Heroes 2.3: “Kindred”

To those, what, two? maybe? people who check for Heroes posts: Sorry! It is still Beast of Eugene time. Blogging falls by the wayside. It’s sad. I like blogging. But there it goes …

You know what I don’t like, though? Stupid things happening on my “favorite” show. (I keep forgetting to watch Grey’s. I completely forgot to watch Private Practice and/or Pushing Daisies, both of which I also wanted to recap. Bionic Woman was silly; Reaper can’t sustain the whole hour. Plz more America’s Next Top Model now? Does that show even air at a regular time or am I just lucky whenever I stumble across it?) To this season of Heroes, I give a big W. T. F., for the most part. Shall we discuss?

Spoilers through episode three after the jump! So make with the clicky…

OK, so I read some spoilers beyong episode three, and they’re so interesting I really want to talk about them, but I won’t. Wait, come back! I won’t! Promise!

ANYWAY (TM Klosterman), this show is disappointing me right and left, though my better half did wisely point out that it is not entirely women who have OMG UNCONTROLLABLE BAD POWERS, because Ted had that problem as well. However, I still find Maya a little too much like Niki, and I think it would have been far more interesting were her and Alejandro’s powers reversed: he cries the black goo from The X-Files and she reverses it. But honestly? That wouldn’t have helped much either. Their entire plot needs to connect to the bigger story and fast, because right now they are being written to do stupid and stupider things, and it’s dull as a doorknob. The American kid they broke out of prison has Claire’s car, so hopefully connection is imminent – though I can’t help but think there’s something loaded in the fact that her high school mascot, for which there was a sticker on the car bumper, is the conquistadores…

But let’s get to this episode’s biggest problem: Did they really let DL die offscreen? Really? REALLY? Because that would simply continue my main complaint about this season: They’re showing the wrong things and relying far too heavily on what happened between Kirby Plaza and now, without showing the parts that are important for the narrative. Plus, nooo! Don’t kill Shadowcat! Really, though, there’s something fishy going on with this whole storyline, and beyond the question of DL, as numerous wise folks on various discussion boards have pointed out, they had best not have Nichelle Nichols, Micah’s New Orleans-based grandma, playing a Wise Voodoo Lady stereotype, or they are going to get it from all sides, and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Phew. Deep breath. Good things, this time: Stalker Boy revealing his powers and flying off with Claire in a very silly, very badly put together scene that nonetheless ended in their very charming beach banter. I loved this, because I thought it was totally in character for poor Claire, who’s never met another teenager with powers. But then they go off the deep end with pushing her out of character: The girl knows her father worked for the Company. She knows he’s done bad things. Why on EARTH would she flip out to find out he’d once nabbed Stalker Boy? Stalker Boy who she just met? And beyond that, why would Mr. Bennet move the family to a town with a kid he’d previously captured for the Company? Hello, illogical decision-making!

Even the good things wind up in bad things. Like Sylar and Candace. Candace was annoying, but I wanted to see her true form while she was still alive, thanks. And Sylar … so, he’s Spike, from Buffy, captured by the Initiative and rendered harmless (or mostly so?)? Clever. Or is he on the Lost island? Or is he just out of the way so they can play with the Hoodied Menace who obviously has something else going on as there was no Hoodied Menace in the room with Mama Petrelli last week?

Oh, Hiro. Oh, Kensei. Oh, plot, which keeps giving me hope and then taking it away again. And this part of the show is utterly impossible to talk about with the spoilery thing I’ve read in my brain, so I’ll just say this: Please let the woman kick ass, thx.

I’ve saved the best/worst for last: Oh, Peter. Plenty of shirtlessness for us fangirls, but really, you’re not going to open the box? With your life in it? And you’re going to go all Angelus/dark side on us? (Someone theorized that by coming into proximity with Niki in last season’s finale, he’s acquired a dark side, but that didn’t seem like her power; that seemed like an unfortunate psychological manifestation of her power. So who knows.) The bit with the tattoo, however, was kind of awesome.

So. Sorry this is half-assed. I shall try my best to post right after the show last week, before I have other people’s theories in my head and before any clever observances slip out my ears. Sigh.