Samuel brings the carnival to Central Park and plans to bury its audience. Doyle puppeteers Emma into playing her cello and gathering a crowd, but Sylar overpowers Doyle and Peter confronts Samuel.
One question raised repeatedly over the past week is whether this will turn out to be the show’s final episode. It’s an unfortunate predicament, firstly because it leaves the show’s writers no opportunity to bring their story to a fitting conclusion, secondly because it leaves the show’s fans with no sense of closure.
For both of those reasons, I hope very much that this isn’t the show’s final episode. If it were, it would in turn raise the question of whether this will be my final review for the show. Which is also an unfortunate predicament, firstly because I’m not sure how sentimental I’m supposed to be, secondly because giving an overview of 78 reviews and half a million words is too daunting for me to contemplate.
So I’m not going to. I’m going to live in denial until the show’s network makes an official announcement, and I’m reviewing this episode as a volume- and season-ender rather than a series-ender. And, all things considered, that’s probably in the show’s best interest, because if this episode were to serve as a series-ender, it would leave more unresolved storylines than I can count.
It’s not the weakest finale the show has delivered, but it’s close. There’s nothing catastrophically bad about it, and nothing that plunges it to the depths of awfulness that the Sylathan Debacle reached last season, but there are inconsistencies running throughout it, there are aspects of the plot that aren’t developed anywhere near as far as they need to be, and if there’s a central criticism to be made, it’s that the absence of awfulness doesn’t make this a successful finale. Like almost every episode, it showcases superb performances from its cast and some profound ideas in its plot, concluding the volume with a suitably open-ended development that all but begs the network to consider renewing the show for another season. But within the context of the volume — and, yes, the series as a whole — it’s a by-the-numbers, seen-it-all-before finale. It has nothing to match the level of tension and drama that made the previous finales remarkable, it leaves multiple character arcs unresolved, and its pace is such that the volume doesn’t march to a conclusion so much as hobble.
There’s also something eerily familiar about the idea of someone announcing the existence of people with abilities to the public. I figured at first that the familiarity was down to Claire’s threat to publish The Company’s files and Nathan’s ill-fated attempt to call a press conference. But even then, it felt like we’d seen or heard something similar to this before.
I started to think about how reckless and irresponsible Claire’s actions are, and how no other character on the show had ever possessed quite that level of arrogance, but it was several days before I realized why it seemed so familiar. It’s because Claire’s plan to out specials everywhere goes all the way back to the first season, to a character I’d pushed to the furthest recesses of my memory.
This isn’t Claire’s plan: it’s Simone’s!
Simone: “Let’s tell them everything! Isaac painting the future. Hiro stopping time. Even you. What you all can do is incredible! It’s time people know what’s happening. The truth.”
Alas, this finale has no Nathan to kill off, which means Noah is saddled with the task of telling Claire that her plan to go public is insane, and that his dialogue becomes almost word-for-word the dialogue we heard from Nathan three seasons ago:
Nathan: “If people knew what we were capable of, they would drop a collective brick.”
Simone: “You think they’ll burn you at the stake?”
Nathan: “Yeah. Pretty much. Because that’s what I would do. I’d round us all up, stick us in a lab on some island in the middle of the ocean.”
A case of history repeating itself? A subtle tribute to the brother who died this season? Unintentional self-plagiarism? You decide. I’m still trying to get over the idea that Claire this week turned into Simone.
The Volume Four finale begins with Claire and Noah trapped in a trailer. There’s a certain whimsical irony to Claire beginning the volume at college and ending it 50 feet underground, but this is an opening that in many ways encapsulates what’s been great about this volume: a tense, claustrophobic environment that’s conducive to compelling drama. Also, lots of dirt. And ominous creaking sounds to remind us that the dirt is about to crush the trailer.
Lauren shows up at the site where the trailer was buried.
Beautifully shot, if a little too picturesque to come across as believable. It’s also regrettable that Lauren’s escape from Eli last week is shrugged off. I’m not sure whether that says more about Lauren or Eli, but since the show chooses to focus on Eli, it’s worth noting that Eli finds Matt burying a villain behind a brick wall, propping up a friend at the side of it and then…
… PREPARING LUNCH?!
So putting a mass-murderer inside a brick tomb and watching a friend trap himself inside that guy’s mind is the kind of thing that works up Matt’s appetite? I’m going to assume he was taking the food to the basement to force-feed Peter.
There’s something mildly amusing about the fact that the man with the all-conquering Parkman Whammy isn’t worth the attention of the “prime” Eli, but there’s also something delightful about the way Todd Stashwick plays each of the clones with a slightly different temperament. One is laid back, another is jumpy and neurotic, and, curiously, one of them leads Matt to believe there’s a trace of humanity inside him.
Is that a guilty face? The implication is Eli realizes he’s working for a tyrant and wants to back out, and this is where my disappointment begins. Eli’s not the most pivotal of characters, and his redemption after shooting Lydia is a very tough sell, but his storyline this week is ambiguous in the worst kind of way. It never becomes clear whether his decision to support Noah and Edgar comes from a genuine wish to repent or from a Parkman-Whammy-induced autonomic action.
We cut to the carnival…
… in a scene made spectacular by some staggering digital work, some superb photography by John Newby and some extremely subtle set work by Ruth Ammon. Samuel steps onto a stage that looks weathered yet sturdy, and it’s one of the nuances of this episode that the villain stands on a stage that’s filled with history and character. Compared to the pristine perfection of Pinehearst or the minimalist walls of Building 26, there’s something rich and complex about the carnival that I’ll miss once it’s gone.
The issues arise from everything and everyone that isn’t shown. Doyle and Ian are there, but Becky’s relegation to the graphic novels is disappointing, and Amanda’s absence since before Lydia’s death is baffling.
The really bizarre detail, however, is that Edgar is there.
How?! Didn’t Samuel pin Joseph’s murder on Edgar and scare the guy into exile? And suddenly he shows up to mourn Lydia and just goes back to being a member of the community? I guess we can speculate that Samuel told everyone it was a misunderstanding, but even if that’s true, Edgar knows that Samuel killed Joseph, and SAMUEL KNOWS THAT EDGAR KNOWS. There’s so much about this that’s unsaid, to the point where you wonder if you’ve forgetten a crucial scene or missed a webisode to explain it all.
Hiro wakes up in hospital, now fully recovered from the operation that saved him from an inoperable brain tumor.
Humor me. Read that last line again and tell me it’s not the most ridiculous thing you’ve read here all season. I’d buy it if Hiro was at least wearing a bandage over his head, but it’s as if the whole debilitating-terminal-tumor storyline never happened. If any other character on this show ever suffers from a terminal illness again, the lesson we take from this is that no terminal illness can kill a Heroes main character.
Hiro: “Life was simple once, wasn’t it?”
Ando: “It can be again.”
Hiro: “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”
^ ^ ACTUAL DIALOGUE!
What a hypocrite! Putting aside the fact that Hiro clearly sucks at running Yamagato and needs his sister to run his financial empire, the reason this rings false is because WE’VE SEEN HIRO LEAD A SIMPLE LIFE. It descended into messing with Dad’s clock and opening Dad’s safe out of boredom, and then, when that got old, using company time and expenses to rescue cats. It would be understandable if Hiro genuinely wanted a simple life, but we’ve seen Hiro renounce that simple life in favor of inadvertently wreaking havoc.
Sylar pwns Prime-Eli, the copies dissolve, and Matt is saddled with the task of representing everyone who thinks the lifetime-in-an-empty-dream-city concept is absurd.
There are countless winning screensavers to capture the bond that now exists between Peter and Sylar, but the intriguing part is the characters seem to be of practically one mind. They explain to Matt that it’s “a long story” in unison, and throughout these scenes…
… Peter barely looks at Sylar. You’d think that would be a trivial detail, but when you consider the context, it’s significant that Peter trusts his brother’s murderer enough to look away for even a second, let alone to let his guard down for an entire episode.
It seems convenient that Eli happened to be here to provide Peter and Sylar with the details to Samuel’s plan. You have to wonder how they would have found Samuel without him. The only other way they would have found the carnival is if one of them had a Magik Comp-
Wait a second.
Wait a second.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MAGIK COMPASS TATTOO?!
Forget the part where Samuel wanted Peter to be Joseph’s replacement. Or don’t, but it was 16 episodes ago, so I think it’s safe to say the show has. But what happens to the tattoo itself? Is it branded into Peter’s arm and waiting to be reactivated? Does it vanish when Samuel’s power vanishes? Will it still lead Peter to any large gathering of supers?
One word, casting department: bravo.
Phenomenal casting. Like, Young Angela phenomenal, right down to the eyes and the shape of the nose and the angular jaw. There are peripheral details that help; the accent, obviously, and the necklace that Young-Charlie was wearing the day she walked out of the diner. But beyond the physicality, it’s in the way K Callan plays her — as lively and warm and effortlessly charming — that she sells the part. Which is to say, she plays Charlie exactly the way Jayma Mays plays her. The moment you see her, you know this is Charlie. Callan absolutely owns the character, and you don’t doubt for a moment that this is Charlie.
Claire reassures Noah that his actions don’t change the fact that he’s her dad…
… and Noah’s ferocious response conveys that he doesn’t believe he deserves her sympathy. This is remarkable because it sets him apart from the other characters who spent the volume trying to redeem themselves. Angela’s attempt at redemption after the Sylathan Debacle has been non-existent; Matt’s emotional fallout has been explored, but with vast chunks of his backstory left out. Oddly, Noah and Sylathan have been the only characters all volume to express any genuine guilt over their actions. In a volume entitled “Redemption,” these were the two characters who strove to atone for their actions, knowing all along that they couldn’t.
Noah: “It doesn’t matter what I believe anymore, because the whole world is about to find out about you. We can thank Samuel for that.”
Claire: “Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe the world is more ready than you think it is. Things change.”
On the one hand, I have to praise the way the actors knocked this scene out of the park, because, really…
… Hayden plays Claire’s hope and resolve with endearing conviction.
It sadly behooves me to point out, however, that this earns her a *PING!* Dumb As Hiro Award. Come on, Claire. Samuel’s planning to kill thousands of people and leave a crater in the middle of Central Park. You really think that’ll go down well with the rest of the population?
Noah: “Sure, there might be curiosity for a while. But all it takes is one Sylar, and then the pitchforks come out and all hell breaks loose. I’ve seen it — they will turn on you, Claire. It’s human nature.”
Blueprint for the following volume? It’s the reality Claire will face by jumping off that Ferris wheel. She might not find herself on the receiving end of a pitchfork unless she becomes really obnoxious, but regenerative blood will surely be one of the most coveted commodities the average non-super will want. It’s hard to imagine her getting much further than the outskirts of Central Park before a hundred people mob her in a bid to save their dying relatives. Even if people are “ready,” they’ll be greedy, they’ll be opportunistic and they’ll be fixated on abilities like Claire’s.
Which is perhaps something Claire will be happy to put up with. The rest of the superpowered population might not be, and a lot of them will suddenly find themselves thrust into the limelight and forced to explain why they haven’t been donating their ability to the benefit of mankind all these years. It’s those people who’ll suffer from Claire’s actions, and it’s why Claire ends this episode looking selfish.
Sylar: “I’ve done so much wrong to so many people. Just give me a chance to redeem myself.”
I still can’t decide if we’re meant to take this seriously. The way the show sold the concept so effectively in “The Wall,” I want to believe it’s true. Adam Kane tries to convince us by way of a series of intense close-ups on Quinto’s eyeball. The upshot is that Matt rummages through Sylar’s head, and concludes…
… What, exactly? I can’t tell. Is that shock that Sylar’s head is devoid of deranged fantasies about slicing heads? Is it disappointment that Matt doesn’t have a reason to put Sylar into another empty mental landscape? Is it horror at the images of Sylar visiting kids at the orphanage, helping old ladies cross the street and donating clothes to the homeless shelter? And, really, if it’s not any of those things, there’s only one other mental picture Matt’s likely to glean.
Sylar looks so hopeful when he asks Matt if he can “see it,” and as disingenuous as Sylar has proven to be over the seasons, his disarming optimism is as affecting as his look of dismay when Matt shoots his hopes down.
While I’m betting the backbone of Volume Six will be another dozen installments of The Sylar Show — complete with Sylar-angst and Sylar-trauma and numerous Sylar identity crises — I choose to be hopeful, if only because this past week’s spin on the situation has added creativity to Sylar’s character arc. If this volume was about Sylar rediscovering himself, it seems the following volume will be about Sylar struggling to prove who he wants to be.
Matt tells Peter and Sylar to get out of his home, Parkman-whammies Eli and prompts me to wonder two things: firstly, whether Eli’s whammy is so extensive that it lasts up to and beyond his decision to turn on Samuel, effectively negating his redemption and turning him into a permanent lemming; and secondly, whether this is really how the show intended to wrap up Matt’s character arc for the volume. One imagines he’ll head to the nearest hospital to be treated for the dislocated leg, but after that time he evaded police custody, I’m not even sure that’s a viable option.
Which leaves Matt in agony, stuck at home, with Janice and Baby Matt in hiding and an entire volume’s worth of development unresolved. None of the focal points of Matt’s character arc have been brought to anything resembling a conclusion by the end of this episode, and it’s disappointing to know that most of them didn’t even lead to any tangible development for him. If anything, the person they served is Sylar; as Sylar acknowledges, the ghost experience helped him to see “what it takes to be a good person.” In effect, Matt’s character arc this volume has existed solely to serve Sylar’s.
Claire huddles with her father while he slowly runs out of oxygen. It’s a scene that offers the same overwrought drama we’ve seen a hundred times, but it speaks to the caliber of the actors that, after all those variations, they still succeed in making these scenes affecting.
One word: aw.
Noah: “When I said I was the product of my experiences, I left out the most important part: you. You came into my life, and you changed everything.”
… Just like what’s-her-name?
… And what’s-his-name?
Never mind. Somewhere, in someone’s fanfic, they’re living out their lives in a giant house with Heidi, Simon and Monty, their walls adorned with pictures of They Who’ve Been Wiped From All Established Canon. ALL of them.
Noah: “The man you saw in those memories could never have died a happy man. But I can, because of you.”
It’s a heartfelt moment, but isn’t Noah basically saying the family he was starting in his flashback wouldn’t have made him happy? Am I the only one feeling bad for dead Kate and her unborn baby right about now? Thanks a lot, Noah!
Noah: “I want you to promise me something. That you’ll hide.”
Claire: “What?”
Noah: “You can stay hidden. You can blend in. You can pass, Claire. You know how to do it.”
Oh, Noah. She broke her neck just to scare a mean cheerleader. She jumped out a window with lights switched on up and down the campus. She sliced her arm open in front of a stranger at Thanksgiving dinner. Why on earth would you believe she can stay hidden?
The heartbreaking part is this is Noah’s dying wish. Claire doesn’t deny it outright at this moment in time, but with hindsight, knowing Claire disregards the wish within hours, this scene loses a big part of its impact. Claire should know by now that even when Noah has his ethics backwards, he ALWAYS knows best, and in this case her decision to disobey him could have global repercussions. Even if Claire goes into seclusion immediately after revealing her ability, there are countless supers all over the world whose lives will be turned upside down by her stunt.
Still, Claire frantically scraping at the dirt outside the trailer and watching water pour in? Regardless of the context, it’s awesome. You cheer because the moment the camera focuses on the water, you know what’s coming.
Gorgeously shot, and with such a neat symmetry when the volume began with Tracy trying to kill Noah and ends with her saving his life.
Welcome back, Ali Larter!
It’s sad that I have to say that, given that it’s an exclamation usually reserved for recurring or dead characters rather than, you know, regular cast members.
Tracy points out that Noah’s going to have to “get through 30 feet of dirt.” Judging from Noah’s look of semi-coherent horror, I think he appreciates that this is the equivalent of what I’ve endured during every Troah scene this season.
Tracy water-drills a tunnel to the surface and then… disappears. Well, thanks for stopping by, Tracy. It seems like just two paragraphs ago that I welcomed you back. I have no idea how you even found that trailer 50 feet underground, but it’s been fun reviewing your scenes this season. You met Noah in a sushi bar after trying to drown him, shared clam chowder with Noah in hospital, tried to get your old job back and then decided you didn’t want your old job back, watched a kid get dragged around town and, finally, you froze Claire’s foot off.
That’s about it, isn’t it? Besides the material in the graphic novels, that’s Tracy’s character arc this season. And that’s with Bryan Fuller’s best efforts to give the character a more prominent role. I shudder to think what the show would have done with her otherwise.
Farewell, Tracy! We hope to see you again. Someday.
I have to credit Lauren for her resilience given that she took a gunshot wound, stumbled through a forest and was only superficially patched up before finding the exact spot where Noah was buried, directing Tracy to the carnival site, calling a chopper and helping to haul Noah out of the water before flying to Manhattan and taking it upon herself to tend to the PR damage control.
But she’s also a martyr! She called Tracy! The Lauroah bowed down to the might of the Troah! Now that’s admirable. That’s like swallowing your pride and admitting that The Other Hot Blonde is more useful than you are. Can you imagine how sorry Lauren must be feeling for herself right about now?
Noah: “Tracy saved us.”
Lauren: “I know. I called her.”
Noah: “Where is she?”
Remember, fanfic writers: the Troah is a spark that fizzles, but the Lauroah is a candle that will burn forever.
Aw.
The amazing part here is there’s chemistry between them. Not in the creepy 90-year-old-lady-making-eyes-at-a-30-year-old-nerd way, and not in the so-adorable-your-heart-melts way, but in a way that transcends time and definition. You can see intimacy between the characters, and it’s the kind of intimacy that made the romance between Hiro and Charlie so heartwarming. Again, it goes to show what spectacular casting this was.
Old-Charlie describes how she got a job in 1940s Milwaukee, but perhaps what’s more relevant is what she unwittingly reveals: that in spite of comprehensive knowledge of the 65 years ahead of her — not least because of an ability to absorb information at a superhuman rate — Charlie stayed under the radar. And given the enormous opportunities she had — to make groundbreaking discoveries, to invest in software development, to warn authorities of impending crises — that says a lot about Charlie’s respect for the timeline. It’s also worth noting that Old-Charlie made no attempt to visit the Burnt Toast Diner to intervene on the day her younger counterpart was captured by Arnold. Which, again, says a lot.
Not that Hiro appreciates any of this. But the point is he should!
Perhaps even more relevantly, Charlie achieved what Noah hoped Claire would achieve. Which is to say, she got on with her life and kept quiet about what she could do, even under the bizarrest of circumstances. This is evidence that people can get a handle on their ability and live out their lives without the melodrama the rest of the characters have put themselves through. And, in the context of this episode, this is the kind of individual whose prospects of a happy family life will be nixed by Claire’s actions. Instead of being surrounded by family, it’s more likely Old-Charlie will be surrounded by a team of doctors drawing blood samples and trying to figure out how her ability works before she dies.
Old-Charlie seems to have forgotten that Hiro’s “weird doctor friend” is a serial killer. You’ll recall that she was standing in the storage room when Hiro described the circumstances under which the brain-scalping mass-murderer would die. I categorically refuse to assign a Dumb As Hiro Award to Charlie, so I’m going to assume that with old age came some convenient forgetfulness.
Hiro: “I can fix this.”
?!?!?!?!
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Just so we’re sure…
Yes, I know: he learned his lesson before the end of the episode. BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE LESSONS HE LEARNED BEFORE THIS EPISODE? Did Hiro take anything from his experiences this season? The repercussions of screwing with time? His responsibility to not tamper with history? The near-death hallucination in which he was brought to account for EXACTLY THIS KIND OF SELFISHNESS? Should it really fall to Ando to tell Hiro that he’s incapable of changing the timeline without colossally and selfishly screwing it up? Has Hiro been Haitian-whammied? Did Ando’s electro-charge to the head cross some wires? Has the brain tumor effaced everything he went through over the course of this volume? Because it seems like Hiro’s as happy to mess with the timeline now as he was when Samuel found him in “Jump, Push, Fall.”
Beautifully shot. I have no idea what it means — whether it’s a reflection of a villain’s vanity, the hero who’s ready to stab him in the back or just a moment committed to film for sheer aesthetic value — but it looks amazing.
Emma’s blood trickling down the cello string? Still looks as awesome now as it did two weeks ago. Disconcerting, but incredibly well realized.
Noah and Claire make their way through the carnival. The obvious reason to assign Noah a Dumb As Hiro Award would be his failure to consider contacting René, but for obvious reasons that would be a very tactless complaint. If we’ve indeed seen the last of the man who was known for most of the past four years as the Haitian, it seems fitting to acknowldge that Jimmy Jean-Louis played his character with inimitable charm and wit, and that his real-life efforts in Haiti make him twice the hero he’s played on this show for the past four seasons.
We’re now blessed with some of the finest dialogue we’ve heard all season.
Yes, that is sarcasm.
Noah: “We’ve gotta find the backstage area. Do you know where it is?”
Claire: “Yeah. [Points to the back of the carnival.] It’s back that way.”
You have to be a showrunner to come up with dialogue like that.
The actors salvage the material:
Noah puts his hand to Claire’s head, and Claire pushes her head into his hand. It’s a brief moment, but it captures everything that’s effective about the dynamic between the characters.
The script then nosedives when Peter and Sylar arrive on the scene.
Peter: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…”
^ ^ ACTUAL NUMBER OF WAIT’s!
Peter: “The dream!”
[DRAMATIC BEAT]
Peter: “All these people — they’re all here!”
[DRAMATIC BEAT]
Peter: “Like lambs at the slaughter!”
Was Kring stoned when he wrote these scenes? Did he hand off scenes to freshmen drama students to ghostwrite them for him? Because this is not the dialogue that made this season great. As valiant an effort as Milo makes to render it meaningful, it’s some of the most awful dialogue of the series. The fact that it’s credited to the showrunner doesn’t just speak volumes. It speaks oceans. It speaks entire continents.
What the episode lacks in dialogue, it makes up for in nuance:
The Magik Popcorn stand has been repaired!
One assumes there’s no longer a Tattoo Girl, but the poster of an “illusionist” is a neat detail. You have to wonder whether that’s a reference to Disappearing-Act Teddy, or to a Candice-style illusionist we never got to meet.
Claire finds the backstage area… out back.
Samuel’s look of composure reflects the confidence that made him a superb villain throughout the volume. He’s the superpowered villainous version of Noah: he always has a plan, he always thinks 10 steps ahead of everyone else and he always banks on his ability to sweettalk his way out of a crisis. It’s part of the reason his sudden downfall seems so contrived.
We cut back to the hospital, where Hiro furnishes Charlie with a plan to retrieve her from Milwaukee. Sally appears, and again…
… the only word that springs to mind is aw. Much to Hiro’s credit, he finds it in himself to force a smile as he greets the kid who represents a life Hiro never got to be part of.
It’s possible some of these children and grandchildren have abilities, but perhaps they should consider themselves lucky to have had any kind of a life before the crapstorm that’s inevitably about to begin. Once again, thanks, Claire.
Hiro looks like he finally realizes that meddling with the timeline causes more harm than good. I feel obligated to point out that he should have come to this conclusion long before now, but the way it’s written and the way Oka plays it, I want to look past the time it took for Hiro to mature and instead appreciate what is, at heart, a moment of surprising selflessness from the character.
Sylar goes from slitting throats and ripping open heads to politely asking the puppeteer to release the cellist. Interestingly, Doyle does clarify that he’s planning to keep Emma playing “long enough for Samuel to finish the show.” I don’t think it’s clear whether Doyle knows what the show actually involves, but the implication is he’s willing to follow any plan Samuel wants to go along with, irrespective of absurdity.
Which, oddly, makes for a character who redeemed himself before the volume titled Redemption, and who now overturns his redemption and goes back to being a villain. It strikes me as a step back from the complexity of Doyle’s material in the webisodes because it effectively saddles him with the role of the mindless carnival lackey. As perfectly as Lawrence plays this side of Doyle, it’s disappointing to watch the character revert to something akin to his Volume Three personality.
The flipside…
… is we now see Emma sound-streak-whipping Doyle across the tent. It’s an empowering moment for Emma because she’s the one who overpowers Doyle, and Sylar’s merely the guy who takes care of him once he’s on the ground.
But then, Sylar TK-choking Doyle…
… is ultimately what makes Sylar the hero of the finale. Which, with hindsight, seems to have been where much of this volume was leading. As with Matt, you could argue that Doyle’s role — his vilification as a carnival drone — was ultimately in service of Sylar’s redemption.
Samuel insists to Claire that his family won’t desert him after all he’s “done” for them. It’s intended to come across as dishonest because of Samuel’s hidden motives, but I can’t help feeling bad for Samuel in light of how much he has done for them. These are people who’ve formed a community, and as false as their sense of belonging might be, it’s a community, and it’s a community Samuel’s been responsible for sustaining after Joseph’s death. When Claire tells them to “walk away now,” it’s played as a moment in which the heroine convinces the troops to walk away from a tyrant. And on the surface, that’s more or less the truth. But there’s a dimension to the story which the show never addressed, the one involving the life these individuals face once their community fractures. They’re going to emerge into the world with nowhere to go, no money, no friends, no family and no idea how to cope without the father figure they’ve depended on.
This, more than anything else, is what dragged this finale down for me. There’s a difference between open-ended and unresolved, and the conclusion to the carnival storyline struck me as decidedly unresolved. The way the episode wraps, you know you’re meant to feel a sense of victory: the villain was defeated, the people he used and lied to have been liberated, and everyone is still alive. The problem is this feels like a very short-lived victory. The people who were unwitting accessories to Samuel’s plan will be thrust into a world they don’t understand and without any idea how to reintegrate. To add to the adversity, they’ll now have to contend with the public’s awareness of a carnival populated by the kind of individuals whose injuries miraculously regenerate. And as Noah pointed out in the trailer, it’s a small step from fascination to mistrust, and in turn only a small step from mistrust to persecution.
Claire tells everyone about Joseph’s murder, and suddenly Samuel loses his unshakeable influence on the community. For whatever reason, Samuel’s immediate response is NOT to remind everyone that, per the story he previously ran with at Thanksgiving, Joseph was murdered by Edgar. It wouldn’t have helped when Edgar and Noah show up to incriminate him, but the fact that he doesn’t even try to stick with that story is what seems so strange.
The community’s sense of betrayal grows, but it falls to one individual to cement everyone’s perception of Samuel as a liar.
The guy who’s been Parkman-whammied!
Or not?
If you go with the theory that this is another of Matt’s industrial-strength Parkman Whammies, this isn’t really Eli taking ownership for his mistakes, but rather a guy who’s saying stuff because he’s been brainwashed into saying it.
But then, if that’s true, it means a big part of the grand conclusion to the carnival storyline — the carnival members deciding to abandon their leader — was facilitated by… a Parkman Whammy?
So, not the whole collapsing-a-town-and-killing-all-of-its-inhabitants thing?
Of course not! That would be so petty.
Does anyone else feel cheated? Call me crazy, but is turning the community against Samuel with a Parkman Whammy any less objectionable than maintaining a community with false declarations of love and family?
On the other hand, if this is a genuine expression of guilt from Eli, does it even begin to atone for his actions? Besides killing Lydia, we this week watched him nearly slice Matt’s limbs off. And you’ll note that this a guy who, along with everyone else, teleports into the normal world and who we assume will blend into the rest of society. A more accurate assumption would be that he’ll go into the real world and become something even worse than he is now. The problem is this isn’t even addressed.
Eli’s confession gets the job done. Claire shepherds the carnival members away, and Samuel is left alone in the backstage area… out back… and forced to melodramatically bellow that they’ll NEVER GET FAR ENOUGH.
Here’s where the episode falls apart. And by “falls apart,” I wish I could say I meant it was so riveting that it literally tore itself apart. Sadly, the climactic confrontation is so unmemorable that it doesn’t cause the scene to rock so much as disintegrate. I sympathize with the crew who were working with a limited budget, but given that the volume appears to have been building towards this moment since the premiere, you’d think there’d be something more spectacular at the finish line.
This is a villain who, three episodes earlier, leveled an entire town. A villain who, providing he’s pissed off enough…
… will bury mansions and raze police precincts.
This week, the scale of the villain’s anger and fury reach heights so unimaginable that they enable him to confront Peter with…
… a lump of dirt.
This is what we’ve been building up to all season?! Peter and Samuel terrakinetically pushing a lump of earth back and forth between them?!
It’s kind of like a tennis match, but with clumps of earth instead of balls.
I suddenly realize there’s a double-meaning in that last sentence. It wasn’t intentional, but it does seem quite apt.
To Milo’s credit, he tries to make it look like wielding a wheelbarrow’s worth of dirt with his mind is the most strenuous challenge Peter’s faced all season.
Knepper seems to have resigned himself to the fact that his character’s best material is behind him, and resorts to just smiling villainously.
Samuel: “Peter, you of all people should know they have to fear us! It’s the only way they’ll respect us!”
This from the villain whose defining trait all volume was his underhandedness? This from the villain who gently pressed compasses into his prospective members’ hands and left it to them to decide if they wanted to join a group filled with love and camaraderie? This from the villain who defended his family to Gretchen by insisting that, if nothing else, they offered unconditional love.
Apparently the character’s entire demeanor throughout the volume was a pretense. Perhaps this was the point. Perhaps we’re meant to look back on Samuel over the course of the volume and say, “Ooh, that Samuel — he was a clever one! We thought we knew him — but we were wrong!”
I’d like to know how a wonderfully complex, multi-faceted villain became a one-dimensional caricature for the sake of fulfilling his role in the finale. Because, really, judging from the dialogue in this scene, apparently all it’s ever been about for Samuel is inspiring fear.
Samuel: “We both know what it’s like to live in the shadow of a brother. Joseph destroyed my potential! Kept me down! Just like your brother!”
Peter: “My brother didn’t let me down. He built me up.”
It’s a nice throwback to Nathan, but somehow, when you put it in context, when you look back on Peter’s eulogy over Nathan’s coffin and realize that his resolve to be “ready for anything” amounts to a dirt-pushing contest, this showdown devalues what came before it.
Claire ushers the carnival members to Hiro and instructs him to immediately teleport all of them away. This, we gather, is a challenging feat for Hiro to pull off.
Ando supercharges Hiro, the carnival’s members teleport away, and Samuel finds himself devoid of power.
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Wasn’t he terrakinetic to begin with? Isn’t that how he turned the mansion into a sink hole and brought the police precinct down? Wasn’t the whole deal that he just became more powerful when he surrounded himself with other abilities? And even if he only needs a few of them, shouldn’t Peter, Sylar, Doyle and Emma be amping him up right about now, if only by a little?
Samuel struggles as much as we do to reconcile this development with the volume’s internal continuity. Perhaps we should all just go with the “battery charge” theory and assume the terrible shock of losing his community was such that he found himself unable to recover his initial ability. In any case, I refuse to believe this character is Samuel. He’s so out of character that he bears no resemblance to the villain we watched develop over the course of the volume. I instead choose to believe that this is a shapeshifter, and that the real Samuel has been trapped in 1944 Milwaukee, where he got a job in a munitions factory and married a wonderful man woman and had four children and seven beautiful grandchildren.
All of that said, credit should be issued where it’s due, because this…
… is an incredible shot. The way the camera pulls back and back and back, taking in the scope of how alone Samuel is and how much he lost. It’s the kind of moment you want to take out of context and appreciate for what it is — exceptional photography and directing to support the character.
If you put it in context, this volume ends with the carnival arbitrarily walking away from Samuel — not because he destroyed a town, and not because he was absorbing the carnival’s super-energy and planning to use it to inflict horrific casualties, but because he got angry and killed his brother back in the day. And as bad as that is, it apparently trumps mass-murder and plans for a massacre.
Volume Four ends with Samuel reverting from a compelling, fully-developed, three-dimensional villain to a caricature who mwa-ha-ha’s his way into near-victory and is only stumped when someone mentions a murder which Samuel had already pinned on someone else. And that, above all, is the tragedy of this finale.
Samuel staggers into the middle of the carnival and falls face-down. It’s an unfortunate reflection of the show’s own trajectory, stumbling at the eleventh hour and undermining what was otherwise a solid volume. This finale provided a fitting resolution for Peter, Sylar, Claire and Noah, but it gave us only a brief glimpse of Tracy, a couple of scenes with Matt, no Mohinder, no Angela, and ultimately no sense of closure to a storyline revolving around a carnival whose members will now find themselves in the real world without any of the skills they need to survive.
We reach the end of the volume with a finale that was at times profound, perceptive and well crafted, but also deeply flawed.
3 out of 5
Looking back, the strongest volumes seem to be the ones preceded by a teaser with a clear idea: Nathan betraying the people closest to him, Sylathan struggling to understand his fixation with clocks.
The cryptic teasers seem to precede the weakest volumes: Hiro landing in a 17th century field, Sylar regenerating in an alley.
Volume Six begins with promise, at least insofar as it introduces a clear idea of where it’s planning to go. Claire’s naïve idealism is established, Sylar’s confidence in his capacity for good is articulated, and the prospect of people with abilities becoming common knowledge looms.
If there’s a reason to be skeptical, it’s because previous volumes have concluded with ideas that were either brushed aside or outright ignored.
All of these were dramatic starts or finishes to volumes, and in the end it’s been sad to see how little they resonated in the following volumes. The New York explosion was brushed aside. Nathan’s death was mysteriously undone and never referred to again. The president’s awareness of the superpowered population led to funding to track and imprison them, but in the end neither an assassination attempt nor plans for a new Company organization generated any significant advances to the ensuing story.
I’d like to think this next volume will be different, if only because Claire jumping off the Ferris wheel is so far-reaching. It has the potential to change the tone and format of the show in much the same way the fourth volume’s teaser did. The great part is that, as with the fourth volume’s teaser, this change is underpinned with potential for character exploration.
Samuel is driven away in a car with a siren, but according to Noah it’s old-school Company. I find it sad that a year after the prospect of a new, high-minded and enlightened Company was introduced, we’re now talking about the old Company again. Putting this disappointment aside, let’s hope there’s a Magik Power Dampener in the Level 5 cell that Samuel finds himself in, because otherwise it won’t be long before he absorbs enough super-magnetic energy to bury the building.
What the heck, though. That’s so last volume.
Sylar strings up Doyle and prides himself on not killing him. Given that this is the fourth occasion that Sylar has passed up to kill him, I’m starting to wonder if Sylar has a soft spot for the guy. In any case, I find it questionable that Eli gets to teleport to freedom while Doyle is strung up and humiliated. In terms of their crimes and their role as Samuel’s lackeys, there’s very little difference between them.
But hey, that’s so last volume.
It’s telling that Sylar gets to be the one to voice the title to the next volume, but it’s a choice that hints at the creative possibilities, if only because Sylar will be both the poster child for special abilities and the first target of the witch-hunt. Hilariously, though, Sylar’s claim that it felt “right” being a hero takes place in front of a stall with a slogan that reads “KNOCK ‘EM DOWN.” Unintentional humor from the set dressing if ever there was such a thing.
Noah: “Is everyone safe?”
Claire: “Yeah, Hiro’s taking care of them. They’ll be fine.”
Was that intended to reassure us? Because I can’t help thinking those two statements are antithetical.
Lauren provides damage control by spinning a story about a gas rupture and an elaborate special effects show. This in theory makes Lauren look like an adept PR agent for The Company, but given that the news crew now rushes to Noah and Claire to demand the REAL story, whatever attempt Lauren made to misdirect them clearly had very limited success.
But then, perhaps that’s the segue-way to Claire deciding it’s time to stop lying. As selfish as her decision to out the superpowered population might be, it represents an optimistic view of human nature — one that appeals to people’s tolerance and understanding.
It’s naïve, and at this point Noah’s prediction strikes me as infinitely the wiser, but there’s an admirable quality to Claire’s willingness to make herself the first guinea pig.
Claire looks apologetic, and although I think she owes the apology to everyone whose life is about to be turned upside down rather than to Noah, it’s established right away that she has an inkling of how horribly wrong this might turn out.
Claire gives one final look at the man who did everything he could to protect her.
Noah gives one final look at the daughter who’s about to expose everything that he, Angela and all of the ElderSupers agreed to keep under wraps.
And as arrogant as that makes Claire for thinking she knows better, it’s also tantalizing as a volume teaser. It carries the implication that this will lead to significant change.
As a bookend to the series, this would be about as perfect a way to go out as it’s possible for the show to come up with. I hope it’s not the final image of the series. If the show gets the fifth season it’s planning on, this is a moment that leaves the story and characters in a perfect position for development.
That’s a wrap on HeroSite’s reviews for Heroes Season Four. As near as I can tell — and assuming I’ve done the math correctly — the average score for this volume was 3.89 out of 5. That puts it behind the average scores I gave Volume One (4.24) and Volume Four (4.08), but ahead of Volume Three (3.85) and Volume Two (3.68). Which, on balance, sounds about right. It’s been a consistently good volume, but one that never quite matched the consistent brilliance of the first and fourth volumes. It’s a volume that included Hiro reuniting with Charlie, Sylathan begging Peter to let him go and Peter delivering a eulogy over his brother’s coffin, but also one that consisted of Nerdspeak!Hiro, Claire doing her laundry and Matt getting wrecked. Beyond the best and worst moments, however, it’s a volume that features Claire giving Tracy a bath, Lydia asking Hiro to touch her and Peter climbing inside Sylar. Which, if nothing else, offers enough innuendo to fuel a lifetime of scary fanfic.
Let’s hope the show gets a chance to produce an outstanding Volume Six. In the meantime, this season’s reviews wrap with a rundown of the volume’s Dumbest moments.
A grand total of 25 Dumb As Awards were issued this volume. That’s more than Volume Four’s 18 awards but less than Volume Three’s 26. While this might make it sound like Volume Five represented a step back in character intellingence, it’s worth noting that Volume Five was of course longer than Volume Four, and, consequently, if you’re judging it episode by episode, the characters in fact end up looking smarter. The characters earned an average of 2 Dumb As Awards per episode in Volume Three. This dropped to an average of 1.5 awards per episode in Volume Four, and, bearing in mind that this season’s 25 awards were distributed between 19 episodes, the characters in this volume earned an average of only 1.3 awards per episode. In short, this volume might not have been as strong as the previous one in terms of quality storytelling, but there’s some comfort to be taken from the fact that the characters behaved less idiotically in Volume Five than they did in Volumes Three or Four.
Needless to say, the key offenders are the same ones that racked up awards in previous volumes. The characters who earned Dumb As Awards this volume, in order of rank, are as follows:
Hiro Nakamura: 7 awards
Noah Bennet: 5 awards
Claire Bennet: 5 awards
Peter Petrelli: 2 awards
Matt Parkman: 2 awards
Ando Masahashi: 1 award
Kimiko Nakamura: 1 award
Mohinder Suresh: 1 award (and with appearances in, what, TWO EPISODES?)
Lydia (R.I.P.): 1 award
A few observations to note from this: first, Matt seems to be getting smarter each volume; secondly, Noah seems to be getting progressively dumber each volume (which may be the result of constantly getting shot, slashed open and hit over the head); and thirdly, despite an often shockingly inconsistent character arc, Sylar continues to evade my Dumb As Awards.
On that note, I bid everyone a fond farewell for the hiatus. I said I wouldn’t treat this as a final review, but if this does end up serving as the show’s final episode, it’s the conclusion to something that goes beyond description. It would be impossible for me to condense four seasons of reviews and articulate what an amazing journey it’s been. Hopefully, if you’ve followed HeroSite’s reviews this far, you know what an amazing journey it’s been. It’s a journey which started out with reviews discussing comic-book comparisons and crazy theories, and which somehow ended up with Shakespeare-quoting turtles, purple flags, election campaigns in the underworld and electric ferrets. And Maya.
I’d like to state the obvious by issuing a heartfelt thanks to everyone who’s gone on this journey with me. Thank you to the cast and crew who’ve been kind enough to get in touch with me over the years. Thank you to the writers for enduring my criticism with such good humor, and for creating characters who’ve at times been so stupid that the Dumb As Awards practically assigned themselves. And thank you to the readers who’ve visited HeroSite and read its reviews over the years, because you’re the reason this site has been such an enormous pleasure to support and why it’s come to feel like home.
Dammit. I said I wouldn’t.
Have a great spring and summer, and I hope to see you all again in September.
Great review, as always. I hope it’s not the last time I’m writing this.
However - if that’s the last words we get from you -, if I hope not to see you again in September, but next winter/spring. If less episodes and a longer wait is what they need to bring us a consistently outstanding volume, I’m in for the wait.
“Was Kring stoned when he wrote these scenes?”
“One word, casting department: bravo.”
That just made my day :).
Just passed by and saw the review was up so decided to read. More elaborated post tomorrow :).
Nice review, Otto.
Not much to add, except that I agree with you for the most part. This episode and season were mediocre. Maybe the show will continue in some way, but I somehow have the nagging feeling that it won’t.
One thing I would like to point out is that the “old company” Noah mentioned is most likely the CIA, which explains Lauren’s favor that she called in. There is no Primatech or other company. Of course, this begs the question of why the CIA would want to arrest him. My guess is that it has to do with the “favor” or the recent scare at the carnival - nothing to do with a Most Wanted list or anything. At least that’s how I see it.
I agree with you, I think it’s CIA or something, but I guess that people who help Lauren to move this issue, must be totally informed about specials…
Pete, thanks for pointing out the CIA option. I agree that it’s the most likely explanation, although the reference to Lauren calling in a “favor” could equally mean that, since she worked for The Company until the Hartsdale Primatech burned down, she still had ties to ex-employees and access to Company resources.
Whichever option is true, I think there’s still an ~*allusion*~ to The Company. Which only serves as a reminder of how the New Company storyline was abandoned.
I think Lauren could have found enough “real life” evidence to give the CIA a reason to arrest Samuel. With Edgar or Eli’s statements, she could have charged Samuel with Lubbock’s death, The Thug’s death (in 4.12), and of course Joseph’s death. Samuel was involved (if only indirectly) in all of them.
Otto, I didn’t think this episode was that bad. You seemed to think that Claire’s decision to reveal the specials to the world was selfish. But keeping the specials hidden HAS resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people that might have not died if the issue of how to deal with the Samuels and the Sylars of the world was handled openly. Besides, the specials’ existance WILL be revealed to the world eventually- the only question is how?
Eli’s change HAD to be the result of Matt’s Whammy- otherwise, what did Matt whammy Eli into doing?
Edgar returned to the Carnival two episodes ago- I don’t remember you complaining about his presence then. I think the implication was that Samuel thought Edgar bought his ruse that Noah killed Lydia and was angry at the world.
I think the point of Hiro wanting to wipe Charlie’s life without him from existence was that a lot of selfishness DID underly Hiro’s actions.
Doyle THOUGHT he had changed, but it was always obvious that the man who tried to force a mother into killing her daughter was there buried not so deep down.
I don’t think that it was just one thing that caused the carnival to turn on Samuel. I think that it was the culmination of the way Samuel had been acting for a long time.
Like Pete pointed out, the Company Noah mentioned was a play on words- Samuel was imprisoned by the CIA.
Samuel’s final meltdown had been hinted at for some time. Samuel always had trouble controlling his violent impulses. And he started coming apart as soon as Vanessa left him. You seem to have always had a more positive view of Samuel than I did. I saw that he was clearly evil as soon as he killed the woman who refused to let him into his old home. Samuel was a metaphor for cult leaders- they often self-destruct. I thought Knepper played the scene beautifully. Samuel was still the showman even in his anger. And the end, when Samuel tries to convince himself that his followers were nothing without him, when in reality it was the other way around, Knepper’s portrayal was magnificent.
Michael, great post, and several valid points. A couple of thoughts:
“… keeping the specials hidden HAS resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people that might have not died if the issue of how to deal with the Samuels and the Sylars of the world was handled openly.”
OK, but wasn’t Coyote Sands an attempt to study and eliminate abilities “openly”? It was a covert operation, but within a limited environment (and correct me if I’m wrong), I think that’s the kind of “open” solution we’re thinking of. Isn’t that as “open” as you can get without the kind of civil unrest that Claire’s stunt this week could cause? To me, “openly” implies bringing in people with guns and power-destabilizing viruses and all kinds of invasive methods that will end up with people getting caught in the crossfire. That’s why I have to go with HRG’s (admittedly cynical) Prediction of Doom: there is no way to handle this openly without inflicting casualties. Some enterprising non-super will dig up incriminating information (the way Alejandro found an article about Gabriel killing Mama Gray in 2.10), he’ll tell a few friends, they’ll all come charging like idiots at the Sylars and the Samuels and end up with their throats slit and their corpses buried in a landslide. And those Sylars and Samuels will insist they were only defending themselves, and from a PR perspective, there’ll be no way to spin it — and that’s when the fragile coexistence will descend into chaos.
“Eli’s change HAD to be the result of Matt’s Whammy- otherwise, what did Matt whammy Eli into doing?”
OK, fair point. I’ve argued why I think there are issues with that scenario, but if it is accurate, wouldn’t you agree that it makes the outcome to the episode contrived? (At least a little?) That was a pivotal moment in the plot — Eli convincing the carnival members to walk away — and it comes as a result of a Parkman Whammy. Is it really just me who finds that a cop-out? TPTBs cut corners to bring the storyline to a convenient close. They didn’t want to redeem Eli (or they didn’t think they could redeem him), so instead of killing him off, they came up with a scene where Matt brainwashed Eli into a ~*pretend*~ redemption. He becomes a repentant guy because he’s been whammied into it. That still strikes me as a very false resolution, and as I’ve said, I think there are major implications to it, because we’re left to speculate about whether Eli spends the rest of his life as a Parkman-whammied lemming or reverts back to the ethically challenged lackey who was willing to gun down Lydia and slice up Matt. Either way, the guy who gunned down Lydia is now a free man, and the uncertainty about what that would lead to strikes me as a critical thing to leave unresolved. If TPTBs could find the time to show us a strung-up Doyle, I think there could have been a more defined resolution for Eli.
“Edgar returned to the Carnival two episodes ago- I don’t remember you complaining about his presence then.”
Sure, but he returned in 4.17 for one scene, and to mourn Lydia’s death. There’s nothing to complain about there. That’s very different to returning to the carnival and pretending to go back to life as normal, especially after Edgar revealed that he knew Samuel murdered Joseph and after Samuel pinned the murder on him. I’m guessing a scene was edited somewhere along the way, and in my opinion it needed to stay.
If TPTBs could find the time to show us a strung-up Doyle, I think there could have been a more defined resolution for Eli.
Ah, but see, stringing up Doyle involved Sylar. As for Eli, we would have only seen more of that if his redemption/resolution was more tightly connected to either of the two “stars” of the show.
Very true.
Perhaps next season a dozen Eli copies will show up at Claire’s door and hack her to pieces, drive a tree root through her brain and then run in separate directions with her limbs and severed head. And it will be Sylar’s multi-episode arc (filled with identity crises and the discovery of a long-lost family member) to locate and reattach Claire’s severed limbs. Upon removing the tree root, Claire will fall into Sylar’s arms and profess her immortal love for him, HRG will welcome Sylar into the family, and before the season is out we’ll all be cooing over L’il Noah.
You read it here first.
First off, excelent review, It was a fairly good finale, but it was unresolved as you said Otto. I enjoyed it nevertheless. Let me just say I lmao so much in this review, thank you Otto, I hadn’t laughed like that in years, poor Hiro though, he’s always getting served lol, and OMG I laughed so hard when I saw people voted that the best way for Hiro to save the day was fight Samuel off with the Magik Popcorn, I was so glad that the magik Popcorn stand was fixed!! On a separate note regarding this and I quote: “despite an often shockingly inconsistent character arc, Sylar continues to evade my Dumb As Awards.”, of course he does, there is no dumb in him, although he might be a character who’s story arc is almost always the same, it’s hard to get tired of wondering what the psychotic Serial Killer will end up doing next. As a major, ultra, mega, ultimate, Sylar fan I would give him a Dumb Ass Hiro Award for: taking a ridiculously long amount of time in Kirby Plaza to stop Hiro from stabbing him by TK’ing him, and not killing Doyle when he’s had 4 chances to do it!! But Sylar is awesome so there’s no doubt in my mind he will continue to be an inspiring piece of art for the show. Hope to continue reading when the show starts (cause I have faith it will return) and have a good vacation!! See you soon!!
MAGIK POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORN, YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES, WUJUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR MAGIK POOOOOOP COOOOORN, GO HIRO FIGHT SAMUEL OFF WITH THE MAGIK POOOPCORN!!!!!!
Great review.
While I’ve had issues with the show’s writing, I’d like to thank the actors who always gave their all, regardless of the material. I’d also like to thank the crew, who deserve every technical award that can be bestowed.
Thank you, Otto, for all your hard work. If we get S5, I will definitely be returning.
Ditto!
Very well said, Raissa.
I’d like to third that.
Another awesome review, Otto
For this episode, while I may have said yesterday in the discussion thread that I thought it was just good, thinking more of the lasting impact, it was way below average quality wise. I thought the Season 3 finale was MUCH better than this one in the value of edge of the seat moments and bigger scale (Sylathan Debacle & closed door battle aside). But truth be wise, four years in, some nice moments aside, its clear that season finales have never been a strong point for the series, with the S1 finale falling flat with what we were expecting, the S2 abortion of a finale (if it can be called that because, while competent, wasn’t the finale THEY planned), the S3 finale (despite an exciting pace, edge of the seat moments) falling flat with the close doors and bewildering more than 90% of the fanbase with Sylathan, and the S4 finale… what else can it be said? After watching other shows’ season finales, like Lost, Supernatural, Smallville (exclude the final 2 seasons for that one), the R.I.P. Terminator, Fringe, Chuck, and a few others I don’t remember now, it surprises me that Heroes, a show that excels in a lot of places, seem to drop the ball at the end. Season finales are meant to be high points in the series; Heroes’ finales are always somewhere in the middle.
One thing I never thought until reading this is how basically “Brave New World” raped Samuel. While Robert Knepper still delivered a great performance, the way it really brought his character to a one note caricature villain, after being the standout of the series for more than 18/19’s of the season, is killer. In fact, Otto, I’m surprised you didn’t mention in this review how this could lower the episode’s score to a 1 out of 5 (I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned that in your reviews, forgive me.)
But I think that there is one MAIN villain of the series right now, and he is named Tim Kring. Normally, I wouldn’t hold a grudge against a show runner as he is the one who gave us the series and actually wrote 3 of my favorite episodes of the series, “Seven Minutes to Midnight”, “Godsend” & “The Fifth Stage”. But surprisingly, not all of his episodes are the standouts when they should be, and as a show runner I know he is the one to blame about the questionable decisions of the series, specially considering one of his episodes gave us for the first time Kid Hiro, who was obviously the preamble to NerdSpeak Hiro.
But I gave him the mantle of villain after what happened to Samuel here. How he could condescend one of his most brilliant additions to the show to a twirling mustache kind of villain is way beyond me. Also, the dialogue… XD. I loved how you point it as being the “best” dialogue. And that credited to a show runner, it really pains my heart. While his dialogue was going in a down spin since S2, this was a new low, and it clearly underlines the fact that it IS time for him to step down, whether the show continues or not, and let someone fresh and new guide the series in what really needs to be a final season. I’m not saying that he should completely leave. He should pull a “J.J. Abrams”, develop this new “III” show that’s been announced, and occasionally come back to see his baby creation, without leaving it completely. It’s his after all, but clearly he no longer feels it.
Your “Was Kring stoned when he wrote these scenes?” was perfect and definitely my line of the night. I’m happy you came up with stoned instead of “high”.
As for the rest of the review, I agreed completely. What happened to Samuel, character and powered wise, downgraded it in lasting effect, Matt’s limitation in the episode was jarring and inconclusive, Tracy furthered added to the disappointment the character had been all season by the way she was horribly underused, Mohinder & Angela’s exclusion of at least a scene was terrible, too, the dialogue… ’nuff said.
But there was what I enjoyed, which seems to be typical of these season finales amidst all the bad stuff. Charlie & Hiro, once again, was solid gold. How is it that this show ALWAYS get it right in casting? After Lost, Heroes is the only one. I sweared that K Callan was Jayma Mays in makeup. Her remarks, the look, the similarity in the resemblance, her delivery of her lines… it was perfect. Heroes for me always worked in the touching moments. This scenes were beyond touching. It was this scenes that made me go softer with Tim Kring, as he was the one who introduced her and is the one who ended her in a moving way. This moments made the finale for me, as it really showed how everything could have benefited of a fitting close to their storylines than what we got.
In fact, my biggest disappointment, stretching all the way to the moment Grunberg commented about it, was the fact that the show’s in limbo right now and this wasn’t an “in-case” series finale to leave us with some closure, and Grunbeng was sure as hell right we were going to be disappointed if everything ended this way. The way it was structured, how much of it felt rushed and unfulfilling, unresolved, and clunky, its frustrating that, if things truly go wrong, this may be the last we may see of the series. To decrease the pain, not showing the Volume Six chyron could have gone such a long way, because, with the last shot being Claire on hand camera much like it was on the pilot before it went into its first commercial, was as good a bookend as any they could have had to try to give some closure without hitting us over the head with the fact that this storyline is far from done.
But like you, Otto, I’ll try to live in denial, too. Since it aired, I’m trying to stoke my hopes that it will get another year (almost praying it does), despite many stupids who just bash the hell out of the show wanting it to get cancelled. The NBC situation really give it hope, becuase there’s no way in hell they will have more than half dozen new programs to fill in next season. So, again, denial.
So going off the epidode topic, lets go to the Dumb as Awards section. Is it just me, or you gave Hiro the official Dumb as Award when he earned it the sixth time? I remember reading the 4.08 review, and he won it in the bathroom scene when he asked the “What waitress?” question. I don’t know but that’s what I remember about it. Hope it gets clear.
I’m also impressed that this season the official key offenders (Peter, Mohinder, Matt) barely made something stupid (Peter’s TURBO Dumb as Award aside) in comparison to Claire & Noah, who each won 5 awards each. A “Dumb as Noah Award” or a “Dumb as Claire Award”… who would have thought about it. If not for Hiro, it would have been a “Dumb as Bennett” Award. Poor them :(. Also, is Sylar wearing anti “Dumb as Award” repelent? He always seems evades one from you. I swear that him winning one will be a sign of the apocalypse.
Finally, there’s the Volume math. I did it myself quite a few months back, and did the Volume 5 one right a few minutes ago. They’re correct, and I stand with those scores, despite me being more adamant of Volume 3 being in the last place, but I’ll no longer argue that with you. You were soft with Volume 3 for a reason, so its time for me to let go, as I thought that Volume 2 was as bad, too.
And since we are talking math, I did the Ratings average on Wednesday, and after getting the results, and reconfirming it with Wikipedia, these have been the results (for those who don’t want to go right now to Wikipedia):
US Viewers in millions US Live viewers + DVR
Season 1: 13.86 14.30
Season 2: 11.46 13.10
Season 3: 7.61 9.27
Season 4: 5.22 TBA
So it is really clear how much the viewership has fallen since Season 1 in total average, but still, NBC’s shows are averaging arguably the same numbers, DVR count is still coming soon, and Heroes still does well in a certain NBC demograhic. While the last episode averaged 4.41 viewers (not counting DVR), its clear a new season could debut with even lower ratings. But still, we are all eagering a final season, so those numbers, and DVD & iTunes sales, make it possible, particularly for a network that’s no longer what it was. (I sound like a broken record now for HOW MANY TIMES I’VE SAID THAT, sorry.)
So that was my big post for this wrap up. I’ve promised that I won’t say “thanks for the final review”. And that’s why it’s quoted. I’ll continue to live in denial, and hoping for the eventual renewal. But like I said in “The Wall”, your reviews have been a part of my entertainment life for the past 4 years, and I will gladly follow you to wherever you go in the worst case scenario. So, until then, whatever happens, update the blog until September and keep in touch. So, when are the announcements coming NBC?
My score: 2.5/5
If this is the series finale, I must say that I will be monumentally disappointed. Heroes is one of the best things on TV, and I would be tremendously sad to see it go.
But once again, Otto, you’ve NAILED everything that was wrong with the episode. The Carnival storyline was… insufficient. On the other hand, it did provide a way for those insufficient storylines to be wrapped up next volume (assuming there is one). Samuel is still alive, which is not only a nice change from previous Major Baddies (Linderman, Adam, Arthur, Danko) who usually die around the finale or shortly into the next volume (fingers crossed, Sammy boy!), but it also provides a chance for him to become a recurring villain and come up with a Big Villainous Scheme. That will be much needed, given that we’re apparently losing the constant villain the show has been running with for four years.
Meanwhile, the Carnies themselves DO have a chance to be explored in-depth, if, as was implied, they become a part of Hiro’s storyline next season. Perhaps it will be Kimiko to the rescue (again)? I, personally, would love to see Edgar made into a series regular, or at least recurring cast next year, because he had a great deal of character AND story potential, and it would be just PATHETIC to have a SECOND speedster dismissed as easily as the FIRST one was (which, if my past comments weren’t an indication, is something I am still phenomenally put out about).
And yes, the “Epic Battle” between Samuel and Peter was another cop-out. They have a limited budget and I get that, but it felt too much like Claire peeping through the keyhole to me… And the glitch in continuity with Samuel’s powers… I’m not even going to touch that and just say that he was trying to pull off something epic, such as an NYC-sized sinkhole, and obviously couldn’t do it without the rest of the Carnies.
Meanwhile, the Volume 6 teaser was, quite honestly, brilliant. I defy ANYONE not to say “awww” at the Peter/Emma reunion. And I ask: was I the only one who seriously thought he was planning on kissing her? Maybe that’s just the shipper in me, but I honestly thought that was where they were going with that. Ah, well. There’s always next season (I hope).
And despite what everyone seems to be saying on discussion boards, I actually thought that Claire’s actions were extremely in-line with where her head has been this season. She started out in the season premiere telling Noah that she wanted to be more honest with people, and it’s become increasingly clear throughout the season that she’s looking for acceptance, and the fact that she hopes to get that from the world at large is oddly touching.
Though I have seen people knocking her for disobeying her father’s “dying wish,” I think it’s at least partially negated by the fact that, well, NOAH DIDN’T ACTUALLY DIE. Does it count as a dying wish if the dying person is still alive? It should still have had an impact on her actions, but it’s not quite as heinous as it might have been if he were lying dead in a trailer underground.
Meanwhile, I continue to find that Lauren is starting to grow on me. She didn’t have much to do in this episode, but the respect she earned from me in The Wall lingers. If she can actually maintain that next season, I might accept her as a member of the Heroes cast and appreciate whatever contributions she makes to the story.
Another character that I sincerely hope to see on next season’s cast list- preferably as main cast, though I’d settle for a spot as recurring cast- is Emma. She’s almost certainly the best, most heartfelt, most well-developed new character the show has come out with since the beginning of Volume 3, and if she doesn’t return as a regular, I’m going to be severely put out (and yes, I am channeling my inner HRH Humperdink). I can’t imagine them making her such a critical part of this season and then just… DROPPING her…
Except that I can. They’ve done it before. With Daphne. Again, Nemesis sets a scary precedent for beloved new characters on this show.
Overall, I thought it was a strong finale, and though there were a few threads that struggled, I’m going to have to have a chat with those pesky NBC execs to discuss the future of this show. Namely, that there better be one. Though honestly, the show has such high revenue from DVD and merch sales, I can’t really see NBC dropping it. Especially considering the massive twist they’ve introduced for the lead-in.
See you next season, Otto!
I was worried with the way they were handling HRG’s redemption storyline in the first episodes but now I’m happy with the way things turned out. I loved the fact that one of this season’s main storylines was HRG/Claire. Peter/Samuel showdown was kinda meh and I mostly blame the budget cuts. One of the things I loved in this eppy were two season one references and it’s awesome that both of them were Noah/Claire related. Random thoughts: Emma is the most boring character of the season and Samuel could have been more interesting as a villain. And Lauroah tops Noacy but Noaire tops them all. I hope to see a new volume and read this site’s reviews for that new volume. Thank you for the fun times.
Ah. One more comment I forgot to make:
With regards to: “Somewhere, in someone’s fanfic, they’re living out their lives in a giant house with Heidi, Simon and Monty, their walls adorned with pictures of They Who’ve Been Wiped From All Established Canon. ALL of them.”
I laughed.
Because **I** am the writer of that fanfic. Seriously. Sandra, Lyle, Heidi and The Boys become Vampire/Zombie slayers with mad ninja skillz (yes skillZ with a ‘z’) and team up with Zach, Monica, and various other Wiped From All Established Canon types to rid the world of supernatural evil while the rest of the “important” heroes are dealing with more mundane problems.
Noah: “We’ve gotta find the backstage area. Do you know where it is?”
Claire: “Yeah. [Points to the back of the carnival.] It’s back that way.”
You have to be a showrunner to come up with dialogue like that.
HAHAHA that’s soo true, I didn’t notice that at all!!!
I disagree (once again…lol) I thought the writer’s did the best they could wrapping up the story in order to have the Heroes actually save people’s lives (something that they don’t do too often). I feel as though Samuel’s 3-dimenisonality died the day that Vanessa walked out on him. Also, you’d have to factor in budget cuts when pertaining to the earthquake fight between him and Peter. The Carnival is physically a bit small, and their seismic powers countered each other out… sorta. Overall, they banded together to stop a madman from earthquaking NY, and that’s all most fans could really ask for and are willing to overlook some plot holes… SOME.
You were right on the money for a good chunk of it, and though I gave this episode a solid 4/5, you’re opinion will always be great to read. Overall, what a great volume this has been! I felt it flowed really well and is basically equal to Volume 4, if you remember how Volume 4 had three SO AWFUL moments: LUKE…HIRO IN INDIA… AND SYLATHAN.
IN CASE OF CANCELLATION OF HEROES, READ BELOW:
Dear Otto,
If you’re reading this, then that was the end of the show. I refuse to get emotional as well, but dammit, your reviews were half the fun of being a HEROES fanatic, and I mean that sincerely. You always put such effort, and I want you to know that we all appreciate it beyond words. In years to come as I watch my ancient DVDs of “Some show from the early 21st century about super powered people making some stupid decisions” I will probably want to go back to your reviews because they are truly timeless. They only got better over the seasons, and I’ve become such a fan of yours, I feel like some dear old friend in my life is moving away permanently. I’m actually going to miss reading your work every Thursday more than the actual show. You’ve done an awesome job, I can’t stress that enough. Thank you. Thank you. Arigatou. Thank you.
-Charles
Noah Bennet
# 4.08: claims he’s never seen “Sylar,” forgets the time he captured live footage of Sylar scalping Emo-Trevor.
Funniest line of the review
This was the stupidest thing because when I first read it, I went back to the episodes, in season 1 Noah says, (in the same scene as Once Upon a Time in Texas), that no one knows WHERE HE IS and in this new one he says no one knows WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE. Greg says both lines at thesame climactic point of the scene with Santiago. Prompts me to think, did they bring back Santiago to remake the entire scene or was that an out put of the same scene from season 1 they never used? I would consider it to be a Dumb as Award, not so much for Noah, but for the crew who puts the scenes together, all season 1’s crew who worked in that episode and for Greg Grunberg for not noticing his lines. I mean come on, such sloppiness might be what’s bringing Heroes to an end, hopefully not.
my bad completely, I guess I deserve a DAA for writing Greg Grunberg instead of Jack Cloeman, I completely forgot lol!!!
Well, technically he’s seen Gabriel. But not Sylar. As Heroes has shown, the two are the same person but it’s like a supervillain divide. Gabriel is the human side, Sylar the powered side.
“Prompts me to think, did they bring back Santiago to remake the entire scene or was that an out put of the same scene from season 1 they never used?”
Miguel, I’m pretty sure that scene between HRG and Isaac in 4.08 was lifted frame-for-frame from 1.08. Cabrera was credited for it, but I think it’s stock footage rather than a reshot scene.
The fact that we can barely tell is a credit to Coleman, because he doesn’t seem to have aged at all.
Still Ian, he saw Gabriel scalping Emo-Trevor, and the guy the company was looking for also scalped people so you would think Noah could piece that together like he pieced the Sylar being able to shapeshift thing in Fugitives. Well Otto you make a good point and well if anything Noah should have looked younger cause it was a Season 1 episode. Still the What and Where debate should be answered by the writers some time.
Great review, entertaining as always.
In effect, Matt’s character arc this volume has existed solely to serve Sylar’s.
What a shock! It’s sad too. No wonder Grunny has been saying this is in no way a series finale.
Somewhere, in someone’s fanfic, they’re living out their lives in a giant house with Heidi, Simon and Monty, their walls adorned with pictures of They Who’ve Been Wiped From All Established Canon. ALL of them.
That is so sad because it is so true.
If we’ve indeed seen the last of the man who was known for most of the past four years as the Haitian, it seems fitting to acknowldge that Jimmy Jean-Louis played his character with inimitable charm and wit, and that his real-life efforts in Haiti make him twice the hero he’s played on this show for the past four seasons.
Yes, indeed!
You have to be a showrunner to come up with dialogue like that.
Thank you, Otto.That gave me a much-needed laugh.
What the episode lacks in dialogue, it makes up for in nuance:
As the show always has! Regardless of what comes out of the writers room, everything else has been amazing, especially where the sets, directing, DPing, etc. are concerned.
Here’s hoping for one more season of the show … for the amazing cast and crew and especially to get more of your insightul, fun reviews.
Enjoy your time off! It’s been an entertaining and great ride, if this is it.
Thanks!
Take care.
What a beautiful review Otto, thank you!
I can now finally put to rest this season of Heroes (an episode isn’t really over until you’ve reviewed it and all of us have piled on, you know!). The season has been a fun ride as always, although maddening at times. Heroes is the only weekly show I watch, and I stick with it because I love the idea of the world it inhabits, and have come to care and root for the characters, although admittedly some more than others. It’s also a beautifully crafted piece of television, and I second the shout-outs you had to all the brilliantly realized and shot scenes. (And before you suggest I watch Lost or BSG, let me just say that I can’t take violins-are-coming-to-eat-you-alive soundtracks. Much kudos goes to the sound team of Heroes and their piano-based score!)
For me the highlights of this episode were Hiro and AwesomeOldCharlie, and the Peter/Emma reunion (big AWWWWW on both). I mentally cringed at all the speechmaking, particularly Claire vs. Samuel but found Claire’s final act to be entirely consistent with her story so far, coupled with the arrogance of youth. I found the scenes in Matt’s place to drag, the dialog could have been so much better (or even “Probe our minds Matt!” and then silence… hehe) , but I did get little jolts of energy every time Sylar and Peter said the same thing at the same time. My brain is still processing that little mental journey of theirs. (And yes, I finally watched all of The Wall, and it is indeed a great episode).
Having seen the epic scale of would-have-happened-destruction offered up in the graphic novel this week, I remain sad that nothing of the sort ever made it to TV. How frustrating it must be to come up with all these scenarios, but have to resort to shaky cameras and sparks instead of the ground opening up! That said Heroes has done an admirable job with what resources they’ve had this season.
On a nitpicking level I might add that everybody got the the carnival at the same time, even Eli who I suppose flew via a regular airplane while Sylar and Peter were super-sonic-ing it from LA? Also, did Noah-who-supposedly-shot-Lydia really manage to slip into the carnival without anyone spotting him? Or nobody mobbing him when he joined Claire in the tent?
Regarding the next season, I’m a) hoping there will be one, and b) that it won’t be quite so bleak, dark and dreary (”I am special. Voe is me.”). With that in mind I second Laura in sincerely hoping Emma will be back (smarts, wits, sarcasm, Peter-friendship (he smiles!) and all, and please no character assassinations!). I don’t feel strongly one way or the other about any of the other recurring characters. And, although unlikely judging by the volume beginning, I’d be ok with a season that didn’t have Claire in every_single_episode…
So that’s that (for now?!?!). Time to go rejoin the regular world.
Okay, here I am.
Not nesessarly a bad finale, but disapointing, specially considering how the last 2 episodes blew me away. Heroes still doesn’t have a great finale, and I still think S1’s finale stands above the others. I didn’t even care for a superfight - the only thing dragging it down was how Sylar was stupidely defeated (like Peter’s naiveté/stupidity dragged down S2’s finale) and to answer a previous comment, I don’t either see what everybody reproaches to “How to stop an exploding man”.
However, it’s sad but shall the show go on, I hope Kring will step aside since he’s developping a new show. I’ll put aside the fact that he couldn’t go on with his original concept, or that he wanted to do fewer episodes. But between this week’s dialogue which is pure genius, and one flagrant inconsistency, you can’t do that unless a part of you wants to be out of there. I’m just saying they need a fresh vision if they want to move on.
As for next season, there is, again a lot of potential, which will either make for - hopefully - an outstanding volume, or another - huge or moderated - letdown.
Matt’s arc has only been servin Sylar’s ? Couldn’t agree more. The sad part in there is that untill this week, I found Matt’s evolution throughout the volume interesting, and with Peter’s, probably the best written. Unfortunately, this brings unresolved issues. Matt’s life is probably the one that was the most messed up by his ability : He lost his job at least 2 times, was flagged as terrorist (maybe twice)… Not being able to stop Sylar could probably be the last straw for him. I’m voting him for next volume’s villain sending random people to kill Sylar.
Goodbye Mohinder. See ya Tracy. Where is MamaPetrelli?
Hiro/Ando. Well, I don’t have anything to say about Ando. Now aren’t we back in square one with the “problem” they had with Hiro to beggin with ? He’s basicly full powered now so either he’ll finally try to right his wrong (and not destroy people’s lives) or … whatever ? Wasn’t that his goal this season ?
Peter : Except watching over Sylar, I have no idea what they can do with him. I’m not sure I want Emma to be a regular, since anyone romanticly involved with Peter ends up dead.
Sylar : As long their not going for the miraculous sudden redemption, I’m curious to how they play it. He wants to redeem himself, but I doubt he’ll ever be something more than morally grey. I’m hoping they’ll somehow throw in Lionel Luthor in his storyline next season.
HRG : Some part of me is sad that all the build-up didn’t lead to his death. However, I don’t see what storyline couldn’t feel a bit repetitive next season. Now we know about the origin of his obsession, I think that he needs to come to an end. That would be either by redeeming himself (truly, not by hunting down supers, AGAIN) or by reaching some kind of closure. Someone suggested the guy that killed his first wife could be Samson, and seriously, who wouldn’t want to see HRG vs Lionel Luthor ?
Claire : I’m gonna be a bit less harsh than you. In the end, yes, her decision his selfish, but I’m not even sure she exposes the whole super community. She’s out, now the others can decide wether they want to reveal themselves or not. What bugs me is she seemingly decided to do it as an impulsive act. She didn’t listen to her dad, who knows better than her - since he basicly is on the other side; she could have had a talk with Hiro, or Peter, who both saw how wrong things turned out in 2 alternate futures.
How people will react could also be closely related to what people’s ability are. For Claire, it’s okay, since she can heal herself, and help others. But the line between fascination and suspition is thin, and it’s just the human nature. What will happen when someone tries to use her blood to heal a tumor and accelerate someone’s death ? What will happen when Samuel reveals he can cause earthquakes ?
To repeat what Angela said in this week’s GN, they saved the day, they won’t be able to keep doing it, and Claire will probably come to realize it in a soon future, since I’m pretty sure she’ll be a guinea pig for a while.
So I guess this is it for now.
I’ll give a special mention for the carnivale folks’ dumbess - as in not noticing HRG/Claire/Sylar were hanging around in the carnivale - as in turning their back because killing your own brother makes you evil, not killing thousands of people - as in Eli is stupidity himself. By the way, did Eli use a rocket to go from LA to NY that fast? Bah - who cares :D.
Another special mention for how fortunate it is that HRG/Claire/Lauren/Hiro/Ando don’t even see that Peter is hanging around with Sylar like it was that Hiro/Claire didn’t bump on him when they were respectively around.
And of course, for the fact that half of the main characters still don’t know Sylar is still alive while he is standing in a 20 feet radius.
All in all, thank you Otto for your reviews this season. A refreshing change from all the other sites that mention Heroes who literally hammer it over and over again.
If you’re done with the comment section, see you next season, no matter when it is
I have never commented on any of your review before however, I have always checked the site for updated review because you have some of the most amusing and interesting recaps. I love reading through them and most of the time, I find myself agreeing with most of the things you’ve mentioned.
If Heroes is indeed ending after this series, which I hope is not true, i want to thank you for this amazing site and the lovely reviews and if the show ends, i will miss reading your recaps as much as I’ll miss the episodes.
When I said the writers needed to watch Doctor Who if they wanted to improve Hiro’s time-travel stories, I didn’t think they’d watch the episode Blink… if we can’t have Micah and Molly back, I will settle for finding out what powers Sally (her name has to be a Blink reference) and the rest of the Charlie clan have next season. Speaking of which…
Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of man? Sylar knows!
True, we’re going to get storylines where Sylar is tempted to kill again, Sylar is tempted to use his powers for evil again, Sylar is tempted to simply take what he wants again, etc. However, for Sylar’s redemption to work it has to stick - from here on in he has to be good and stay good. Because once he goes back to being the villain they can’t kill, after everything that has happened, his story won’t be watchable at all and the show will lose credibility.
Unless of course we get an almost complete turnover in cast and crew. Now that would be interesting.
Thanks for the review, and I look forward to seeing this episode (forewarned is forearmed) - and to seeing next season.
ps- if you see only one episode of the new Doctor Who, see Blink.
I thought Blink when I saw this, too.
“… we’re going to get storylines where Sylar is tempted to kill again, Sylar is tempted to use his powers for evil again, Sylar is tempted to simply take what he wants again, etc.”
See, you guys are thinking of Doctor Who, but when Myrystyr mentions Sylar becoming “tempted to kill again,” I’m almost thinking of 24; moments that will echo Bauer at the start of 24’s second season, when some kid on the street ticks him off and he has to check himself because his first impulse is to snap that kid’s neck. I think (/hope) that’s the kind of situation we’ll see here: Sylar having to restrain his impulse to do what would have come to him quite instinctively before he was whammied into the Empty City.
Another possibility is that Sylar will find himself stepping into HRG’s Morally Gray shoes: that he’ll be forced to decide whether to channel his killer instinct ~*for the greater good*~. If that was written well, we’d end up wondering whether Sylar should take an ends-justify-the-means approach, round up every superpowered menace he can find and scalp the lot of them for the sake of maintaining a coexistence between specials and non-specials.
And on Sylar staying good and NOT flitting back and forth for the sake of ~*drama*~: yes, yes, YES! Please, yes.
Otto,
The Blink/Dr. Who reference applies only the Hiro/Charlie, not Sylar.
I got that, Raissa, the only point I was trying to make is there are plenty of storylines, character arcs and dilemmas the show could draw on for the next volume, from all mediums and all genres.
I’ll be curious to see how the “ordinary people” half of the show’s slogan is affected by the next volume’s storyline. With Hiro and Sylar now in full control of their abilities and without any immediate crutches, it could be that the focus will become much more on the “extraordinary abilities.” I think part of that will depend on the volume’s perspective, and how far the show tries to tell the story from the “ordinary” perspective. Which is to say, how would people without abilities react to this kind of discovery? Curiosity and fear are the most likely first reactions, but even without the Sylar/pitchfork scenario, I wonder if another reaction will be anger; anger that abilities like regenerative blood and time-travel — the ones that could be used to heal people and prevent global disasters — were kept a secret. Again, that goes back to the “real life” part of the premise, which I very much hope we’ll see.
Another very well-thought out review, Otto. I won’t say I’d miss them as much as the actual episodes if Heroes does not come back this autumn, but they’d come a close second.
I agree on most of the qualms you noted in here, but a lot of them bothered me less. I actually thought this was pretty excellent as far as Heroes season finales go. I was left with a definite feeling of closure, but that may be because I’d long written off Mohinder and Tracy anyway and that didn’t bother me as much.
As for the less climactic battle between Peter and Samuel, I got the impression that Peter was neutralising Samuel’s power rather than actually countering it, thus creating a less dramatic effect. And hey, it was better than that fight through a keyhole!
As for Samuel’s suddenly stock-villain character, that felt believable for me because the character had notably deteriorated after being dismissed by Vanessa. It was a last-resort Samuel. Though of course it would have been nice to see him again in his manipulating prime.
As everyone else, I hope we’ll get some more closure next season… I’d really like to see a season in which they could work towards a designated ending, without those uncertainties on whether there’ll be a new season or not. That would also mean they could finally kill off characters without alienating fans. Or rather, the alienation would then not matter anymore.
Cheers from Germany!
Thank you for the review, Otto, and for four years of reviews if this is the last (but hopefully not!). I have said this before, but you are one of the last fair and optimistic voices towards Heroes, and I will miss these reviews when they’re gone.
Now, on to the episode:
If this was the last, then I think it was good, not great, effort. It was a little rushed, and it left many plot threads hanging. Major props to everyone responsible for the Hiro-Charlie scenes. I think they were some of the most touching moments the show has ever produced and perhaps represent a turning point in Hiro’s storyline.
The ending leaves the show open to numerous possibilities, if it will follow through with them. Its funny how after all this time, after Future Hiro came back to Peter on the subway and told him to save the cheerleader, after Future Peter shot Nathan to stop from revealing that he had an ability, we’ve come back to the same future. The pieces are all still in place should the show decide to go in that direction. It would be an interesting final season, I think, if five years later, we actually saw the future arise that everyone had feared.
Anyway, if this is the end, its been a great run. Thank you again for taking your time to write the reviews
Thank you for the review, Otto, and for four years of reviews if this is the last (but hopefully not!). I have said this before, but you are one of the last fair and optimistic voices towards Heroes
Here, here!
If only there was some way to lock Kring in a room and the only other thing in there be Otto’s reviews, maybe he would … no, probably not.
Hey Otto, thanks for all your efforts over the course of the show. I hope it, and you, come back for a fifth season. “Brave New World” looks like it holds promise, and might even lead towards the future we’ve seen glimpses of before. You know, the one with the Hiro who isn’t a complete buffoon. Overall, I enjoyed the finale, though you’re right that it wasn’t as good an offering as several of the other episodes this season. Still, Volume 5 was a huge improvement in general.
Totally with you on what happened to Samuel’s powers; that was a bit of a misstep, I think. The resolution of the Charlie/Hiro story, 4 years later, was really sweet and very respectful to the both Charlie the character and Jama the actress. I was thrilled with that part of the story.
Take care and thanks again.
K
Otto,
The best way I could see the show premiering: fast-foward to a couple weeks or months later- Claire’s brash decision is already a bad one, as Claire is a human guinea-pig held in a lab by a new, more mysterious company that’s like a cross between the old Company and Builiding 26, but more sinister than both. They capture and torture/interrogate like Building 26, and experiment like the Company. Noah has no idea where his beloved Claire-Bear is. The tension in this “Brave New World” (I LOVE IT!!!!) is palpable, and the audience can tell it won’t be long before this calm leads into a storm the heroes can’t overturn. This new evil company uses the world’s mistrust to gain public favor of a mass “bag and tag” after a super uses his ablility to create a disaster (I especially want to see that. It would show enourmous daring and growth on part of the writers to have a disaster actually take place- and have it be one that the heroes have no inkling of and no way to prevent - essentially making them ineffectual in this new life) the heroes would be forced to ban together to try and sway public favor without using their powers to stop the new evil diguised as a blessing. This is only a jumpinig off point. And not the only good one either. For the first time in the show’s history, I see endless potential in the upcoming volume, and couldn’t be more happy about it if I tried. But I digress…
Yet another pitch perfect review! Not much to comment on as far as that goes. Tho I would’ve given it a 4/5 just for the Volume Six teaser. See, THAT is exactly the kind of way to make the disenfranchised, soulless TV critics take notice!!! The inconsistencies in this episode were just plain baffling, and go a long way in supporting my theory that the show’s creator only cares about grabbing ratings instead of pleasing the fan-base. I think this came about from the show getting skewed from its original vision. The proof is in the pudding with this one: the one truly magnificent stand-out heartbreaking plotline was Hiro/Charlie. A story thread HE created. Kring obviously felt compelled to bring that creation to a fitting end. Shame he didn’t feel the same for the rest of the episode. lol. I cannot even begin to grasp the logic of how Samuel suddenly became “normal”. Especially when, just like you pointed out, he destroyed a mansion, a police precinct, and a WHOLE FRICKIN’ TOWN with zero supers around. Not to mention the fact that Peter, Sylar, Claire, Emma, Doyle, etc. were around him!!!!! The only thing I can dimly hold onto is that his power only grows if he has people’s loyalty and the writers just never made that clear enough. But that still doesn’t make any kind of logical sense no matter what kind of context you put it in! (sigh). Other than that, I’m very surprised that you didn’t comment on 2 of the episode’s most defining visual moments: 1) Matt pinned to the table with absolute terror in his eyes while the Elis circle him passing knives around. The human fear in matt perfectly clashes with the cold, austere atmosphere created by the Elis’ indifference and the dead steel look of the knives. brilliant!! 2) Even tho it led to the anti-climatic “catastrophe”, when Samuel steps out on that stage and asks the crowd if they’re “ready for a show?!” - I got chills. the lighting, the cinematography, the pure gravitas of Robert Knepper! Heroes will be hard pressed to match that next season. (Yes, I’m one of the optimists - only because I’ve read a lot of positive feedback from critics about the Volume Six teaser) It’s such a insult that he is given the worst dialogue to end his character’s story. But, in my opinion, he ran with the material and turned it into gold anyway! I agree with the majority of posts so far about Samuel tho. He really lost his 3 dimensions when he lost Vanessa, and since then had been self-destructing. It’s evidenced by his plan to turn Claire against Noah: Someone as cunning as Samuel didn’t stop to think that the whole set-up to his plan was to show Claire all of Noah’s secrets - without considering that should include Noah shooting up the carnies. Knepper played Samuel’s downward spiral to perfection. Even turning some of the most hackneyed dialogue in the show’s history (excluding Peter’s sudden realization that he was at the carnival he was supposed to stop, and Noah forgetting that backstage is in the back -lmao times infinity!) into chilling material. So all in all, excluding the Volume Six teaser: 3.5/5 (half a point for those 2 incredible scenes). including the teaser in the review: 4/5. Now on to my ramblings and theories and wish-lists for Volume Six…
So so so so SO many possiblities!
If this truly is the end, then I thank you for your amazing services in helping people see the show the way I do: with the potential to become the greatest character drama ever concieved. If the execs at NBC rightfully decide that they have to see what would become of the “Brave New World”, then I look forward to reading your reviews and discussing the possiblities. As a last thought, next season would be the show’s 5th. Could this possibly mean that “Brave New World” is going to lead into “Five Years Gone”? Hope against hope!!!!!
“Not much to comment on”…
I love how hipocritical I can be when I try. lol
Renaldsrap, your ideas for a next volume are awesome! I reall y loved them!
Personally, i think it would be interesting if Sylar is the one who creates the disaster, even accidentally. It could play along with the HRG grey area Otto brought up. Maybe Sylar slips, going back to his old ways in a bad moment, or even accidentally hurts someone in public or on tv.
At the time maybe people accepted Supers but Sylars actions change that, and Sylar is stuck wondering why he tries so hard to be good but reverts to being evil. That might be an interesting dynamic.
Joe, welcome, and great theory on how Sylar’s redemption could come undone next season.
I think the idea of Sylar ~*accidentally*~ using his abilities could be really effective. It could be that he’ll try to bury his abilities altogether (which would tie in to the whole reformed drunk analogy with Matt in Volume Four), but it might also be interesting to explore whether Sylar has a moral obligation to use his powers. If Sylar found himself in a situation today that was similar to the stand-off with Arthur at the end of Volume Three, would he react differently? Would Sylar decide NOT to let the bullet go into Arthur’s head? Would Sylar insist on giving a villain like Arthur a chance to redeem himself the way he’s now trying to? I think the show could get all kinds of great drama out of Sylar’s determination to not hurt anyone again.
thanks for the kind words Elle! And that is an awesome idea Joe! what a way for the writers to play with Sylar’s good/evil delimma and actually make it entertaining.
Wow Otto,
Way to take an awesome idea like Joe’s and make it phenomonal! Think we could put in a call to NBC and see if we can get the Herosite fans writing next season?
Awesome review Otto! I agree with you about the finale. I wasn’t really disappointed because I’ve learned not to expect a big, flashy finale.
My main problem with the finale was how Samuel lost ALL of his power when Hiro teleported everyone away. But Robert Kepper (?) did an excellent job portraying Samuel’s “breakdown” at the end after he’s powerless and nothing. Reminded me of the Samuel in the flashback with Joseph.
But I really enjoyed how they wrapped up Hiro and Charlie’s storyline. Very plausible and very reasonable. Why would she want to live her life over and lose her children and grandchildren? I thought it was very creative.
Also, I cant complain about Tracy only making a brief appearance. I’m glad she was able to appear at all considering she was shooting a movie at the time.
If it IS the series finale, I think they ended it decently. I wouldn’t mind if they did a television mini-series or something to tie up all the loose ends however. I think that would be awesome and maybe NBC would spend a little more money on the mini-series.
But I’ve enjoyed your reviews Otto and I surely hope this isn’t the last one for Heroes. If so…you have to make sure you let us know if there’s some other place you’ll be showing off your skills!
I would like to sumbit a Dumb as Hiro Award (with all respects and copyright intended to Otto) to eveyone who thinks Heroes has ended. I would like you to look at the 13th pic from bottom to top in Otto’s review. It says Volume 6: “Brave New World”. Why in the hell would the writers end the series with the title for a new volume???? Think about that all of you. I mean why not just put END OF VOLUME 5, SERIES END??? They put a new Volume because they’re IS GONNA BE A NEW VOLUME!!!!!! So Otto you have you’re 26 Dumb Ass Awards if you decide to include this one. I mean come on, this is exactly why the character’s (except Sylar ahh duhhhh) get DAHAs. Think people, think!!!
This show better come back or I’m going to cry, go crazy, and go Sylar on some NBC executive’s ass. Its to only show that has kept me interested repeatedly for 4 seasons. The rest I watch for one, maybe a second, drop off, and maybe join again, but only through Hulu (since I don’t have a DVR).
I though you were a tad harsh on this episode. They tried to wrap up so much in 1 hour when what was given to us would actually take 2. That is the reason why there were so many loose ends. When you try to cram in a lot of action or resolve in such a short time, the details get pushed to the back burner, and then incinerated. I’m usually super nit-picky about everything I see, but I didn’t have the complaints you did. (I was probably too tired to care because I often am by 9 o’clock. I blame waking up at 5 in the morning.) I agree that Peter’s dialogue was atrocious, I cringed, but over all it wasn’t too bad for everyone else. I imagine something like this would have been better:
Peter: “Emma’s over there.” (points in the direction of the tent she’s hidden in.)
Sylar: “How do you know that?”
Peter: “Uh… vision. (hurriedly) I don’t really have time to explain, just go save her and I’ll explain later.”
Sylar: (to himself as he walks away) “How do I end up doing favors for everybody?”
…Or maybe that is just as bad. I’m not sure because its early, but I think you get my point. Sometimes not stating the obvious it the way to go, but I could attribute bad dialogue to Peter as realistic considering that he isn’t too bright. There is a sense of irony when you have one of the smartest characters and one of the dumbest teaming up to save the world and the dumbest one is calling the shots.
Hiro and Charlie were pure awesome! I love scenes between those two characters so much that I can feel my heart getting warmer as I watch them. I was hoping that Hiro would learn his lesson, and he did!! I was so proud of the show. Now the real questions is will it stick? It better or I will go and kidnap the writers. You all can help me force them into doing a better job because sometimes I want to shoot them. Its not very hard to keep all the information down in a notebook somewhere to refer to if you forget something. If they do that, they fail at referring to it.
The scenes with Noah and Claire in the trailer almost made me cry. I clapped when I saw Tracy, then wondered where she went. Laura is even growing on me. I was satisfied with their scenes instead of sitting there going “No, No, No…” in the back of my mind. They still failed to make HRG badass in the end, and that disappointed me, but I looked it by. (Note to show: I want to see badass Noah again!!!)
Emma better come back. I love her and think that if she went back to medical school and became a full doctor her presence would bring something to TV that is much needed. A deaf doctor would truly make Heroes original in the idea that she is handicapped, but not a grouchy old man. (Yes, I’m talking to you House.) I also want to see more scenes with her and Peter together. Even though all the girls that Peter kisses die (that includes Elle by the way), I would like to see romance, but done the proper way. Friends for a little while, a date, maybe two before they actually kiss to see if it would work out. Nothing rushed or with the undertones of doom. It would be sweet and something that Heroes needs.
As for Sylar, I can only see him either checking himself into a mental institution to try to put some of his pieces back together, or living with Peter so that Peter can make sure he doesn’t relapse. Of course considering how good saving people made him feel, he might adopt Peter’s scanner and spend whole days just listening to it. I can see issues where his sudden need to save people just drags him to the extreme Peter was at for a while, and they (Peter and Emma, who doesn’t know what Sylar used to be) have to help him find balance. Even though Sylar might do good things, he is still warped enough to be morally gray, which I have no problem with. (I can see muggers dropped in front of police precincts with big red bows tied around them for some reason.) Not to mention that scenes with Emma and Sylar could be good because they are both smart with a sense of sarcasm and a tad bit of cynicism. They could say witty lines that would soar over poor Peter’s head, but it could lead to a cute moment where Emma includes him in the conversation by bringing it to his level because he doesn’t want him to be left out.
As for Sylar and not Dumb As awards, he is the smartest character on the show. I can only see him for some reason having a Masters in English Literature with a minor in business that he never used because he was too busy trying to please and uncle that never came back. I would like to know who Gabriel truly was before Sylar came along. He could explain it to Peter maybe in a conversation. “I used to do/be like this…” if Peter ever asks. I could see him displaying that kind of curiosity.
As for villains I have two choices. Samuel Sullivan and Samson Grey. How bitchin’ would that be. Samuel wants to get revenge after he escapes and starts to gather up some individuals that are easily manipulated and have not moral qualms. You would have to include Luke (don’t freak out yet). Luke says there is someone that Samuel might like, but they would need a healer. So he introduces him to the dying Samson, and Samson and Samuel cut a deal that if Samson helps our terrakinetic friend he will point the way to immortality. So Samson agrees and is healed. If you hate Luke you could make it that Samson was none to happy about his son showing up and slices open Luke’s head as punishment for pointing the way after torturing it out of him. Who wouldn’t want to see Daddy Sylar be completely badass and attempt to put his son to shame? I would be interesting and a good way to maybe tie up Sylar’s story into a neat little bow.
I was puzzled by Samuel’s power going away, but I don’t really care enough about him. I hate him, but hate to love him. He will always be the villain to me three dimensional or not.
I want a new season!!!! I want! I want! I want! Who want to tell the NBC executives to read this. They might learn a thing or two about what the fans want, and we want Heroes.
Great review by the way!
Do you think Sylar should be good?(polling)
Because we Know Sylar is a badass the way he is and we don’t want him to chnge… EVEEEEER!!!
I think Sylar should die. If he does it doing something heroic, then so be it, but die he must. While I’m a forgiving soul, he must atone for all the innocents he had killed.
Well, lol talk for yourself… I DO want him to change or either die… I’m too tired of the serial killer to deal with it anymore. That been said though, I’m really having mixed feeling about the whole redemption thing now for Sylar… I love ZQ so I really would love to see his character becoming interesting again and stop being the same old, same old… but as far as justice go, I’m not too happy to see him getting the chance to make amends and CHANGE when other beloved characters like Nathan or Elle couldn’t really do it because he killed them :/ and specially when I haven’t still really seen him showing that much regret for killing them, I want much more penitence before he even gets to name himself a hero…which really bothered me, btw.
I kind of like the new Sylar, he’s like warped sunshine through a magnifying glass. It’s pretty, but point it at something and it starts smoking before bursting into flames. Uh… I think the point I’m trying to make is even as a “good” guy he’s still dangerous. I wouldn’t cross him. Its good to see though that he retains his morbid sense of humor. Who else would have thought up the Fat Man Christmas Tree?
lmao, Fat Man Christmas Tree, hehehehe that’s Sylar for you. Well can you really blame Sylar, I mean give him a chance to change, yes we’ve seen him try before and it ended ugly for Elle and Nathan but those two times he wasn’t stuck in a mind prison for 5 years. Cut him some slack. He is the sole purpose Heroes is still on the air, I mean have you heard he was intended to die in Season 1 but the writers brought him back because he was so popular?? Either way, we’ll see where it goes from here with him!!
Hey Otto,
Like Mi I have never actually posted a comment before, though I have been reading your reviews for quite a while. I love them because they are always so accurate and very interesting to read. Besides the episode itself, your reviews are what I most look forward every week. So if this is indeed the last episode (I didn’t say that. I’m in denial too), I just want to thank you. If not, I’ll be back next season and might start posting comments.
Great review! Funny, as always. I pretty much agree with most of what you said. Although, in defense of Tracy’s story arc, I’m pretty sure the reason Tracy hasn’t been around half of the season is because Ali Larter was filming Resident Evil 4 (shudders) at the time. I actually believe that most of Lauren’s storyline was supposed to be Tracy’s. It makes sense. I must admit, there were quite a large number of cringeworthy lines this episode. I think it’s time for Tim Kring to stop writing episodes (personally, I think he shouldn’t be showrunner anymore either, but that’s just me). I hope this isn’t the end! One more season! Please! If this is the end, I must say, your reviews have been one of the best parts of being a huge Heroes fan. Watching an episode Monday, reading a graphic novel Tuesday, reading your lastest review Thursday, read spoilers and anticipate the next episode for the rest of the week. That’s been my Heroes shedule ever since the show started. I hope this isn’t goodbye. Thanks for providing me and many others with your insightful, accurate, and often humorous reviews Otto.
Hola, Otto. Great review. As usual, you hit the nail on the head when it came to the episode. But I find myself mulling over the season as a whole rather than what happened in the finale. So I’ll tie them together.
The finale was OK. That’s the best I can say about it. Some parts worked while a lot of others didn’t. I think time constraints were a factor. The finale would have worked better as a two hour rather than one.
I’m glad to see Hiro and Charlie’s plot come to a conclusion. Was it perfect? By all means, no. But at least they gave her an ending that makes sense. But you mentioned something that I had noticed: Hiro is completely recovered from his brain tumor. Not a bandage, a scar, and no side effects from the surgery Exactly how they planned it. Something tells me the writers will never re-visit that plot again, which implies that they learned nothing from it and are hoping the viewers will forget it happened entirely because it was disastrous. In other words, the tumor plot was a complete waste of time.
What really kills me is that Hiro didn’t learn anything from it. You saw how he was willing to do another time jump and screw things up again. It was Ando and Charlie who talked some sense into him. Remarkable, how Ando, who gets so little screen time, manages to show more depth and intelligence than the so-called “master of time and space.”
Which brings me to another waste of time: Matt. I think a lot of what happened at his house was left on the cutting room floor. Grunberg mentioned that we haven’t seen the last of “Darth Matt” and I didn’t think that he instructed Eli to defend Noah when he went to the carnival later that night. Matt might have done something much more sinister. Either way, we may never know. This is why I said a two hour finale would have been better. Matt and Tracy had no point to the episode at all, simply being a means to an end. I knew Eli would be defeated by Sylar in a minute and that’s exactly what happened. They could have skipped that part altogether.
Claire: If there is another season, I’ll be brutally honest; they could kill her off and I wouldn’t care. Not at all. Claire hasn’t changed at all in the past four seasons. The show is called Heroes, but let’s be real, Claire isn’t one. She never has been. Nor is she a villain, or morally gray, or anything. Claire is just there, and shoehorned into all the plots. Her scenes with Noah could have had so much meaning, but knowing they weren’t killing him off, they rang flat. And her actions in the end just pissed me off to no end. She’s selfish. She wants so badly to lead a normal life, but now that will never happen. Noah was right. Yes, some people will be compassionate, but curiosity and greed always wins out, and evolved humans will be chased with pitchforks before long. It’s the same story that’s been happening to people that are “different” for hundreds of years.
Claire doesn’t think. For a person who so badly wants to be treated with respect and maturity, she makes childish decisions that have tremendous consequences. Noah’s actions may be cruel, but in the end, he knows what he’s talking about. Claire’s mistake will impact thousands; including those who were content keeping their abilities secret.
Noah’s death could have made a serious impact. And they even had a method for it: Becky. The revenge she was seeking? What better time to get it than at the big show? But Becky was killed (in a graphic novel) Noah lives, and the scene in the trailer except for Tracy’s appearance meant nothing.
Speaking of which, wow. Tracy’s part was awesome, but I can’t even call that a cameo.
Sylar: Well, I’m glad to see the “good” guy in him is starting to take. His time as a villain has run its course, despite how amusing it has been. If there is a season 5, then they better keep him this way. I did laugh near the end, when he was waxing poetic about his reformed state, and Peter wasn’t even paying attention. How will they be BFF’s if Peter ignores him?
But did anyone else think that what happened to Doyle was kind of unnecessarily cruel? I guess this is because we really don’t know where he stands anymore. Is Doyle a villain because he always has been, or was he a reformed baddie being “puppet-ed” by Samuel in the best interests of the carnies? I thought it was the latter, because if he really was a true bad guy, then his back story was another waste of time.
And the Carnies…they’re sheep. Seriously. There isn’t an independent thought among the lot of them. If Eli was telling the truth, couldn’t Damian have projected the image on a screen or something? The Carnies just went along with it. I don’t care what happens to any of them.
Samuel: thought I was the only one who thought he acted like some cartoon near the end. All we needed was the “Bwa-hahahaha! And I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!”
So…to wrap this up, the finale was intriguing, but disappointing. I don’t know if there will be fifth season, but if so, they have a lot of work to do.
But I enjoy reading your reviews. Joking aside, they are very concise, detailed and perceptive. So thank you for taking the time to write them, Otto. Hopefully, we’ll see you in the fall for season 5.
If Matt didn’t instruct Eli to confess, then what did he instruct Eli to do? And why did Eli suddenly decide to repent when he was slicing open Matt’s skull at the beginning of the episode?
You are SO right about Claire! LOL!
I’m sorry but Lydia only gets 1 dumb as award?!! She at least equalled Hiro for trusting Samuel when he was being dodgy and cosying up to Sylar when he was clearly unhinged etc. etc. (in fact there are way more idiocies you missed of other characters), and Noah earned quite a few for the episodes ‘Tabala Rasa/Strange Attractors’ alone (why call the police and alert them to Jeremy, why stay in the first place when he could have taken Jeremy with Peter and saved the poor boy by skipping town in his nicely arranged helicopter/plane or whatever it was, when trouble DID arise why the hell call Tracy when you have the Haitian to wipe minds and could have also limited Jeremy from killing anyone by accident at the same time if he’d stuck close by, why leave the boy alone for a minute when he clearly should have been represented as he was underage and the police had no rights to lock him up like that, if he couldn’t get the Haitian and HAD to make do with Tracy could she not have used her water or ice to help him escape did neither pay attention to ‘Cold Snap’ the last great episode of this show!!, why were they so fixated on getting him ‘pardoned’ anyway rather than just help the kid escape and start a new life when Noah seems to love to point out every five minutes that people with abilities aren’t viewed as innocents by ‘normal’ folk and will always be judged by what they can do not who they are etc. etc.??). And in regards to those episodes why the hell didn’t Samuel get in there first anyway, he was aware of Jeremy so why go through Tracy after all that horrible stuff with the police was going on? And worse, THEN flatten the police station AFTER he was dead (yeah I was glad Jeremy was avenged but wouldn’t it have been more useful for Samuel to have caused a little earthquake around that van at the time Jeremy was shackled to it before it started driving and scared those cops away before they had the chance to kill him?!).
This whole volume I’ve just come away with sadness that Hiro is not maturing (but pleased he wasn’t killed off even though the reasoning was pretty dumb and they clearly shouldn’t have been throwing around words like ‘terminal’ or ‘inoperable’ if surgery could fix the tumor) and heartbreak at how Jeremy died and resentment for those idiots involved who caused it all (and I’m not talking about the murdering police). I don’t think I’ll ever forgive Noah for what he did to that poor boy, it’s amazing I was more emotionally attached to a character who appeared in only two episodes than the rest who I’ve watching for years. Sad state of affairs for the show in my eyes.
I can’t believe ANY character scored less than a dozen ‘dumb as’ awards this volume to be honest, I think you were being incredibly kind when dishing them out!
Of course Hiro wants a simple life. He wanted to make amends for past indiscretions. To be together with Charlie. His near-death experience was to convince him that he wanted to live, and he wanted others to be happy.
In regards to Samuel… look. The honest truth here is that supers can’t deal with their own. And neither can shadowy organisations. The supers are too close, the shadowy orgs too far away. So you need a middle-group. Not evil as such, but not ‘aw, they’re woobies.’ People who can remain impartial and deal with the problem strategically. If the groups are brought out front, like a police-force, then there will be story beats of possible corruption… but they’ll be answerable to the people.
None of the ensuing mob know Claire’s blood can regenerate others. We do, but even Peter in S2 didn’t know till Adam told him.)
(I’m not even sure that’s a viable option.)
Mind whammy, Otto. Mind whammy.
(Never mind. Somewhere, in someone’s fanfic, they’re living out their lives in a giant house with Heidi, Simon and Monty, their walls adorned with pictures of They Who’ve Been Wiped From All Established Canon. ALL of them.)
Well, we saw Sandra in flashback not long ago.
But really… it’s clear now that Sandra and Noah was never an organic relationship. The Company demand he marry her. Noah and Sandra may have been in love, but when S1 started they weren’t. Noah was with her to give Claire stability. They showed hints of love in S2, but ultimately the secrets and obsession destroyed them.
(Claire should know by now that even when Noah has his ethics backwards, he ALWAYS knows best, and in this case her decision to disobey him could have global repercussions.)
So Claire is selfish, and Noah isn’t?
He lied to her, she forgave him. He wiped the memories of her friends and family, she forgave him. He took West off the street as a kid and ran tests on him, she forgave him. He worked for the government, she forgave him. He threatened to wipe Gretch, she forgave him. Claire is, compartively, a saint. And Noah can’t even talk to her like an adult? He has to use a ‘dying wish’ to manipulate her? It’s true to his character, but incredibly selfish. Especially as Claire, as others point out here, is pretty much IMMORTAL.
What, Noah thinks she’s going to be able to live a normal live for five hundred years?
And as for the other supers, they don’t have to come clean. All the word knows is that there’s one regenerator. If anyone comes clean, they chose to.
(hat’s about it, isn’t it? Besides the material in the graphic novels, that’s Tracy’s character arc this season. And that’s with Bryan Fuller’s best efforts to give the character a more prominent role. I shudder to think what the show would have done with her otherwise.)
She was filming Resident Evil 4, Otto. Which suggests they didn’t have the budget to use her more than they did.
(Hiro: “I can fix this.”)
To be fair to Hiro, saving Charlie was his S4 arc. To accept that she’s gone from him without a seconds thought would be pathetic writing. You need tension.
(Noah: “We’ve gotta find the backstage area. Do you know where it is?”
Claire: “Yeah. [Points to the back of the carnival.] It’s back that way.”
You have to be a showrunner to come up with dialogue like that.)
Seriously? It’s exposition, but judging by you being bemused about Eli’s change of heart… and how Lauren arranged everything… you dislike ambiguity equally. Some dialogue is functional, dude. Doesn’t have to sparkle, just has to deliver necessary exposition.
(As perfectly as Lawrence plays this side of Doyle, it’s disappointing to watch the character revert to something akin to his Volume Three personality.)
(And on the surface, that’s more or less the truth. But there’s a dimension to the story which the show never addressed, the one involving the life these individuals face once their community fractures. They’re going to emerge into the world with nowhere to go, no money, no friends, no family and no idea how to cope without the father figure they’ve depended on.)
Nope. Noah et al always planned to give them new lives. That was established in an earlier episode.
(But then, if that’s true, it means a big part of the grand conclusion to the carnival storyline — the carnival members deciding to abandon their leader — was facilitated by… a Parkman Whammy?)
Well, you said Matthew’s part in the season was over…
(I’d like to know how a wonderfully complex, multi-faceted villain became a one-dimensional caricature for the sake of fulfilling his role in the finale. Because, really, judging from the dialogue in this scene, apparently all it’s ever been about for Samuel is inspiring fear.)
It doesn’t undermine who he was. But it’s like in S1, how Sylar and Linderman gained complexity before showing their true colours. At some point, a villain has to become an actual villain. All of Samuel’s pretense disappears throughout S4, and he realises that change must come about through fear. It’s necessary because, a good show, doesn’t have the villain overshadowing the heroes in the finale.
(In any case, I find it questionable that Eli gets to teleport to freedom while Doyle is strung up and humiliated. In terms of their crimes and their role as Samuel’s lackeys, there’s very little difference between them.)
Aside from the fact that Doyle raped a woman in a GN.
—
Besides those - or maybe because of them
- great review. Hanging out here and discussing Heroes is one of my favourite weekend activities. I’m selfishly hoping there’s an S5 just so we can all banter and discuss Heroes some more.
Well, looks like we all have the same opinion about the finale. It’s a bit telling when a finale written by the showrunner manages in one episode to achieve character assassination, a huge inconsistency - one of the few in the course of the show, and priceless dialogue.
Overall, the saddest part there is that the show still has a lot of potential, and it’s gonna break my heart if they waste it again.
I do think that HRG dying could have had a huge impact. Unfortunately, we knew it never was gonna happen (even spoiler free I was being realistic), which is why - despite good acting from HP and Coleman - the scenes felt a bit flat.
Matt going a dark path season, go for it. The guy’s life has been so messed up by abilities that I would be surprised if he didn’t.
That should have been the trigger for Claire to grow up. So far, all the public know is that there is an immortal girl, and they have no way knowing about all the other unless they out themselves too. Her problem is that, as childish as she is, she is one of the few immortals - as far as we know - she’ll either have to hide forever, either reveal herself and see how things will go. That’s why I am a bit pissed that she didn’t have a talk with Hiro or Peter who both went to a exposed future. But it’s not like she knew about that.
I don’t think Sylar should be a good guy. I’m okay with him trying, but succeeding wouldn’t be fair to the 100s of people he killed, and even worse for someone like Nathan who wanted and could have redeemed himself if the opportunity wasn’t sliced off. Specially since he killed people because he doesn’t think he CAN change - and don’t tell me he had another epiphany.
Now I do hope - again - that they will skip a few year to go onto next season. Same potential for the diferent characters evolution, or even more, and flashbacks/time-travel would be an easy way to fill the gaps that will create. Of course I wanted that last year but what the hell :).
As usual nice review Otto! and as usual, the finale could have bee so much better! I mean, I wanted a real battle this time, and badass Edgard and Noah just told the truth but no action, and Samuel could just move a bit of dirt with Peter….Well, if we forget that and that it was a too rushed episode, it finished as OK.
I’m still not sure about the new Gabriel, it’s fun to see how he likes to wrap Doyle, and I almost forgive Emma for betraying Lauren, because she was active this time. And Peter got some action.
Samuel, it’s hard that Robert Knepper had such a silly character. I mean, Samuel is interesting but it lacked things in the last episodes, it was a cliche villain…It’s good they didn’t kill him in the end just in case of a future return…
The most emotional scenes were Charlie & Hiro and Claire & Noah. I can’t believe I actually forgave volume 4 dumb Hiro with this scene and it was a nice fix about Charlie. About the Bennets, we all knew that HRG was not going to die, but it was so nice to see Hayden & Jack with good material to act… Also, I think HRG hadn’t forgotten about his first wife and unborn child, it was that he couldn’t die happily because they had died.
Finally, good cameo Ms Strauss! and I’m totally happy that they didn’t kill Lauren, because I enjoy her presence here a lot and the Lauroah (yeah! you can blame me!, but you already know it). And yes, Lauren knew that Ice Queen as a better tool for the rescue than her…don’t tell me she’s not humble after all!
I hope she’s back for another volume, and even Tracy.
About missing people who’s leaving in the giant house, please, if there’s another season, I hope that people remember them! they are part of the history of this show!
About dumb awards, yes, I have to agree Noah deserved them…and as he’s my favorite character and people is commenting, he deserves to become badass and wise again! And Matt, I’m not sure if he’s smarter, sure he’s better than the guy trapped in Africa in Volume 3…argh!
About the finale, I think Claire is mistaken but it was so awesome to see the S1 references! The ‘I’m Claire Bennet’ and ‘Breaking my heart’, and it opened a lot of possibilities for another volume, miniseries or Heroes film. This won’t be Fugitives, this could go closer to 5 Years Gone or to new lines of writings. Just in case that they return, I’d like to ask the writers:
- Don waste time in lines which don’t get closed in the screen (Becky) or that doesn’t act anything (Hiro and the Xerox guy)
- Make people more active: the Carnies were all dumb!
- Go back to the roots: no more whinning Claire, smarter Bennet, for example.
- Remember that people living in the house: Monty, Simon, Heidi, Lyle…
- Hiro is not a clown, everyone wants Future!Hiro.
- Matt has a lot of potential to be locked in his home.
- Don’t forget the good newbies: Emma and Lauren.
- Don’t forget the carnie newbies: Edgard and especially Samuel.
- Don’t forget Mohinder…
- If Gabriel is good, he must be good the next season. But don’t replace Petrellis with Petlar.
- Better writing so everything is connected at the end, but in a more awesome way than this season. You did it well, but it can be better done!
Well, thanks for the time you spent in this reviews and our comments! Let’s cross our finger for a new volume, film or whatever!!
have a great Spring and Summer!
Hey folks. Couple of thoughts to throw into the mix:
Pas,
“If less episodes and a longer wait is what they need to bring us a consistently outstanding volume, I’m in for the wait.”
I wonder if the lengthy wait will be a problem in itself. Even if the show returns in September, that’s seven or eight months off the air. So, nearly as long as the gap between Seasons Two and Three. The show will need a major marketing effort to regain viewers’ interest, and I wonder whether NBC will be willing to make anywhere near the effort they made to hype the show’s return at the start of Season Three.
In terms of making the volume shorter to ensure a higher quality — I’m not sure I’d agree that there was a huge amount of filler in this volume. Nerdspeak!Hiro, sure; Amnesiac-Sylar at the carnival, perhaps; with hindsight, HRG and Peter’s trip to find Jeremy (although that was good filler and led to some great drama). I don’t know if shortening the volume would make that better, though. The length of the volume seemed fine to me. It seems the general feeling is just that the focus needed to be elsewhere — on developing the carnival’s characters, on incorporating more of the characters’ backstories, and with more of an effort to involve all of the mains.
I’m on the fence, here. What does anyone else think?
Alfredo,
“… season finales have never been a strong point for the series”
^ ^ This. Word. Although oddly, it seems the show excels at pre-hiatus finales: “Fallout,” “Dual,” “The Fifth Stage.” It’s as if their best material emerges when they’re not saying, “OMG, we have to make this, like, the BEST CLIFFHANGER EVER!”
“The NBC situation really give it hope, becuase there’s no way in hell they will have more than half dozen new programs to fill in next season.”
I want to agree with this, but it’s been reported that NBC is considering about 18 pilots for the next season, and even if only a handful of those are green-lighted, I imagine they’ll jeopardize the chance of renewal for Heroes. Let’s hope that’s not how it turns out (although if NBC can find anything to revive itself, it’s surely a good thing).
Hrefna and Pas, just a thought on how Eli got from LA to NYC so fast: where did the plot finish up with regard to the Magik Compass allowing supers to access the carnival from multiple locations? I figured that was how Samuel brought Tracy to the carnival in 4.07.
Pas,
“The sad part in there is that untill this week, I found Matt’s evolution throughout the volume interesting, and with Peter’s, probably the best written.”
You and me both. It seems to have been at its most brilliant during the first half of the volume, and to have lost a lot of its brilliance after the hiatus. I still love where the show seemed to be taking Matt those first few episodes of the season: Matt projecting his self-loathing onto Ghost-Sylar, trying to deny that he had an ability, realizing his ability was turning him into Maury. But it seems like the perennial issue with Matt’s arc is that there’s often no follow-through, which is why we’re now ranting about how so much of his backstory has been forgotten or ignored.
With HRG surviving the trailer predicament: I agree, killing him off would have been a great move for the sheer shock value, and it might have served Claire’s arc if she had decided to jump off the Ferris wheel in spite of his dying wish. But I disagree that there’s nothing about the character to explore anymore. Depending on where the storyline goes, I can see HRG’s role in Claire’s life becoming more crucial than ever, not least because Claire’s going to learn (the hard way) how right he was. The reason I don’t think it will feel repetitive is because HRG’s default M.O. — Secrets & Lies — has been nixed by Claire jumping off the Ferris wheel. Suddenly there’ll be a media circus around Claire, and HRG will end up being investigated, which will implicate Sandra and Lyle, as well as Nathan and Angela… which will lead to Coyote Sands and Building 26. The whole history is there waiting to be discovered, it just depends on how thoroughly the ElderSupers and The Company covered the paper trail.
“She’s out, now the others can decide wether they want to reveal themselves or not.”
I’m tempted to disagree here as well. Claire outed herself, but she’s implicating everyone. Everyone will start wondering which of their friends and loved ones has an ability; whether the person next to them on the subway is about to explode; whether the person at the desk opposite them is reading their mind; whether they only made a decision because the person behind them whammied them into it. I could be wrong, but I imagine that sense of paranoia and suspicion is where the horror will begin. I don’t know how effectively the show will handle that, because that could very well serve as an allegory to real-life issues. But to come back to the point, I think HRG could play a central role in that, and a big part of that will be HRG struggling to maintain his Secrets & Lies charade when the secret of the abilities themselves has been blown wide open.
Laura: on the possibility of Emma becoming a regular: word. Just one emphatic word.
Charles: thank you so much for the kind words. Minor (potentially hilarious) theory here:
“… their seismic powers countered each other out… sorta.”
Thinking about this in retrospect: Peter absorbed Samuel’s ability to soak up super-magnetic energy, didn’t he? So, if Peter becomes super-charged with the carnival’s energy, shouldn’t Samuel then soak up that super-charge and become super-super-charged? And wouldn’t that in turn lead to Peter soaking up that super-super-charge and becoming SUPER-super-super-charged? And wouldn’t they keep on going like that until their heads exploded?
Hrefna: on the hope that the upcoming volume won’t be “quite so bleak, dark and dreary”: on the one hand I’m right there with you, because the lack of a hopeful message this season strikes me as one of the reasons people lost the will to keep watching. On the other hand, I wonder whether everyone who thinks the show’s about to head into “Five Years Gone” territory has a point, and perhaps that’s a sign that the show’s about to become even bleaker, even darker and even drearier. I’m torn here, because as much as I’d like to see a more lighthearted volume, I think there’s the potential to explore real-life issues with an amazing story. I’ve said it before, but I can’t wait to review that. That whole sociological aspect of people with abilities becoming outcasts has the potential to go well beyond where it went in Fugitives.
Renaldsrap, AMAZING post. On the two scenes you mentioned: Matt howling in fear — yes, I agree, that was a really effective moment. I had a small passage about that in the first (even more absurdly long) draft of the review. I liked how the toys and books were visible, because it really gave you a sense of how Eli had invaded Matt’s home and crossed into his non-super life. I also liked how the howling gave us an idea of how vulnerable Matt is when he’s unable to Parkman-whammy his opponent.
Samuel addressing the audience in pretty neon lights: yes, that was spectacular. That, and the scene at the start when we first see the carnival in Central Park, were the two moments when I thought we got a glimpse of Samuel The Showman.
LOVE your take on where Volume Six is headed. I imagine we’re headed for an amalgamation of “Five Years Gone” and “I Am Become Death”: the persecution and extermination will probably be part of it, but I wonder if there’ll also be a moment when some random super inadvertently explodes and takes an entire town with him, and if that will give someone in the government the excuse they’re looking for to wipe out everyone with an ability. The downside to that is I think we’ve seen a lot of it before, with Nathan and Pinehearst, with Danko, with Building 26. I’ll be curious to see how this volume sets its core elements apart from the ones in previous volumes.
LeeAnna, I really like the point you make about Sylar living with Peter. It strikes me as the most believable scenario, because after years in his head with the guy, surely he’s developed a dependence on Peter: perhaps not as a friend, but as a companion, and as a reminder of what he’s done and how much he needs to put right in order to atone.
I think volume length is a moot issue. Even if we get S5, volume length will likely be determined by budget. In which case, NBC will probably sign off on the fewest number of episodes they can get away with to maintain cost effectiveness, regardless of pace, and call it a day.
As for the pace, I didn’t have a problem with it for most of the season. I just think cutting some parts here and there could easily have condensed the volume without undermining the characters’ development. More importantly, I think that could have made for a better pace, which could have suited the general audience better, thus not bring viewers, but at least keep most of them.
Of course, that’s just my opinion and we’ll never know so I don’t even see the point in arguing there :).
If/How amazing V6 will be is entirely up to the writers : the audio and visual departments have been consistantly amazing so far (except minor things) and there’s no reason for them to change that. I’ll fourth (?) those cheers for the actors for some great acting througout the course of those 4 seasons, and also for laughs with the lines that were so bad that they ended up hilarious :).
I still think they need a new showrunner or at least a new vision if they want Heroes to get back on its feet. Kring has tried, and tried again, then again another time. He brought Heroes to life but unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to be man of the situation. Apologizing for the 100th time will probably not do the trick :(.
Since we’re heading for a 5YG/IABD amalgam, I do think too that - as much as I’d like a more lighthearted approach - it is a great opportunity to deal with real/important matters. Heroes has done it very well through this volume (maybe too subetely for some people to see it) and I hope they continue that way.
My bad on my previous Claire take. After a second viewing, she IS outing - if not the supers - the existence of supers itself. It’s not like jumping off a tower explains by itself how a carnie could provoke an earthquake.
Wait - I didn’t say we’re done exploring HRG. I do find it curious that they didn’t explicitely say if he hunted down and terminated the guy who killed his first wife or not. That’s where his obsession with special started and I meant that this obsession should end - wether it is by redeeming himself, or by finding some kind of closure (one way or another). Maybe he can finally become Noah again and be fine with it, and just be Claire’s dad instead of being tagged as HRG for the rest of his life.
For Sylar/Peter living together, it just seems an obvious road to go, or at least P watching over S. As you said, S surely developed a dependence on P, but I also think P took a huge responsability by freeing S, and will want to make sure of the consequences of what he did.
Matt ? Dark Matt ? I’m still hoping the consequences of his multiples whammies (and of being flagged as terrorist) will be explored next season.
It does seem like Hiro FINALLY learned what his ability implies, but I am a bit sceptic as to what he’ll be up to next. Interesting thing is that another of those online stuff implies he *could* be exploring the Company’s past. I do hope this will be translated on screen. After all, we still want that 1977 flashback and if it implies Hiro going through time to see the Company’s evolution, why not.
Other things :
- “… developing the carnival’s characters” : Maybe it’s me, but it seemed to me that they developped Samuel a LOT (maybe too much for him to end up as the caricatural villain), but other than that, we don’t know much about the other carnies. Lydia has a daughter, and… that’s it. Other than that, we don’t know anything about the carnies even for Edgar and Eli who had a lot of screentime compared to the others.
- Does the date “26 January 1944″ ring you guys any bell ? It just seems like they focused a LOT on the date for it just to be a regular date :).
Re: HRG — There’s a side effect no one is considering. In an effort to prevent things from going bad, Claire could put a positive spin on not having powers. Those who have them are X-Men. But, those who don’t can be heroes, too, like Bat Man. The normals need validation. Claire’s potential effort to provide that validation for all the normals could provide her father, the one normal she loves more than anything, with a fresh POV on his own skill set. Frankly, it’s where I see HRG’s story line going, with variations, in all the time lines.
“I really like the point you make about Sylar living with Peter. It strikes me as the most believable scenario, because after years in his head with the guy, surely he’s developed a dependence on Peter: perhaps not as a friend, but as a companion, and as a reminder of what he’s done and how much he needs to put right in order to atone.”
I can just see the conversation now…
A Person (for Who this Comment Would Be Plausible): “So Peter, I see that you changed careers again.”
Peter: “What do you mean? I’m still a paramedic.”
AP: “Then who’s the mental patient?”
Peter: “That would be uh… Gabriel… What makes you think he’s a mental patient?”
AP: “He’s listening to a police scanner and reading an annotated version of Ulysses. So he’s either mental, or on something.”
Peter: “He’s my roommate… kind of.”
AP: “Oh… I see. Sorry about that.” (Wanders away feeling sorry for the guy who has to share his apartment with a crazy person.)
If Sylar reverts back to his OCD ways then at least Peter’s apartment will always be clean. I can see them driving each other crazy at some point, (”I draw the line at you folding my boxers!”) now that they will need basic amenities like food and sleep. (Who do you think snores?) Not to mention, could you imagine the conversations over dinner? (P:”Do you remember the time when you stuck a piece of glass in the back of my head?” S:”Oh yeah! Uh… should I apologize for that?”)
As for guessing what the next volume will be like, I’ve given up until I know we’re getting one. I don’t want to get my hopes too high before getting shot down. The best idea I think would be to get rid of Kring. Give the show to someone who cares about it enough watch for the inconsistencies. Its really bad when I don’t write them down and can keep track of them.
(Thinking about this in retrospect: Peter absorbed Samuel’s ability to soak up super-magnetic energy, didn’t he? So, if Peter becomes super-charged with the carnival’s energy, shouldn’t Samuel then soak up that super-charge and become super-super-charged? And wouldn’t that in turn lead to Peter soaking up that super-super-charge and becoming SUPER-super-super-charged? And wouldn’t they keep on going like that until their heads exploded?)
Nope. In S3, Peter absorbed Shapeshifting from Sylar. It didn’t give him any identity issues. So it would seem that Peter absorbs the power, not the effect the power has on the psyche.
What is weird, is that outside this week with Samuel’s ability (and maybe Eli’s sudden change of hearth), I can hardly remember any inconsistency.
It just seems that most of the time people shout “plothole” or “inconsistency” while thinking 5 secs is enough to fill minor holes. Just another instance that anything is good to bash Heroes. What’s more problematic is that an inconsistency that big was written by the showrunner, which is even worse than making it’s way in another script.
Another thing : I found hilarious how Sylar kept bragging about saving Emma. Because except talking with Doyle long enough for him to stop focusing on Emma, who is the one who wasted him. And while Doyle-puppeteering-Emma lured people to the carnivale, I’m not sure her ability prevents people from running from Samuel, or Hiro from teleporting. The only positive thing he did there was refraining from scalping him, and it’s not like it’s the first time Doyle avoided that.
Raissa,
“I think volume length is a moot issue…”
For this show, but when NBC looks back on it, perhaps Heroes will serve as an example of how NOT to do a serialized drama. If the network ever wants to attempt a show like this again, this show demonstrates how certain approaches — to storytelling, pace, tone, focus, structure, you name it — can backfire. It could be that when NBC considers its next serialized drama, the showrunner will use Heroes as an example of why shorter seasons make for more effective storytelling.
I think it would be a legitimate argument to make, although I’m not convinced this show has suffered on that count. I don’t know if viewer “fatigue” is an issue when you have a 25-episode season, but based on interviews with TPTBs, it’s obviously a drain on the richness of the story, and a 13- or 14-episode season would probably help TPTBs to craft every story arc so that we aren’t bemoaning the lack of continuity and the sudden shifts in characterization.
I thought this season was the perfect length, but even with the shorter volume, it struck me as if there was more redundant material here than there was in Volumes Three or Four. Thing is, they didn’t have to fill their episodes with Nerdspeak!Hiro and Claire doing her laundry. I think that’s where there’s equally an argument to be made that TPTBs gave us what they thought we wanted, which was to see these people “getting back to their everyday lives.” If moments like these had been taken out, we’d probably be complaining about their absence. For all the criticisms we’ve made about this season, the emphasis on aspects of the characters’ everyday lives doesn’t seem to be one that appears often. So they got something right. The downside is that we immediately started complaining about how “boring” the season became because of it.
Pas,
“Wait - I didn’t say we’re done exploring HRG.”
My apologies if I misunderstood the point you were making. I read this in your earlier post…
“Now we know about the origin of his obsession, I think that he needs to come to an end…”
… and obviously drew the wrong conclusion.
I kind of like the idea of HRG never catching Kate’s killer. It seems like that moment was the source of his vendetta, and in a way, I think that makes HRG’s bond with Claire all the more poignant, because he’s bonded with “one of them,” them being the ones who killed his wife as much as the ones with abilities. The lack of closure seems to me to be part of the tragedy.
On the “1977″ episode: word. If they managed to get Anders and Takei back this season, they can do it again next season, and they can throw in Cristine Rose, with the option to include McDowell, Tobolowsky, Forster and Blumenfeld. I guess that is a tall order when it comes to casting and scheduling. But come on, show — how hard can it be?
Well, the central problem is cost. Then schedules.
And then it’s the fact that we need a lead into the stories. Which means Hiro. So he’d need a reason to go back in time. But at the moment, he doesn’t have one. And everyone gets angry when he tries to change the past.
aww… busted… damn typo :(. Will have to pay more attention next time.
More generally, it just seems that serialized show are dying. Even though Heroes never lived up to its S1 glory, I still thought that it was above most of other TV shows (even though it’s because a lot of TV is crap nowadays). Of course the quality is arguable (first half of S2 and V3, V4 end and some part of this season) but really few shows manage to maintain their prime level during their whole course.
Maybe fewer episodes could have helped them having the whole season in perspective, hence preventing sudent changes of personality, inconsistency, etc… It’s time they learn from their mistakes :).
Great point about HRG. I thought it was more about bonding with a daughter he didn’t want in the first place (See “Company Man”, and I think we now have got a clue as to why he didn’t want to) rather than specifically bonding with “One of them”. As far as we know, until recently, he still treated most of specials like garbage. Claude pointed out how much he didn’t want Claire to be special, and seeing how it leaded him to being shot, I guess THAT could have upset HRG back then.
If he didn’t find out his first wife killer, I agree that it would be part of the tragedy but a big turning point would be his reaction when (if) he finally finds him. If he manages to refrain from blowing his head off, maybe I will think he finally moved past it (and I don’t want him not to kill the guy because Claire is standing next to him).
To me volume size is irrelevant. Either way the writers have had issues.
In my “arm-chair quarterback” view, it has more to do with either poor planning or just throwing out everything they were building up to and completely changing focus at some point.
Ian, re: the premise behind the “1977″ flashback:
“… it’s the fact that we need a lead into the stories. Which means Hiro.”
I recall this coming up at some point earlier in the volume, but looking back, I’d still say it’s possibly the biggest missed opportunity all season. Samuel was the perfect character to tie the current narrative to the ElderSuper storyline. Even if Samuel was only a baby when the Coyote Sands massacre took place, it was a perfect springboard to explore how the various supers suffered the same experiences and responded to their trauma in completely different ways. Angela and the ElderSupers started The Company to keep people with abilities under the radar, and Joseph and Samuel either joined the carnival or founded it — presumably with the aim to create an environment where people could avoid that radar while still using their abilities. I think it’s an enormous shame that we learned so little about Joseph, the carnival’s origins and the “first family” Samuel mentioned over Joseph’s grave in 4.01, but my point here is there’s always a way to justify going back to that story, and it doesn’t have to involve Hiro or flashback-inducing Magik Goop.
Pas,
Re: the decline in the show’s quality: “… really few shows manage to maintain their prime level during their whole course.”
Does anyone remember the talk of a “show bible”? I recall it being mentioned back in Season One, and again before Season Three, and I can’t help wondering if the story we have now was the result of that bible, if the bible was scrapped completely or if it was reworked according to the changing circumstances. But it seems like TPTBs — or at least Kring — felt the best way to maintain that “prime level” was to bring in a new cast and phase out the old one, and it seems like that’s where the majority of the problems arose. It depends on which interviews and reports we take as gospel, and I have a very hard time believing the plan was ever to scrap Claire or Hiro. But if that was the plan, TPTBs presumably didn’t count on having to address the implications of introducing Claire’s regenerative blood or Hiro’s temporal omnipotence. As Raissa points out, the writers are the victims of their own conventions in that respect. But it sounds like the plan was to maintain the appeal by reinvigorating the show with a new cast each season, and by keeping the original cast in the mix, it seems they ended up with issues they either hadn’t considered in the first place or hadn’t planned on dealing with.
In all fairness, I’d say the “new cast” approach was tailored to the current volume more successfully than in the past: Peter (old character) met Emma (new character), and he ended up changing more over the course of this season than anyone — and in the best possible way, because he became smarter, more heroic and more resourceful than he was in previous seasons; Claire (old) met Gretchen (new), and suddenly she became more likeable, more mature and more responsible (up until this final stunt at the end of the volume). It could be a coincidence that the characters who met new faces had the best arcs this season, but I think the introduction of new characters has complemented and reenergized the older characters’ arcs without us really realizing it.
Re: HRG’s flashback and his relationship with Claire:
“I thought it was more about bonding with a daughter he didn’t want in the first place (See “Company Man”, and I think we now have got a clue as to why he didn’t want to) rather than specifically bonding with “One of them”.”
Yes, although I think those two ideas are intertwined. That’s part of what I loved about 4.18, and with hindsight, knowing how the volume ends, I think it serves as a perfect prelude to Volume Six, because it shows how intricate the ties between specials and non-specials can be. We now know that HRG’s reluctance to become a family man was largely down to losing his first family at the hands of a special, and we now know that his reluctance was down to fear of Claire as much as fear of turning out a lousy father. I think it would be great if Volume Six played into that complexity when it comes to the notion of a special/non-special coexistence. If specials are feared and hated, would they want to live among non-specials, let alone be able to.
Susan, re: the poor planning and “just throwing out everything they were building up to”: I agree, and I think it would make a fascinating DVD extra: the original plan for Peter’s compass tattoo, the character arc in place for Hiro until Mays was cast in Glee, the direction the Troah was heading in until Larter’s schedule prevented it… It could be that lots of this stuff was planned exactly the way it turned out, but I think the fact that we’re wondering about it as much as we are is a sign that it was a less cohesive volume. I’d still argue that, in the end, it was remarkably well structured, but the “What was the original plan?” question seems to have come up very frequently this season, and I wonder what that says about it.
I loved a lot of the episode but have to agree with the inconsistencies in it and within the volume as a whole, which in my opinion tend to be more glaring than in Volume 4.
BTW, I happened to wander into Otto’s very first review of Heroes today, and found this gem, which I thought was absolutely appropriate given that this episode was written by Tim Kring:
“That, at least to me, is what puts this show on a level with only two others: Lost and Buffy. You get the impression that Tim Kring, like J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon, knows what he’s doing.
I might be wrong. Color me stunned if this time next year we’re venting about how inconsistent and poorly written this show has become. But after one episode, it seems to me that the team writing this show are crafting it with real care.”
The irony is amazing.
I’d say Kring does know what he’s doing. It’s just the fanbase don’t like it.
Well, I didn’t say I didn’t like the episode. I actually loved most of it, in that I disagree with Otto, but I have to agree with just how much inconsistency is in it. You can tell that Kring writes an episode by the way it FEELS like he knows the characters far deeper than most other writers that come along, but the fact that he comes and writes an episode after a whole season of other people writing the other episodes, and he’s definitely going to forget some things, and in this case he does.
So, as an episode and as far as the possibilities it opens for a (possible) season 5, but it does have a lot of inconsistencies and things that leave the viewer unsatisfied.
I don’t think he forgets… it’s more likely that some of the things set up don’t fit into the structure. The snag with Kring seems to be that he can’t mesh what he wants with what has happened. He wants a big fight with Samuel and Pete - so he twists canon to suit his end. If Samuel can crush Peter easily, then the fight has no dramatic tension beyond ‘look how cool Samuel is.’
That’s a crux of network TV, sadly. The structure is rigid, so certain things fall by the wayside.
It seems like it’s still very much a group effort, which is why I’d be surprised if discussions about the Magik Blood and the mention of Nathan’s ex-wife and sons didn’t come up every day they’re breaking stories and scripts. As Ian says, certain things fall by the wayside. I think the issue a lot of us have is that the wrong things fall by the wayside.
I empathize with their struggle. While it’s easy for people online to talk about the show having more continuity, writing it is a far different thing. The show just got so epic that characters would need to sit down for four episodes just to discuss what had previously happened. That, obviously, can’t happen. There has to be forward pace. Which is what my ‘by the wayside’ comment was about.
Saying that they ‘don’t care’ is, to me, ludicrous. They do care. And they probably know all of these complaints. But they’re sat in that room breaking stories, and having to satisfy a half dozen different groups beyond hardcore fans who post here and the Heroes-Wiki.
What they really need to do is simplify the show. The heavily serialised stuff isn’t working. We mostly agree that the best episodes feel self-contained and logical, so we need more of those. Shows like Angel and Smallville, to me, work because each episode is a self-contained creation. It does feed into the major arc in a way, but it’s focused on each episode being as good as it can be on it’s own merits.
In other words, they need less arching and more threading. That’s fine. The majority of shows work that way. They’d have plenty of models.
Another issue, though, is frame of reference. Write what you know. Granted they weren’t planning to use these characters beyond S1, but that’s a separate discussion. If they were uncomfortable with majik blood, immortality, and time travel AT ALL, they should have designed different characters to begin with. Because logically, immortality and healing blood are part of the regen archetype to varying degrees and should have been dealt with in S1 regardless of future plans for Claire. Similarly, they should have worked out the S1 time travel rules better, regardless of future plans for Hiro. The underlying problem is that these concepts weren’t a natural fit from the start, and the writers didn’t approach them with the necessary boldness as a result.
I think the problem is, Raissa, that they are writing what they know. Mainly the character dynamics. And with Loeb/Alexander gone, they have no interest in time-travel/magic blood beyond existing as plot contrivances. With the two hardcore comic-book fans no longer on the show, it evolved into a character first and superpowers third season.
What they need is a Geoff Johns to hop onboard, and throw some old school comic-book magic onto the show. Bring back St. Joan… have secret identities… show heroism where people like Claire and Peter aren’t just tackling the latest superhero menace but dealing with muggers, rapists, murderers. That’d be great material for Sylar - can he really keep up his ‘don’t kill’ mindset when he sees how disgusting some normal humans are?
What they need is a Geoff Johns to hop onboard, and throw some old school comic-book magic onto the show. Bring back St. Joan… have secret identities… show heroism where people like Claire and Peter aren’t just tackling the latest superhero menace but dealing with muggers, rapists, murderers. That’d be great material for Sylar - can he really keep up his ‘don’t kill’ mindset when he sees how disgusting some normal humans are?
Excellent suggestions.
Yup great point there, the show lost its comic book spirit since S1, which was an undeniable plus.
Same for character development : I felt the whole season was ONLY character development because when I look at it, some pieces just don’t fit in the puzzle. Some of Samuel’s past action didn’t make much sense (as in he wanted to meet Peter, then… nothing) and random, specially considering what triggered Samuel’s anger and determination was Vanessa dumping him.
Ian,
“That’d be great material for Sylar - can he really keep up his ‘don’t kill’ mindset when he sees how disgusting some normal humans are?”
*Can* he keep it up is one key question. I think another is *should* he. It’s easy enough to pwn non-specials and bring them to the authorities, but when it comes to specials that the cops aren’t capable of dealing with, and in the absence of a Level 5 or a power-sucker like Arthur, what other solution is there than to slice their heads open? (And I’m only half kidding here…)
I don’t mean a 100% new cast.
Rather, I mean mixing and matching. Lost S4 felt new and fresh because of new regulars. So did Smallville S8. It’s bringing a fresh perspective to the show that can mesh perfectly with the experienced characters.
Well according to an interview with Kring they write the stories separately not only when it comes to separate episodes, but within episodes, which in a serialized show is MIND-BOGGLING!!!! So it’s no surprise so many things don’t add up. To me the two most glaring examples are the fact that Mohinder’s entire role this Volume in the end was to give Noah a compass, which in the end turned out to be unnecesary, since Samuel sinking the town pretty much clued Lauren and Noah in on the Carnival’s location; and also, the compass on Peter’s arm which in the end served no purpose; Peter had no real reason to fight with Samuel in the final episode, I mean, yes, he needed to stop him from killing so many people, but there’s no real backstory between them other than that ONE episode in which they actually met and Peter had no real clue who he was.
Sure, technically both things end up making sense, but within a piece of storytelling it’s just glaringly stupid.
So, again, I’m the kind of person who can shrug off inconsistencies based on how much I love the show and characters, but it’s hard to defend the show against people who USED TO like it and no longer do, when you know they’re right about all the messes that have happened so far. I don’t go as far as Otto (with all due respect to his reviews, which I actually like) and complain about the moral implications of a character’s decisions, since he sometimes seems to be a tad on the extreme moral high-ground point of view, when characters within a story and even in real life, rarely ever fall on black and white moral areas, but when it comes to inconsistencies all over the place, it’s impossible to deny them and sometimes even find a logical explanation behind them. (Peter trying to TK the vault when he could’ve phased through it in season 2 comes to mind, there’s NO LOGICAL EXPLANATION for that which will be satisfying).
They need to find what good was established in this season finale (if it indeed ISN’T the series finale) and run with it fearlessly and consistently, otherwise not even my utter fanboy faithfulness can make me accept more of the same inconsistency.
There was much to like and much to hate about the finale. I think the best thing to come out of this would be that Peter has shown an inner strength that came only after his older brother was gone. Just as “Nathan” predicted.
I had to laugh at Sylar though. Still in “me” mode, he goes on and on about himself, while Peter barely hears him, because, hey, Claire is jumping off the ferris wheel. Will Sylar never learn to to care about anyone else?
Its entertaining knowing everyone’s perspective on what causes the inconsistencies in the show. I agree that they shouldn’t be writing the episodes based on what they want in it, but should continue with what they started. I also must point out that having as many writers as they do to work on the series can cause problems. I know a lot of series do it, but if you don’t all communicate then things don’t jive. Different people write differently. I’ve noticed how sometimes the characters speak differently or convey their thoughts differently depending on the writer. The good thing is that they obviously know how their characters are so we don’t have major inconsistencies when it comes to decisions, but I blame a lack of communication for the digressions and ambiguities. I believe the main issue that we have with characters like Sylar and Hiro is that some writers may agree that they want them to learn something and then change their minds half way through. Part of being a writer is contradicting yourself, but you have to learn to pull it off. They try, but half the time it doesn’t float. I heard that was one of the main issues with the V3. No one was getting along and they were all having problems agreeing.
An idea I have at how they can solve this problem is to come up with a simple, cohesive story line with character direction included and then have everyone take a vow to stick to it. I find that finishing something even if you don’t like it is better than starting over halfway through. If they can show the world that they have consistency then maybe they can gain their lost fan base back.
Good points, LeeAnna.
I think, if we get an S5, a quasi-reboot has to happen. Treat it like Doctor Who, who with each new Doctor changes the status quo of the show. It serves as a jumping on point for a new audience, and the old audience can experience it from a renewed perspective. One way to accomplish this is to introduce a NEW central group of Heroes. Our ones have seen it, lived it, and bought the T-shirt. But how would someone just discovering their ability fit into this world?
That’d be a good hook. Means the existing characters can be pseudo-mentors.
“I’ve noticed how sometimes the characters speak differently or convey their thoughts differently depending on the writer.”
This hits the nail on the head. You take a scene like the one between Samuel and Amnesiac-Sylar in 4.06 and compare it to the one between Samuel and Peter at the end of 4.19, and I don’t think there’s any resemblance between Samuel then and Samuel now. And I know the intended explanation is because Samuel ~*changed*~ over the course of the volume, but an equally likely explanation is because everyone in the writers’ room had a different take on who Samuel was and what was driving him. Which is how, over the course of a few months in the story’s chronology, Samuel went from drunken layabout to community leader to hopeless romantic to embittered lunatic.
I liked Early Samuel the most.
Slight snag Otto - even before Samuel found out how powerful he was…
- He killed Joseph.
- He ‘killed’ Mohinder.
- He sent Charlie back in time.
- He manipulated Edgar into killing Danko and trying to kill Noah.
- He tricked Peter into thinking he’d failed Samuel.
- He tried to use Sylar as a puppet.
The guy was never that charming, lovable rogue. It was a front. The story paralleled with Peter in that both their brothers died… but Samuel used Joseph’s name to suit his own ends, while Peter sought to remember Nathan at all costs and learn from his mistakes.
Yup good point.
Unless he *guessed* gathering specials would make him powerful, I don’t see why he would bother gathering them if he didn’t have that sense of family. Of course, it’s also possible that his ultimate goal was to dance in the middle of flowers with Vanessa, or that the 16 first episodes were just showing that Samuel is an unbeleivabely good actor…
This is an example, but a counterpart comes to my mind for each aspects of Sam’s personality they introduced. I just felt that Samuel’s complexity faded as the season went on, turned him into a caricatural cult leader,and he finally ended up like a cartoon villain. A shame, because he was a great villain, from the premiere to the penultimate episode.
Good thing he’s not dead though :).
Ian, I don’t think we need a new central group of characters because that could turn people off. When I watch shows, if their aren’t new people being changed in constantly, once they introduce new characters it isn’t the same. I know it was supposed to be the original premise, but they didn’t stick with it. Introducing new characters would cause and issue. What needs to happen is that everyone needs to know specifically who a character is. Peter is this, Sylar is that kind of thing. What their motivations and actions are needs to be line out for every situation they are involved in. Some consistencies they do appear to agree on is that Peter is not too bright, Sylar is selfish, Claire is whiny, Hiro never learns, and Matt will always be some chick’s bitch (come on, you know this is true. Why else would he listen to his wife or practically stalk she-who-was-wiped-from-established-canon just because of a dream?)
As for Samuel, I noticed the inconsistencies too, but I still hate him. He fundamentally twisted the truth to suit his own ends and if that didn’t work, he lied to them. He, as my mom puts it, is a puke. Good villain regardless since we all sat through the most boring villain on the planet named Arthur Petrelli. Thats one person I’m glad Sylar put six feet under.
LeeAnna - I replied to your post above, by accident. Should be about quarter of a page above this post.
As for Samuel, we ARE supposed to hate him/love to hate him. Even though he was a bastard and a liar, his motives rang true, at least in the first part of the season, which is why he was a complex and ~likeable villain. Because if we limit ourselves to the lies, manipulation and murders, regardless of the goal, HRG is/was as much a villain as Sam was.
Arthur? Except that he was PapaPetrelli, we know NOTHING about him… I don’t even see why they even introduced him in the first place if it was to kill him withouth knowing his plans or exploring his backstory…
As for new characters, I’m all for a cast partly renewed, but more that what we want, it just seems like a necesity. Aside from Peter and Matt, whose arcs were partly determined by the Sylathan situation, it’s a fact that some of the characters’ arc, mostly Claire and Sylar, are running in circle.
It’s also part of a criticism that I don’t understand when it comes to S2 : “Too many characters” ? There was, like 2 new main characters : Monica, who perfectly integrated Micah’s life, and Maya who caused a problem by too many instance of screaming/crying. With Quinto mostly out for Star Trek, it’s not like they were eating too much time out of the other main characters.
It’s clear that they need clear directions - for the storyline and the characters’ evolution - and it’s obvious it’s gonna be difficult if the writers all have diverging opinions.
Sorry to keep ramming this home… but eventually a villain has to stop being likeable. We’re meant to side with the good guys. If we’re still siding with Samuel, that creates a vacuum of moral ambiguity that a show called Heroes doesn’t need.
For proof? See S3 and the ‘they’re all dark inside’ rhetoric.
I think that generally, people will agree that we didn’t *really* like Samuel, but we liked him as a villain. There’s also a diference between being a villain - complex/multifaceted/whatever - and being THE caricatural/cartoonesque villain. There was no ambiguity to even start with, and I never sided him, personally. The difference is what kind of villain he was when the season began, and what kind of villain he ended up being, and my choice easily inclines towards early Sam.
Ian, re: Samuel’s charming side:
“It was a front.”
I’m guessing (sadly) that this is true. But if it is, doesn’t it undermine a huge chunk of the character’s role this season? It effectively means that everything Samuel has said — over Joseph’s grave in 4.01, to Gretchen at the carnival in 4.12, to the carnival members in the valley at the end of 4.12 — was bulls**t. It also effectively means that everytime he inspired hope in the specials he was trying to recruit (Emma, Tracy, Ian (ha, ha
)), he was basing his pitch on ideals he didn’t actually believe in.
I can’t believe that. I don’t want to believe that. If it was all a front, it amounts to another Sylar Petrelli hoax: it means we spent 90% of this volume becoming emotionally invested in a character whose endgame involved one giant season-long pretense. In my view, Samuel was more complex than that. He was about more than artful manipulation: he was about inspiring hope and optimism among people with abilities, and the twist was that he just ~*happened*~ to have a megalomaniac streak which compelled him to use the people he inspired to his own ends. I know what you mean when you say the villain eventually has to show their true colors, but I’m with Pas on this: there’s such a thing as showing your true colors without descending into mustache-twirling and fist-shaking. Which, to my mind, is what “YOU COWARDS! COME BACK HERE! YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT ME!” resembles.
“If we’re still siding with Samuel, that creates a vacuum of moral ambiguity that a show called Heroes doesn’t need.”
Sure, but I don’t think sympathizing with the villain equates to siding with him. I think it’s possible to believe that Samuel genuinely wanted what was best for the superpowered community and to STILL hate him for trying to bury Central Park. We hated Adam for becoming a genocidal maniac, but I think there was at least some part of us that felt bad for the guy back in 17th century Japan — the one who made a solid effort to be heroic and ended up losing his girlfriend to the man he looked up to and getting blown up. It *is* possible to sympathize with a villain without compromising the villain’s stature. That, to me, is an indication of a rounded, three-dimensional villain.
Pas, I’m glad you brought up Season Two when it comes to the “mixing and matching” concept, but I tend to agree with the “too many characters” criticism. You’re right that Monica and Maya were the main cast additions, but there were so many other supporting AND main characters who were also introduced over those 11 episodes: Kensei/Adam, West, Maury, Caitlin, Bob, Elle, Alejandro… I think it was the introduction of ALL of those characters — alongside the old cast, and in such a small batch of episodes — that created the sense of character-overload. But I also think TPTBs struck that balance perfectly over Volumes Three, Four and Five; a few supporting characters, most of whom served a clear purpose and added a new dynamic to the main characters’ story threads.
I don’t think it invalidates how he acted.
Rather, look at it this way. Samuel wanted to believe in those ideals. That he could be with Vanessa and live an idyllic life. But he still took revenge for Jeremy, he still sunk the mansion, he still wanted Danko dead. All season, Samuel hopped between anger towards the world and the belief he could change it. Like Peter. The only difference between them was that Samuel was prepared to do horrible things for his goal. And so when Vanessa dumped him, Samuel lost all semblance of his humanity.
He embraced his villainous side.
It’s what Joseph warned him about. Hell, it’s even a loose ‘with great power, comes great responsibility’ analogy. Samuel was never that charming guy in actuality, it was part of the rich fantasy life he created. An example of character (the charming guy) not being true character (a man who uses fear as a weapon.)
As for Samuel yelling at them… it’s about control. He’s been manipulating them from the start. Within two episodes, Samuel manipulates Hiro… Edgar and Lydia… he has Danko killed… and he threatens to kill Edgar if Edgard doesn’t follow suit. The character is a contradiction at all points. You chaps believing him is great, except arguably that’s the point. You believe him until you see the true character emerge, and then you hate him.
Which is the point of the character.
You go back to the Adam point… but that’s not liking the character so much as understanding that he believes his logic. And Samuel’s logic works for me. He draws strength from minions both literally and figuratively, if you take that away from him he’s nothing but a pathetic man-child. The show has repeatedly alluded to him being a cult-leader, and the bottom line is that every cult-leader is a coward who cannot function without the group to sacrifice.
Well, we’re lingering a bit, so we’ll agree that we’ve different takes on Samuel :). That kind of debate could go on forever :). I thought it was more about being able to understand Samuel than to side or not with him.
We’re saying a lot of characters were introduced during S2, but there has been at least as many during V3 and S4 (I agree that V4 balanced it really well). The difference is how they’ve used them. I’ll put aside the case of the new main (Adam and Monica with who I had no problem, and Maya who was annoying as hell), I never felt the recurring stepped aside from their role. They always served the plot or one of the main characters’ arc. The little/no character development they had (- Maya is a crybaby. - West can fly, was abducted as a kid, now he uses facebook, and I think that’s it.) and the fact that they were disposable (as in they either died or vanished with or without explaination) just reinforces my opinion that they just played their role in the story, without eating screentime for no purpose (Maya aside).
It’s just another instance of “what if” because we just won’t know what would have happened without them. ie : If Bob didn’t send Elle after Peter, he would probably have stayed in Ireland untill Nathan showed up there (which was quite late in the season), Caitlin’s existence is a consequence of stashing Peter in Ireland, etc… We just can’t know if the plot would have moved faster, or if we would have had twice as much “Hiro in feudal Japan”/”Peter robs banks in Ireland”.
“Samuel wanted to believe in those ideals. That he could be with Vanessa and live an idyllic life.”
If that’s true then I think it needed to be expanded. It looks to me like one of those Things That Fell By The Wayside. Knowing whether Samuel genuinely cared about his community isn’t something we can glean from him razing a police precinct or telling Amnesiac-Sylar what a cruel world they’re living in. Those are manifestations of his issues, but they don’t hint at the source, and they don’t provide a rationale. Moments like those imply that Samuel loathes the non-special population, and I guess those moments explain why Samuel would want to gain enough power to bury them, but they don’t establish where that loathing came from in the first place, and they don’t really tell us whether Samuel actually cares about his “family” beyond harnessing their power. Does Samuel hate non-supers because of Coyote Sands? Is it from growing up feeling like a second-class citizen? Is it that he believes in subjugating non-specials because they’re a step down in the evolutionary rung? Is it all of those?
That’s where I think Samuel’s character arc suffered. That’s where we needed more than outbursts and an implicit “Well, it’s obvious, you can figure out the rest…” Samuel telling Lauren that the world owes him doesn’t even scratch the surface. I think that’s why it’s difficult to reconcile Frolicking Samuel with Precinct-Razing Samuel. Part of it’s that Vanessa was introduced, written out and then never mentioned again; which ties in with Pas’s point about characters serving as disposable plot devices, and which, looking back, seems to have done more harm than good to Samuel’s character arc. But to me, it’s mostly that Samuel’s backstory and motives were never clearly defined. Far too much was left to speculation and guesswork. There’s a balance between respecting the audience’s intelligence and leaving gargantuan pieces of a character’s backstory undeveloped.
“You chaps believing him is great, except arguably that’s the point. You believe him until you see the true character emerge, and then you hate him.”
I’m not sure it’s a case of hating him (which, I agree, was the intended idea). I think it’s more a case of hating the way he was written, at least as far as the finale was concerned. If we’re to believe that Charming/Conniving/COMPLEX Samuel and Frolicking Samuel were both an act, and if we’re to believe that Pathetic/Cliche-Spouting/CARICATURE Samuel (the one we saw once the carnival members walked away) is the real character, I have to say I find the act to be more compelling than the reality. Whether it’s an act or not, though, my point is it needed to be developed more than it was. Considering Knepper appeared in every episode, I’m amazed I’m even saying that, but the whole “What’s his motive?” issue seems to be an ongoing issue (Danko… the unknown Angola backstory; Arthur… Who knows?).
(but they don’t establish where that loathing came from in the first place,)
It’s likely Coyote Sands, but I’ll concur with you that THAT wasn’t addressed enough. Could’ve led to a decent story for Angela if her and The Company disowned Samuel down the road. Then you can have Angela trying to redeem herself, and Samuel trying to show that they CAN live in society.
But that would require 22 eps, I reckon. So I’m not sure how feasible it ever was.
I was worried with the way they were handling HRG’s redemption storyline in the first episodes but now I’m happy with the way things turned out. I loved the fact that one of this season’s main storylines was HRG/Claire. Peter/Samuel showdown was kinda meh and I mostly blame the budget cuts. One of the things I loved in this eppy were two season one references and it’s awesome that both of them were Noah/Claire related. Random thoughts: Emma is the most boring character of the season and Samuel could have been more interesting as a villain. And Lauroah tops Noacy but Noaire tops them all. I hope to see a new volume and read this site’s reviews for that new volume. Thank you for the fun times. And oh, Jack Coleman is awesome as always.
Otto,
“The downside to that is I think we’ve seen a lot of it before, with Nathan and Pinehearst, with Danko, with Building 26. I’ll be curious to see how this volume sets its core elements apart from the ones in previous volumes.”
This puzzled me for days. Not because I couldn’t think of an answer - but because once i realized the answer, i was puzzled as to why this wasn’t addressed in the first place: bring the real world back into the show. Now, don’t get me wrong - the show has done an amazing job of making the cast believable again with real world issues at the root of their problems, but not since season 2 have we been given real human beings to juxtapose the fantastical reality of Heroes to our reality. And not since season 1 has it been done effectively (say what you will about Simone, but i liked her). We almost got that feeling back in Volume 4 with Danko, but it was never developed enough. Four seasons in, we know the core characters and their motivations from top to bottom. Heck, when your first super-villain ends up becoming a hero, you know you’ve run the gamut of ideas for them.
Introduce the human, non-super powered element into the show again. Both good guys and bad, and a few morally gray ones in between. Have people the supers have an involvement in protecting beyond their own circle of family and friends. Have people that hate the Heroes that the Heroes are still struggling to protect. have human villains with ulterior motives like those of the average citizen: money and power. Enough with the world domination.It’s a lofty goal, but it really doesn’t leave you any room to grow. Honestly, what would one of these guys do if they actually succeeded in taking over the world? Sit on their porches drinking mint juleps? So yes, the show needs to come up with new ideas for their main cast for sure. But I for one think it would be nice to see those ideas and plotlines interract organically with the reaction of the general public. This is where season 2 and beyond has been severely lacking, and I think if the show had realized this, the seasons following season 1 would have been more emotionally and mentally compelling. I finally understand why the fanbase dried up: The world our Heroes live in seems very isolated these days…
If I had powers it would be terrakinesis because Samuel Sullivan is my favorite character on the show heroes. They did not need to arrest Samuel. I think Samuel should show his powers to the world. In the art of deception Samuel was shot in the shoulder and that broke my heart because I did not know if he was going to live. Sept he was taken care of and I was glad of that. He was put in a sling. I think there is going to be another season of heroes and I want Samuel and Edger to be in the next season. I think that Samuel will brake out of jail by using his powers and knocking down the police station so he would not get caught by the police.