Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Heroes "Dying of the Light" Resurrects A Petrelli

This episode of Heroes, “Dying of the Light”, seemed to stay in the present long enough to really help me follow the overall story a little better.

There were a few main story arcs in this episode:

1. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) dupes Tracy (Ali Larter) and Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) into thinking he wants to help them, when that’s not his motive.

2. Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) continue to work to track down the formula, but are also working alongside Daphne, who seems to be telling them what they have to do next.

3. Meredith (Jessalyn Gilsig) gets trapped by a man whose powers seem to be to control anyone he wishes, and Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and her mother Sandra (Ashley Crow) go off to save her and end up get trapped themselves.

4. Daphne (Brea Grant) meets up with Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and he tries to convince her they are meant for each other and he’s trying to save her. She’s not into the whole idea at this point.

5. Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Sylar (Zachary Quinto) continue their struggles with their powers and with each other.

6. Big Daddy Arthur Petrelli (Robert Forster) sucks the life force out of Adam (David Anders), which allows him to get off life support.


First of all, I am officially l sick and tired of Suresh. He always was the most annoying character of the show, and now that he has what seem to be evil powers, he’s even more annoying. What I don’t get is why, in a previous episode, he was able to trap Maya in his cocoon-like trap, and she somehow couldn’t use her own super deadly powers to kill him at that time. Did I miss something, or wasn’t she conscious at one point when he trapped her on his trophy wall? And, once Tracy got loose and got Nathan loose, why didn’t Nathan just grab her and fly out of the room, or can’t he make simple indoor flying moves? Can he only zoom at high speeds outdoors? I guess I don’t know why he couldn’t use his flying to get away.

As far as Hiro and Ando, the “killing” of Ando last week was an obvious red herring. I hate red herrings. But, I have to admit that I found Hiro’s attempts to catch up with the man in Africa who can see the future quite entertaining, as Hiro gets clobbered on the head not once but twice. What I don’t get is whether Hiro uses his powers or not, the guy can still see the future and predict what Hiro will do to catch him, right? So why was the guy in Africa so impressed that Hiro caught up with him by NOT using his powers? The guy still new he was coming. But I guess he felt he had to make the point that Hiro still needed to use his brains, and not always rely on his powers. Snore.

The whole story line with Meredith getting trapped by puppet master guy, and Claire and her mom coming to save her was a waste of time and contributed nothing to advancing the overall story, in my opinion. And the outcome of spin-the-gun-Russian-roulette segment was completely predictable.

The Daphne/Parkman relationship also doesn’t do much for me, probably because this show is famous for showing people the future but then not having it happen exactly that way. So Parkman’s attempt to help her will probably change the future, but maybe in more ways that Parkman may want or not want. Still, it seems irrelevant to the overall story. It also seemed such a waste for Daphne to have Parkman wait all day at the airport for her, when she just blew him off when she returned.

Peter and Sylar’s struggles, both with their powers and with each other, are getting a little repetitive. Sylar’s love for his mother – who is now in a coma that we know has been induced by a mind-game on the part of her own husband - seemed a little thin to me, seeing as he hasn’t really known her all that long.

Pinehearst seems to be tying everything together. Its logo has been popping up everywhere lately, and also showed up in the first season. Big Daddy Arthur Petrelli seems to be big man on campus at Pinehearst. Despite the fact that he has been on life support for what appears to be a long time, he suddenly becomes healthy after sucking everything he could get out of Adam. He also seems very happy to almost do the same to his own son Peter. At least, Peter doesn’t instantly decompose as Adam did, as Adam seemed to age his entire 400 years in a matter of seconds. Arthur’s power is to steal people’s powers through physical contact, and it made me wonder, why didn’t he find someone else to heal him sooner? I guess he knew of no one else with powers to heal or to live forever. In fact, I wonder why he didn’t just snap up Claire for her never-die powers? I guess I lost track of exactly what made Adam different from Claire and why Adam was the guy Arther needed to restore his health. Like Claire, Adam couldn’t die, but was there also some other power? Still, this storyline has the most promise and made the episode worth watching. Finally we may get to see a little bit more of the big picture behind the whole group of “heroes” and “villains”, and it may get interesting now that Daddy Petrelli seems to be getting even more powerful.

But, I think the story needs some credible successes. Claire using her ability to help save Meredith and her mother is just not enough. Hiro and Ando, while quite entertaining, need to see some positive results from their efforts. I know that having too many good things happen can rob a show of conflict and with it, drama. On the flip side, having too many things go wrong, or to have so many bad things happen, also can make for a dull show. I think that Arthur Petrelli coming into play in the Heroes storyline may be the kick in the pants this show needs.


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