It felt at the time like an original idea and I went along with it... and then the later seasons started popping up.
I am also one of the few that didn't hate the second season. I just think it was a season muddied in unfortunate circumstances. The original intent of the show was to have each season be about a different cast of characters. But after the characters of the first season were taken to so well, the writers had to continue their story arcs. That, along with the Writer's Strike in 2007, threw the series into a slippery slope it never really recovered from.
In my prior drafts I've tried to take on the entire show all at once, I tried breaking it down by character. But then I started watching the 8th episode of the third season. This episode was named after the title of the volume: Villains. It was then I realized, this one episode epitomized the pile of shit Heroes had thrown itself into in the third season.
This brings in the first problem with the direction they took Heroes. Hiro and Ando. They go on these quests that originally were their own journeys, set apart from the main story. They'd show up every once in a while with the main characters but they had their own goals to achieve and ways to go about saving the world. In Volume 3, I'm guessing they didn't know where to go with Hiro even though all the fans wanted to see Hiro actually use his power. We wanted to see this Hiro.
We wanted to see a Hiro that could control his power with crazy skill, we wanted to see him wield a sword, go all Matrix on the world. What is he doing instead? Chasing after a formula he stupidly lost in the first episode. Hiro never left his role as bumbling fool comic relief. It was cute in the first season when he couldn't speak a lick of english but he's supposed to be a little more mature now. That never happens.
It also brings up a big problem in that the future versions of these characters never were realized. There's an explanation why the Hiro above never comes because that Hiro was cold due to Ando's death from the bomb in New York. The bomb didn't go off so this Hiro doesn't exist. But then there's this guy.
Somehow this guy still exists in these wacky, dystopian futures Heroes made. You'd think sooner or later, Peter would have an incident where he gets a scar. Nope, 4 seasons and he never cuts his face up or anything. And the future in the 3rd seasons never are clear what causes them. Is this Peter going to stop Nathan from revealing people with abilities? And since he did doesn't that me this Peter no longer exists? And if he does still exist, how does he know the future ends up being a future where everyone has abilities and Sylar where's an apron?
I'm digressing a little bit here but its a major problem with Volume 3 that has to be addressed. The time travel didn't make sense. In "Five Years Gone" still one of my favorite episodes of TV ever, there is a clear explanation as to why people with abilities are being hunted down. Nathan blames Sylar for New York bomb, people with abilities are contained and branded terrorists, simple. It also made sense because it was far enough into the first season that we had an idea of the path these people could take to get to the circumstances in that episode. "I Am Become Death"was so early in the third season that we had no idea how this future was going to come to fruition. Not only would we never see that process because we assume its going to be stopped, the writers didn't even try to create a path that would logically lead to that future unless it was stopped.
But... I digress
The episode is divided into 3 storylines:
Meredith Gordon and the Company's
Arthur and Angela Petrelli's
Elle and Sylar
We'll start with Meredith and the Company
I don't like Jessalyn Gilsig. She has a very high, irritating voice and her acting is horrendous. I'm not just talking about Heroes but it was also the case in Prison Break and Glee. She always seems to be whining and its annoying. Nothing against her personally (except the voice thing) I just don't think she's very good. But they dedicated an entire story arc to her and her hillbilly brother.
They're out committing crimes. Why? I don't know. When suddenly this guy comes in and shuts them down.
I'm sure I could find this actors name, but I'll refer to him as Batman mobster
Now this guy was always brought in as a bad guy. He's always been by the book, no questions asked, straight up company man. He's also been introduced as a bastard. Even Noah Bennet turns on him putting one in his head at the end of the first season.
Well Meredith and her brother are captured and Meredith is given a proposition by the Batman mobster. He says she can work for the Company, or she can rot in a cell. Which brings up a problem. Since when did the Company offer jobs to people they bag and tag? Every other episode where we've questioned the morality of the company has led us to believe that they bag and tag these people and they're never heard from again. Suddenly Meredith is given a job? And why? She's not incredibly special. She can shoot fire out of her hands, its not like being invisible or canceling out people's abilities. And Claude and the Haitian were, as far as I can tell, not fugitives before they were given jobs.
But I digress...
Meredith helps the company out for a little bit but eventually breaks her brother out and escapes. Now at the beginning of the third season,
We know two things about Flint here. He can shoot fire out of his hands, and he's Meredith's brother... that's it. Are we suppose to care about this character? Is he a well thought out character? The answer to both of those questions are no. Flint is a minor example of the writers of Heroes bringing in and writing characters based on their abilities. That's not a character that's just something cool to look at.
Flint is a small example but a better one is this doof.
Yeah we weren't suppose to care about Flint but we're suppose to care about this dumbass. Dalphne is introduced at the beginning of the third season. What do we know about her? She has super speed and she's a thief... that's it. And this girl was suppose to turn out to be Matt Parkman's wife. Based on a "spirit walk" (again, I have no idea) Matt Parkman had, he's suddenly in love with her and apparently the audience is suppose to too. There is actually a line where Matt is explaining how they're going to be together because of this vision he had. He says, "We're going to love each other" He should have just said, "Hear that audience? This quirky girl you barely know? You're going to love her dammit!" It was just so force fed and its not just Dalphne, its a lot of characters. If they really wanted us to like Dalphne, this villains episode should have given us a little bit of background on her.
You don't think Dalphne is a good example? I've got a better one for you.
At the beginning of the series, Mohinder was a scientist hell bent on finishing his father's work and helping people with abilities. His motivation was discovery, doing the right thing. He had desires to get revenge for what happened to his father but it was never conceived the only way to do that was to acquire an ability. But what does Mohinder say when he's faced with the decision of what to do with this convenient formula that can create abilities? If I had had an ability, I could have stopped Sylar. This will be a scientific achievement, why wouldn't I be apart of it. Well which one is it? And why is this just coming up now?
Suddenly, Mohinder wasn't the scientist, he was spiderman, he was the guy with super strength. His entire character was thrown out the window and replaced with an ability. The writers no longer cared about where these people came from to develop who they were, they were just making their abilities the vehicle to their development
I'll get into that some more when I get to Sylar and Elle but again... I digress...
The end of the episode ends with the Batman Mobster and Meredith jumping off the train that Claire happened to run into in the first episode (pointless connection) and Batman mobster about to take her in. Then Meredith's hatred of the company is brought up... randomly... and she mentions Claire. Batman Mobster realizes something and just let's Meredith go... why? I don't know.
This brings up another problem
Is that suppose to be toilet paper coming out of the P... is that suppose to be a joke?
This is the Company started by Angela Petrelli, Linderman, Adam Monroe, etc to control anything related with people with abilities. They want to make this company so morally grey and so questionable but to what avail? Again, this will be gone into in more depth with the Elle and Sylar storyline but why does Thompson (Batman mobster) let Meredith go? He's all by the book, he's all Mr. Company. Why let her go? What does her being free benefit him? Why the change of heart? We'll never know because he's dead. Why have a change of heart in a character if it doesn't lead to anything? Thompson is the bad guy in the firsts season, there was no change of heart, letting Meredith go had no point.
Also this is a very small complaint... but once the third season comes around, nobody is ever at Primatech. Those halls are always empty. There's an episode where Dalphne says she's going to find a nurse... but nobody is in the building... again, a very small plothole...
Next we'll talk about Arthur and Angela Petrelli
Before I go on, I don't hate that they brought in Arthur Petrelli. The whole faking his death was kind of clever and had he been a developed villain he would have been awesome. But he really negates a lot of what was already built in the first two seasons.
Or this Guy?
Remember this guy?
The way that Arthur Petrelli was introduced totally negates any status these two characters had obtained in earlier seasons.
In the first season, Linderman wasn't introduced until the last act of the season. They spent the entire season saying, Linderman, Linderman, Linderman and we just wanted to know who he was. When he was finally introduced he was awesome. He was like the godfather with superpowers. He was awesome. But in this episode he's made off to be a mere lieutenant of Arthur Petrelli. We were meant to think that the bomb in New York was Linderman's baby but it was just stolen by Arthur Petrelli.
Now the same could be said about Adam Monroe when its said that Linderman was a disciple of Monroe's (which now that I think about it doesn't make sense) but at least Monroe didn't take credit for the plots given to Linderman in the first season. And Monroe is made the most insignificant character in the world when his powers are inexplicably taken away an episode after he's brought back in the 3rd volume. Every shred of awesomeness either of these two had was taken away by Arthur Petrelli just existing. Linderman was consumed by an idea of the greater good. Monroe thought he was a god (a story arc never fully developed in this show) Arthur Petrelli didn't earn the status he suddenly had in Heroes and that's why he wasn't a good villain. You didn't like to hate him, you just hated him.
I actually kind of liked Sullivan
Which brings me to the moment that I think destroyed the Heroes television show.
I should have just ended it right there
Why take away Peter's abilities? Peter was your main character. Whether the writers want to believe it or not, this story was glued together by Peter. To be totally honest, the only reason I kept watching was because I wanted to see Peter get his powers back and become even more powerful then before... it never happened.
The good guys needed a power house. They needed a Superman. Peter had room to develop, they proved it in season 2. He has all these powers but how was he going to control it. And when he did control it, that's when he was going to be amazing. That's when we were going to see Peter become the awesome Peter we saw in "Five Years Gone". But like Hiro, that never happened.
It also destroyed a beautiful relationship that never fully developed.
In the first season, Peter was the ying to Sylar's yang. The Batman to Joker, the Superman to Lex Luthor, the Neo to Mr. Smith, Peter Pan to Captain Hook. The perfect match up of good versus evil. We got a taste of it in the first season but we wanted to see more. We wanted to see these two go toe to toe again... and it never happened. With Peter's ability gone, Sylar was a power unchecked, especially with Claire's ability.
I think Superman is only cool if he has a challenge. If Batman can defeat him, if Lex Luthor can find another scheme to incapacitate him. Without Peter, Sylar goes off unchallenged and if he's unchallenged... what's the point?
There is so much I'll talk about in the Elle and Sylar storyline but for now... once again... I digress.
In this storyline we see the opposite side to what we saw in "Six Months Ago" in the third season. We see that it was Arthur Petrelli, not Linderman who sent the guys after Nathan causing his wife's paralysis. (Again, totally negating Linderman, I mean how can you do that to the great Malcom McDonald!?) Meanwhile, Angela Petrelli realizes that Arthur tried to kill Nathan and she freaks out. Arthur erases her memory pushing the idea that Nathan has to die for the bomb in New York to go off.
Which confuses me. First of all, Angela Petrelli was very on board with the bomb in New York plan in the first season and this episode makes it seem like she has nothing to do with it (Negating her character and manipulation as well) Also, it begs the question, if Arthur was so convinced that Nathan breathing was going to destroy their entire plan, a plan that was SOOOOO important that his very son absolutely needed to die, why does Linderman end up healing Angela's mind and having her stop Arthur? And how is killing Arthur going to stop Linderman from not going forward with his plans that apparently Angela has no knowledge of.
but I'm getting ahead of myself. Arthur just negates all the authority that we believed Angela Petrelli to have. And yet they keep pushing her as the mastermind behind everything, they make her out to be so conniving, but if she keeps getting pushed over by men, what is the point of her?
So its revealed that Angela actually killed Arthur, he didn't die of a heart attack. But jokes on her because he didn't die. He conveniently finds a random doctor (or some doctor he knows... I don't know) to cover up him being alive and keep him in his comma state until he's ready to hatch his evil plan... which has nothing to do with what he's doing in the third season. In fact, what is Arthur's purpose? He wants to recreate the formula that gives people abilities? Why? Now that I think about it, this is never established. Nathan says he wants to "save the world" but how would that happen by giving people abilities? Arthur spends so much time gathering his team to fulfill his quest... to be the bad guy... I guess? But he teaches Sylar to use his powers via empathy... for some reason.
Arthur Petrelli is an example of writers trying to make Arthur seem like he think's he's doing the right thing. But I never felt that way. The third volume based so much on moral greyness that you never were sure who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. Which in theory is a good idea but it was just poorly done in practice.
Another problem with this storyline is the horrible family dynamics created in the Petrelli household. The third season created this plot hole that both Arthur and Angela make Sylar believe that he's their son... why?!?! This made no sense whatsoever. There is so much I'll dive into when I get to Sylar in this episode but it also happens between Arthur and his kids. It is very prevalent that these people are related through the stupid dialogue. I swear to god, there is an episode where Arthur says to Peter as he is in captivity that he is "Grounded"... that actually happened.
But finally, I get to Elle and Sylar
"Villains" opens up a time right before the events of the first episode of the series where Gabriel Gray is trying to kill himself because of what he's done to people with abilities already.
Right there I say... Bullshit!
Assuming this scene takes place after the moment where Gabriel shows off his ability to Chandra Suresh, he's feeling pretty good about himself. He finally feels special, the way he wanted to feel in the first season but its not enough. He has a mission, why would he want to kill himself?
Well Elle saves him and the two become friendly. All the while its revealed that Elle is working with Noah Bennet. They've known that Sylar has killed some people. Elle asks, "Why don't we just bag and tag him right now?" Bennet responds with some bullshit about whales but the short version is they want to figure out how he can take other people's abilities, but they can't do that with him in custody so they need him to actually take someone's ability so they can study him...
My question is... why is Bennet doing this? He's not a scientist. Just watching Sylar take someone's head off isn't going to help him understand how he takes their ability. Later in the episode Bennet says, "Mr. Grey is a killer, we know that. The question will we witness the act, or will he do it in a dark alley somewhere?" WHAT?!?! You know he's a killer? and you're letting him kill again? The company has always been morally grey but this doesn't make sense. We're going to study him so he knows how he kills so when he kills again, we can stop it. It's like Wiley coyote capturing the roadrunner so the roadrunner can make a trap for herself so Wiley can catch her again. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If Bennet was expecting to take Sylar in, he just needed to see how he takes his abilities, that would make sense. But Bennet doesn't. He's so amazed by how Sylar takes abilities that he just lets Sylar go.
This is a reoccurring theme in Heroes. Many times characters will ask the obvious question. Usually this happens because there's an explanation to why they can't just do the simple road. But in this situation and many situations like it, the explanation doesn't make any sense.
And then we get to the relationship between Sylar and Elle.
I'll remind the reader that Elle saw her father's head wide open. She's seen everything that Sylar has become and yet she falls for him. Why? Because he's empathetic. That's it. It doesn't matter what her father did to her, she forgives Sylar in a matter of seconds the minute he seems to have a sensitive side and not be all murdery. That isn't romantic, that's just dumb.
And this happens a lot. People are so willing to forgive or forget Sylar's murdery ways very quickly even though he's terrorized them, their family, their loved ones. A character will see another character working with Sylar and say, "What are you doing? That's Sylar, he's a crazy motherfucker." The other character will be like. "I can explain" Sylar will be like. "It wasn't me who killed _____ it was my power." BULLSHIT!
Anyway, Bennet orders Elle to bring in another person with abilities. Sylar gets jealous and kills that guy giving Noah the information he wants. But again, Sylar gets away. The moral of this story is that it wasn't Sylar's fault he became so murdery, it was Elle's fault, the Company's fault. Why do they do this?
Well they're trying to make Sylar have a soul and make it not that he's a psychopath, he's all murdery because of his ability. His ability gives him a hunger to cut people's head open. A desire to understand how things are broken. But let's take a step back and think about the reason Sylar was a serial killer in the first season, why he first killed Brian Davis.
Gabriel Gray is the son of a watchmaker who confides in Chandra Suresh saying, I've always felt as though I was meant for something more. Beyond being the son of a watchmaker. I've always wanted to feel special. And when he's about to kill Brian Davis, he realizes, "you're broken." He sees Brian Davis's not deserving his power in his mind and he thinks Brian Davis is broken. The answer must be in the brain and so to fix it, he opens his head.
This is why it doesn't make any sense why he's trying to kill himself in the beginning of the episode. It's the same reason why he initially was scared to be the bomb, regressing back to his mother. It wasn't because his ability was telling him he didn't want to kill all those people, it was his logical nature. It didn't make sense to him to kill innocent people as the bomb until he realizes that being the bomb would be a way to be the president and be someone important. Be more than just the son of a watchmaker.
The Elle romance arc changes all that. Instead of a psychological reason to how Sylar's rational fulfills his desires, it makes it seem like the only thing that Sylar needed to reign in his hunger was to get laid. It took away the interesting part about Sylar and said, "Nope, it was just his ability and the Company that made him who he is today. It wasn't his fault at all." Suddenly the killer becomes the victim in a gross, irrational way. It tossed everything that Sylar was in the first season, which was why we loved him in the first place, and instead gave the explanation, it was his power.
Sylar was no longer the disturbed serial killer, the plot that actually made him human and interesting. He was the misunderstood redemption story. He wanted to understand who he was instead of making who he was. He was now the figurehead in a pointless Oedipus Complex with Angela Petrelli, conveniently also fueled by Arthur Petrelli (Even though there was no way beyond Arthur somehow reading Angela's mind that he knew that Angela had told Sylar he was their son) and that ultimately lead to nothing. So many motivations and goals were driven by the idea that Sylar was a Petrelli and when it wasn't actually true, it made all those stories pointless. He was the on again off again sociopath anti hero that randomly kills off Elle, the one person that could give him back his humanity. It was so convoluted and pointless, like everything in the third season, that you soon forget that it ever happened.
BUT... I digress
The episode ends with Hiro waking up from his "Spirit walk". Arthur kills the random African guy and takes away Hiro's memory. He doesn't take away his ability... like he does later... he sends him back to his 10 year old self. This leads to the whole "Catalyst" part... which didn't make any sense. What is the Catalyst? I don't know. What does it do? Complete the formula. How? I don't know. Who has it? Claire... well first it was Hiro's mom and then it was Hiro so that's how Arthur got it. Why would Hiro's mom give the catalyst to Hiro? I don't know. How did Arhur get to the past to take the Catalyst and Hiro's powers? I don't know. Was it it Arthur from the past or the future? I don't know. If he was from the future, again, how did he get to the past? I don't know. If he's from the past, how does he know who Claire and Hiro are? I don't know. And if he's from the past how does he know Claire will go back and tell Angela that he won? I don't know. And if he's from the past, why does he teleport to what I guess is the future? I DON'T KNOW. ITS A HUGE PLOT HOLE
BUT I DIGRESS!!!!!!!
And that leads to the Eclipse. Well why did the Eclipse take away their powers? I don't know. Did it give powers in the first place? No Nathan could fly before the first eclipse we see. Did it take away powers after the first eclipse? Well no because Hiro was able to teleport Kensei in Feudal Japan. Well then why does it take away powers in the third season? .... I don't know.
BUT I DIGRESS!!!!!
And when its all said and done the second half of the third season is Fugitives. I'm going to try to be as quick as I can on this point but it is a point that is very important.
Adrian Pasdar is a great actor. I'm surprised he hasn't been in more than Heroes. Nathan Petrelli was a great character in the first season. He played jump rope with the line of, was he a good guy or was he a bad guy. He epitomized the slimy politician stereotype but there were times that he actually was a nice guy. It's soon revealed that its an internal struggle. He has conflicts with himself on whether or not he's going to be a good person. This struggle is not fulfilled until he lifts his brother up into the sky so the impending doom Peter is about to unleash onto New York does not happen. Its a perfect act of redemption. They had already gotten this right with Nathan I don't know why they felt they had to do it with Sylar.
But then Nathan survived...
Like the season itself, Nathan wasn't bad in the second season, but he didn't do anything. He was just along for the ride for the most part. But suddenly in the third season they put Nathan right back where he was in the first season. He's tempted by power and this time he takes it, he gives in... but in a stupid way.
Suddenly he feels hunting people with abilities is right. You know until Danko calls him out on his bullshit. And yet Nathan still ends up a good guy in Fugitives.
But I actually digress, the point is Nathan cheats death in every season. Putting an emphasis on the sad fact of Heroes, one of the main reasons it bombed.
Nobody dies!
Here's something to put that into perspective. The original cast was this
Claire, Mr. Bennett, Issac Mendez, Simone Deveaux, Matt Parkman, Nikki Saunders, DL Hawkins, Micah Saunders, Hiro, Nathan, Mohinder and Peter.
Now look at this promotional poster:
This was a poster for the last season. You've got 8 of the 12 original cast members still alive and the other three cast members in this poster are characters introduced in the first season. (Save Robert Knepper's character)
I'll put this into even more perspective. At the end of the battle at Kirby plaza, 5 characters are feared dead. (Sylar, Nathan, Peter, Matt, and DL). Next season, everyone survived it. Granted DL was not alive when the second season started but that was another plot point that ended up not making sense.
The truth is, a show like Heroes you are going to have characters that can cheat death. (Ex. Claire and Adam Monroe) Second truth is, there will be people with abilities to bring people back from the dead. But then Heroes started bringing people back in very odd ways.
Unexplainable resurrection - Yeah they thought nobody would question how Nathan miraculously survived being shot by Peter in the third season. For a while we're meant to believe it was Linderman who did it but it turns out he's a ghost... so unless Maury Parkman magically could heal Nathan, that is a giant plot hole right there.
Twin sisters - I cannot believe this was actually a thing. Ali Larter was good on the show but not THAT good. When they decided to kill of Nikki Saunders, Ali Larter stayed on as Tracey Strauss, her identical twin sister... yeah bullshit!
The Ultimate Jedi Mind Trick - In theory it sounds really cool that Matt Parkman planted the idea that Sylar was Nathan into his head and if it had been at another time, another character and executed in a better way I would have liked it. But by the time that it happened, I was just fed up with Nathan staying alive!
All these resurrections, along with the countless times people have been resurrected by Claire's blood or that characters ability to heal just numbs you to the whole concept of death. "Oh that character died, well chances are he'll probably heal. He can breath underwater? Who cares? He'll probably still heal."
My guess is audiences loved these characters too much. This is why the show lasted so long, because you cared about the cheerleader, you cared about the police officer who could read minds, you cared about the dreamer and his politician brother. And chances are the writers loved them too much too. Chances are these actors and actresses became so close through Heroes that none of them wanted to leave.
But if you don't kill any characters, you can't make room for new ones. and that would be okay if you developed your core characters, which you stopped doing. And if there's no room for new characters, they don't become develop. And if they don't develop, people don't want them on the show. At one point, the writers of Heroes stopped developing characters correctly which was what they did best in the first season.
There are other things I could say about this show. I could say that they overused poorly written child actors.
Like This Guy
But I've rambled on for too long. The fact of the matter is, Heroes was a sad case where poor circumstances along with poor writing were mixed and an atrocious outcome came to be. I will say the first season and second season are actually really good watches. Just watch the second season fast forwarding through the scenes with the guy above or her and its actually a fun watch.
There are rumors that Heroes is going to be picked up again. The rumors say it'll be a new cast with a few cameos from the original cast. I say as few as possible. I think Tim Kring can learn from his mistakes and make something really good. Because there's not enough superheroes on TV these days. Heroes, I think, has been the closest...
That is.. unless these guys prove me wrong...
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