Hayden’s in a very non-subtle political ad with Jessica Alba, and now in a scene involving her, they bring up waterboarding. Sigh. We all want subtext, but none of us want it to be political!! I was put off by the political subtext in FYG way back when as well. And depending on how far they go with Nathan’s born-again awakening, they could end up offending several major religions as well.

Wouldn’t it be easier and less controversial just to tell us where the hell Caitlin is?

I maintain that keeping Sylar is the primary and major reason for ALL of the show’s failings right now. HRG is the glue holding the whole ship together.

Matt Roush on TV Guide had a question about Heroes in his “Ask Matt” column that’s worth reading as a reaction from somebody who’s not as invested in the show–meaning most of the public.

They need to start caring about continuity. Dangling plot threads must be dealt with. Characters must behave as if informed by what has happened the first two seasons (right now Hiro is the most glaring example of this pitfall). Among other things. If there’s no attention to any of this, Roush is proved correct in his “making it up as they go” analysis.

You’re welcome. I think HRG is being written consistently — protect Claire, protect family, moral conflicts with job. It’s one of the reasons he’s my favorite individual character even after everything.

Also, Claire is being written consistently on paper. Her reaction to Sylar’s attack is spot on, as is her realization that her power is defensive and she now needs offensive. With Claire, the problem lies in Kring & Co’s need for allegory. S1 was fine. But, S2’s Daddy-Boyfriend issues is the face of wider threat arc was very heavy handed, and this year’s rape parallels are rolling in with all the subtlety of a tank when they need a cat walking on paper. Apart from anything else, when Meredith brought up waterboarding, I knew we were in for it.

If we were supposed to take anything from last week’s episode, though, I think it’s that Sylar’s motives have developed beyond a straightforward “Want powers, get brains” reflex. I thought Angela’s “hunger” speech and the look Sylar got before he sliced Jesse open conveyed that really well. I’m not sure that adds up to him wanting to reform or become a good person, but it definitely shows he’s conflicted about his impulse to accumulate abilities.

Like some of those here, I really didn’t like this episode much at all. The Meredith stuff was part of it, but for me it started at the top, with the scene between Mommy Petrelli and Sylar. Tossing Sylar’s back story out the window, just to tie him in with the Petrellis, rips me out of the narrative. Just like the dropped (Irish) potato, Caitlin, does for Otto.

Right now, I’m afraid that Raissa’s observation is right on, that the characters in “Heroes” are having their characters re-written to service the needs of whatever the current plot happens to be, rather than having story arcs stem from the characters. The only consistent characterization has been Sylar’s, and that’s because his character arc has been the same since he was first mentioned in the show: Want powers. Eat brains. I really don’t think they’ve done anything with him since Kirby Plaza that justified his survival. Anyone care to differ?

Frankly, I don’t know what they’re doing. But, the scenario I brought up is the only way I can think of to provide consistency between S1 Meredith and S2 Meredith. My fear at this point is that returning character motivations will change depending on each season’s requirements. The problem is that S1 only makes sense in relation to S1. S2, while retaining obvious logistical ties to S1, only makes sense in relation to S2. So far, while not actually a bad story, S3 only makes sense in relation to S3. It feels disconnected.

I like the show a lot for what it is. But, subtext and continuity are important to me and lacking in this show (and always have been lacking, looking back). What’s worse is Kring has openly said his show will always lack subtext, because they’ve no room for it. I didn’t fully appreciate what he meant until now. Going into S3, two previous seasons of very little mostly performance driven subtext and wonky continuity have started taking a toll.

I’ll watch this show and enjoy it like I do well-written action films. But from now on, I’m not going to hope for this series to be something it’s not. After all, that’s why I watch other shows and enjoy other stories.

With Jesse, I wonder if the pace of the story hurt our investment in it. Even if Present-Peter’s experience hasn’t affected him, it should have; watching people get torched alive while he’s trapped inside a villain’s form, particularly when Peter started out as this sensitive and empathic favorite son, is something that should change him.

I wonder if some of the impact was lost by us knowing next to nothing about the villain Peter was trapped inside. Maybe the fact that Jesse was never characterized beyond “the bad guy with sound manipulation” made it harder for us to be swept up in Peter’s part of the story; if we’d known how vicious Jesse was, we probably would have appreciated the horror of the bodyswitch a little more. As it stands, Jesse ended up less a character in his own right than a shell for Present-Peter to occupy while Future-Peter was around. I think that’s where the breakneck pace of the story might be undermining the character arcs.

Raissa, I can definitely believe that Meredith could be bribed to sleep with Nathan. Do you think it ties in with the point about Meredith being portrayed differently this season than in the first? I guess HRG could have offered Meredith a reward for protecting Claire, but it seems like she’s looking out for the family out of genuine concern for their welfare rather than for money. If her avarice still outweighs her integrity, it’s not been suggested at all so far this season. I’ll be curious to see whether any of Meredith’s backstory is mentioned on the show, because I can’t figure out whether they’re trying to convey that Meredith’s changed a whole lot since the last time Claire saw her, or whether the show’s effectively writing Meredith as a new character this season.

F-Claire is part of it. There’s something else, though. Zimmerman obviously played tidly-winks with Super DNA to achieve the Larter sisters and Kaito went on about the one with pure blood, or whatever. I can’t help wondering if Meredith was paid to sleep with Nathan in the first place or after the fact when they found out she was pregnant. She effectively sold Claire, and then she changed her mind and decided to keep her. The rest being history. This would establish the guilt-driven, questionable FUBAR dynamic we’ve seen this year and last.

Another point: Cocky Claire kept saying she can’t die. In literal terms, we, she, Peter, HRG, and now Sylar know that’s not entirely true. It’s more that she doesn’t stay dead. What if HRG told Claire that she needed to keep the death part of her power even more secret that the living healing part in order to avoid scientific exploitation and religious wars that would make the Future reactions to powers we’ve seen up to now look tame in comparison? What if HRG told Claire to hide the Undiscovered Country in plain site — First by being careful not to reveal any aspect of her power at all, and failing that, to masque the death element with the more showy physical healing elements. Hence, “Look I can’t die.” This would add more than justifiable rage to Claire’s motivation, because she now knows that Sylar is harnessing the death element of her power, too, and if he’s able to aptitude the death part into a tactical advantage, Claire would view that as her fault and add guilt to the rage.