has ended the period of dithering and, if anyone still cares, Claire and Gretchen finally get together. However, I didn't like any of the three plots that got us there and don't like the indications that we're about to lose Mohinder again.
Plot one: I didn't enjoy this in itself, but I did find Vanessa gradually coming around to Samuel as plausible and in character. Also, whilst I felt that Samuel's turn to the dark side was slightly undramatic given where he started from, it didn't suffer the huge lack of plausibility that Peter acquiring the hunger did back in Villains.
Plot two: Hmmm. Claire seeing herself as building walls and being less human than others didn't quite work for me. Also, when Sylar talks about her being alone - she isn't as that's her main link with Peter (as they state at the end of The Hard Part back near the end of season one) even before you consider Noah, Sandra, Angela, etc. I'm not sold on the whole "Claire and Sylar are alike" line, but it makes a change from the father-daughter Noah-Claire stuff that the writers have been too obsessed with for too long. Oh, one other nice point, in a welcome contrast between Sylar and Peter (which I've felt has been needed ever since the writers randomly gave Sylar empathy) the implication is that lots of powers can suck someone's humanity and sanity which didn't happen to Peter.
Plot three: On the plus side, good to see David Anders (although I'm less fond of Adam) and George Takai/Kaito. Also, nice to see a rare reference back to season two. However, I didn't see the need or the justification (as in it didn't fit the world background) for Hiro to be cured in such a deus ex machina manner (if I can use the phrase I've just looked up in that way).
Character by character:
- Claire - Suddenly the youngest main character is wise past her years and offering Sylar advice. Err, no. I liked it better in season one when you could actually believe she was high school age.
- Noah - Has a compass and still hasn't checked his phone for that message from Peter.
- Samuel - Hopefully we've stopped trying to pretend that there's a nice bit of him in there somewhere.
- Sylar - Well, I've not really been a Sylar fan since he survived season one, but maybe he'll actually do something now.
- Hiro - Glad the brain tumour's gone, pity about how. I loved his Quantum Leap exchange with Adam though (although, as
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bateleur has said, pity he's still that season one character who makes them rather than turning into competent Hiro from Five Years Gone). - Ando - He actually got a decent part this time and did some awesome work as the defense lawyer - go Ando!
- Mohinder - Shame he appears to be leaving again.
Themes: Quests and romance vs realism.
Refer back moments: Kaito, Adam and Ishi. Also there's a gratuitous sword fight in Hiro's brain tumour dream. Plus Sylar listing all his victims.
Continuity errors and other weirds: I really should have picked up on this earlier but... Joseph giving Danko a compass is stupid as he's a non-hero and can't use it. Claire's new found wisdom seems wrong (if anything she's suffered fewer traumas than the other characters - for example, she missed the incarceration in Fugitives) as does her feeling of isolation - she, more than anyone else, has half a dozen people looking out for her, Heroes and non-Heroes (Angela, Peter, Noah, Sandra, Gretchen).
