marenpaisley | My Heroes 3x01 & 3x02 review (Reply)

So here's my Heroes premiere review, which I actually wrote in response to seraphtrevs' review here. I guess mine would make more sense if you read hers first. : )

*****

Okay, this review made me laugh so hard. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm feeling incredibly zombified this morning, and it's already quarter of eleven. That's what you get for staying up past three to read the wank on heroes_tv, because that comm just exploded. Anyway.

I'm totally with you on the just rolling with the action and plot twists bit. There wasn't a single moment last night where I was bored with what was going on - and that's saying something considering that we'd already seen 3x01 before and knew what was going to happen. Lo, my attention span is usually short, especially for something that was going to last for three hours, but not this time! As for the characters:

Hiro & Ando - totally rocked my world for the reasons you mentioned, but also, I like that Hiro was able to mix his season one optimism and curiosity with his newly-found reservations about Ando. If I saw someone kill me in the future, even without knowing how far in the future that was, I'd definitely be short on trust until I had some time to reason it through. I thought that was really well done. Also, Daphne was super awesome. Did you notice how even while standing still, she wasn't, well, still? She acted as though she were on a caffeine/sugar high even while at normal speed, which I thought was a nice touch. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this story goes.

Nathan - After seeing the second episode, I feel a whole heck of a lot better about Nathan's religiosity. I'm a little leary of Nathan getting into Congress with Linderman in his head, though, as we saw what kind of influence Linderman had over him in 5YG. I really thought that future verse where the Linderman Act was passed had been prevented, but it looks like it could happen again, anyway. Future-Peter might just have to stop his brother again in order to prevent the future he came to change from happening, after all. On another note, I loved that Nathan wasn't completely 'Praise the Lord, we're his angels' by the end; I think the shock of dying and coming back has worn off, and he's becoming a bit more rational in relation to that. Wait and see, I suppose, but I have total faith in Adrian Pasdar's ability to sell me pretty much anything. Heh, I've got faith. :D

Tracy - There was so much wank on the comm about her last night, mostly in the vein of, "Why can't she really be dead". And on the Heroespodcast live chat, it was apparent that people didn't get it. Dude. Niki is dead. How is that hard to understand? I'm with you and am excited as all get-out about Tracy. Ali Larter is a freaking amazing actress, and I love that she gets to do all these different characters. Also, I'm completely into seeing another go-getter woman in a position of power. Jessica was homicidal, but Tracy can exude that same sort of bad-assed-ness as Jessica without the whole punching-through-walls thing. Her power, though, totally grossed me out - good job, Heroes!

Sylar - I thought it was hysterical how he just kept letting himself get hurt after getting Claire's power. First getting tazed (and that scene was a riot - I loved the music that was played during it - it reminded me of the good, lolarious X-Files eps from back in the day) and then getting shot by Bennet, Sylar sure did take a few hits. The being shot part really left him vulnerable for a moment, but he must not have cared, as he really wanted to get Bennet's goat in that scene. I loved that Elle finally got him in the end. I'm so stoked for what's going to happen between Sylar, Elle, Angela, and HRG.

Angela - Is freaking awesome, and we're in total agreement about everything. Having her in charge of the Company is pretty scary, though, too. ps - I do miss Bob! ::cries:: At least they can bring him back for flashback scenes? I'm also cuious as to how Angela thinks she'll be able to control Sylar. If it's just on the notion that he won't kill her because she's his real mother... er, think again, Angela. We know how badly that went the first time...

Peter - Er... I don't really have a lot to say about Peter. He's in a tough position as Present-Peter, and Future-Peter should really listen to his mother. I'm wondering, though, if he's popped back to his future to check on it at all, maybe off-screen? Does he know what's been changed, specifically? Time travel makes my head hurt. A lot of people are still squawking about how he got his scar if that future timeline was destroyed, but I'm just going to go with it. If Peter were my favorite character, or something, I think I'd be more invested in trying to figure out the peculiarities of his situation, but since he's isn't, I'm not. Tra la la la .

Claire - Agree, agree, agree. She played 'violated' extraordinarily well. I also like how Sandra asked whether she'd been raped. Even if Sandra doesn't remember her encounter with creepy-paper-company-employee-Sylar in Texas, it's definitely a legitimate concern, and it makes me glad that it was addressed in the show. On a side note, do we know whatever happened to the Haitian? I was thinking that he'd be an excellent guard for the Bennet family, too.

HRG - Still a complete badass. Jack Coleman made me love a character who absolutely creeped me out in the beginning of season one. I really, really love him.

Matt - Same with Matt. He's adorkable, and still not the brightest star in the sky (dude, you still have your long sleeved shirt on in the desert? You could've used it to block the sun from your head!). His peeling sunburn made me wince in sympathy. AND. Am I the only one who was reminded of Rafiki from The Lion King by the guy in the desert? He had the staff and everything! I'm really looking forward to Matt's storyline. I love Matt. ::hugs him::

Okay, now Mohinder. I - ahem - had to go back and watch those scenes again because I was so distracted when it was on the first time. ::hangs head in shame:: I don't think I breathed during the whole flip-from-the-ceiling thing (and if you want to read an interesting behind-the-scenes-story about that [with pictures!], Beeman's Blog has it. Apparently, Sendhil did his own stunts for that :D).

There was a huge amount of wank on the comm about him, too, which kinda brought me down from my glee, but here's my perspective. In 3x01, here's a guy who's had a Eureka moment so soon (and it was, unfortunately, that soon after Powerless, but I'm going to let that go) after having been accosted - again! - by his father's murderer. He feels responsible for Sylar getting his powers back because he, more than anyone, knows exactly what that means for the world. But instead of running away, as he originally planned (and as any other person would do), he has his grand realization and decides to fight back, to try to make a difference. It took Maya losing control for him to see the potential. He doesn't particularly care for her in any sense except for what she provided him: the jumping-off point for his research. He's grateful for that, sure, but so far, it doesn't go beyond that. Okay.

Then he has his crisis of conscience and thinks to dispose of the serum and takes it to the river. I loved that scene because it harkened back to a hundred different comics and comic movies I've seen before. Batman by the docks, contemplating his decisions - it was like an homage. Anyway, his baser curiosity gets the best of him, as well as his desperation for having some sort of weapon against those who would try to bring harm to the world. In this way, he's become every conflicted superhero I remember reading about as a kid, and I freaking love that. To him, consequences be damned - he's still got to try. Of course it's going to bite him in the end, but that's the inherent drama of the situation (besides, Mohinder's probably never read a Western comic book before - I've heard that there's a comics version of the Mahabharata, but that probably doesn't really count).

Now, as for Maya, I'm hoping that her morning after will be incredibly conflicted, too. It could be, as you said, that Mohinder's new ability includes overwhelming pheromones or something (and I'm hoping that was the case, because if it weren't for the fact that Maya could have stopped Mohinder from sleeping with her by using her ability if she wanted to, it did look border-line dub-con. Mohinder was about to eat her face), and that will cause her to put up more of a fight in regards to him... although I don't think that it's going to be necessary, now that Mohinder is growing stuff out of his back. She's not going to want to sleep with that again.

So I'm thinking that this "relationship"... well, won't be one, as such. I'd like to think that it's just a one-night stand. Especially, as you said, that when Mohinder woke up, he was completely out of it, and frankly terrified.

Okay, all told, I'm not mad at Mohinder or his storyline. I'm incredible intrigued, not the least of which is because Mohinder does conflicted-terrified-hurting so damn well. >: ) But also, it still fits his character. This is the guy who does rash things, like all the time. I'm wondering why people are surprised by this turn of events. If there's anyone to be wtf? about, it's Maya and her willingness to stick around - but again, we haven't seen her 'morning after'. And frankly, I'm tired of selling Maya short. I'm willing to hold out to the next episode to see where this takes her.

Overall, the episodes still flew by like nobody's business, and if there's one critique I could make it's that I'd like to see a return of the double-A storyline set up instead of the quadruple-A storyline, as Greg Beeman talks about in his blog post interview with Alan Arkush. As a fan of the characters, I'd be willing to wait every-other-week to check in with the alternating storylines so that the ones we do get to see each week are a lot meatier and easier to digest. However, I'm willing to get used to even that.

I guess I'm pretty easy. : )

So in short, yeah, I can't wait until next week! Good job, Heroes!