Heroes: The Line
Star TrekStargate:AtlantisFireflyBy TrinityVixen
So, “The Line.” As in, “Where do you draw…?” I think the answer is: it depends on how much of a bad-ass you are. Pushing boundaries is the name of the game on this week’s Heroes, whether it is the boundary of (im)morality or, in the case of a certain feudal Japanese love triangle, my gag factor.
Taking a stance for morality: Mohinder and, surprisingly, the Alchemist. Mohinder has been testing Monica’s ability in order to establish for the Company what the show did for the audience last week. Yes, she’s a muscle mimic, and yes, she’s pretty damn awesome at it. And, for no reason whatsoever, this means she must be shot up with the Suresh Syndrome, albeit with a variant of the original virus. The Alchemist’s working ethical foundation is revealed to be simply “anyone who isn’t Sylar must be (relatively) good.” Yes, and because Hitler wasn’t as bad as Caligula, that makes him cuddly. When Mohinder stands up to him, they square off until the Alchemist backs down and admits his theory on morality might need some tweaking. Proof positive that the undeniable hotness of Sendhil Ramamurthy can even reform the “let’s blow up New York, why not?” Company.
Not only does the Alchemist capitulate to Mohinder’s rather reasonable demands that he not be asked to infect some poor sweet girl who trusts him with her secret and her life, he also partners up Mohinder and the newly re-integrated Niki. It is postulated that, having been a candidate for potential abuse on the part of the Company (or having actually been a victim, from Jessica’s point of view), she’s in a good position to say they are capable of charitable works and can be kept on the straight and narrow. (By any means necessary, given Niki’s ability.) Niki, in addition to having major brain-retooling for her multiple personality disorder, seems to have drunk some serious Company Kool Aid as she has conveniently forgotten how the Company, under Linderman, basically played God with all the decisions of her adult life. Nope, it’s all good now! The Alchemist says so. Oh Lord, he had better pray that Jessica has been eradicated—or that he gets offed by the Hoody Killer first. Otherwise, he’s going to be looking out the wrong side of his colon when Jessica punches his face through his ass for hooking Niki into the evil organization.
And you just know it’s an evil organization when it involves green-screened Russians. Mr. Bennet and the Haitian are in “Odessa” (the little green-screened Siberian city that could!) to interrogate his former commander under the Company. It comes to light that Mr. Bennet speaks about eighteen billion languages—the better to kick ass in all of them. I don’t know what kind of Rosetta Stone software they’ve been using at the Company, but this makes two languages of considerably complexity—Russian and Japanese—in which Mr. Bennet has some fluency. Commandant Russkie offers Mr. Bennet a chance to clean the slate and return to the newly not-evil Company (for real!). No more running, no more continent-hopping to protect the Claire-bear. Mr. Bennet counters his offer with a heaping helping of amnesia. Either the Commandant offers up the location of the series of eight paintings that control the fates this season, or he loses his precious memories.
HEROES NBC TELEVISON SHOW POSTER HAYDEN MILO m
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NBC HEROES 16MONTH WALL CALENDAR 2009 HAYDEN PANETTIERE
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NBC HEROES POSTER HAYDEN PANETTIERE CLAIRE CHEERLEADER
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NBC HEROES WORLD POSTER HAYDEN PANETTIERE ALI LARTER
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I wasn’t kidding about Bennet cleaning up in the total domination category either. Remember that “line” motif? If you drew a line, he’d step all over it, tear up the pavement and crunch into tiny rocks with his teeth and keep coming at you. Lines are arbitrary hindrances to his goal, which is to rock hard core when it comes to protecting his family and destroying the people who made him into the man who laughs—laughs!—at your pathetic lines. He taunts the Commandant by offering up torturous hints as to each and every little thing he’s going to have the Haitian steal. Then, when the memories are gone forever, he cruelly revisits them and mocks the Commandant for not being able to remember. Freaked, the Commandant takes stock and realizes the one memory set he really cannot afford to lose—the memory of his deceased daughter—is enough to barter for the paintings. It’s too bad that Bennet is so literally a man of his word that he would make Lucifer blush. He won’t have the memories stolen just to spite the bastard, but he will shoot him point-blank while he desperately pleads with Bennet to reconsider. The Commandant warns Bennet that killing him will put him on the permanent outs with the Company, even in its Oprah-approved huggable new iteration. Bennet says he knows. And shoots anyway. Mr. Bennet gets my second “O”-face of the episode.
The first one, of course, belongs to Gabriel Gray and his delicious, cruel, sociopathic hotness. I still strongly dislike Maya’s character, but I could listen to her call Sylar Gah-BRIE-el from here to next Monday and not ever get tired of it. Okay, so her near-constant reference to him as an angel grates, but otherwise? His normal-person name never sounded so hot. It goes nicely with how smokingly psychotic he is. At the top of his creep game, Sylar gets the trio through a cowboy-run checkpoint at the border by encouraging Maya to go ahead and kill the fake lawmen with her ability. This is the second time she has done so willingly, and I can’t really blame her. For Sylar, I’d pretty much liquefy a stranger’s organs for no reason, too.
Alejandro, on the other hand, is more grossed out than ever he’s been. It’s hard to reconcile with my huge crush on Sylar, but Alejandro’s response to his sister’s turn for the dark side deserves and has my mad respect. He may be a whiny little thing, but he knows where his lines are. I don’t find it at all implausible that he’d be so outraged with Sylar’s tutelage of his sister, even in time of dire need, that he’d risk a rift with the twin to whom he is so intricately tied. Again, I absolutely buy the outlook on him—he’s tasked with a power that saves lives after all. Genetic destiny as karmic perception. Trippy.
With only Maya understanding them both, Sylar and Alejandro trade barbs and promises of death. Alejandro, in Spanish, vows that he will not rescue Sylar again if Maya uses her power to kill while he’s in the vicinity. Sylar, in a truly orgasmic declaration, calmly lays down the way he sees their story ending in English: once he gets his power back, Sylar intends to take Alejandro’s ability as he has (rightly) guessed Alejandro will be more of a problem the longer he’s around to berate Maya for killing people. Maya will probably not long outlive her brother in this scenario, but Sylar, ever calculating, recognizes the immediate liability and plans accordingly. The best part? Even if he doesn’t get his abilities back, Sylar is happy with setting Maya on the path of domination as an acceptable substitute (especially if he gets her to leave Alejandro behind to, basically, suck it). That’s when I busted out the girliest shriek of pleasure ever, which really embarrassed my roommate as she seemed to find it a bit of an overshare. That kind of thing is best kept behind closed doors.
And, if Hiro could have found some doors in ancient Japan, he might have avoided a paradox-creating kerfuffle with his former idol. In rescuing Kensei’s woman’s father, Hiro and Kensei learn that the father has helped White Beard’s army make guns, and the weapons will surely be used to overthrow the Emperor. History is pretty much toilet water if that happens. This is completely irrelevant next to the revelation that, during the escape, Kensei’s girl discovers Hiro was Kensei when she originally fell in love with him. They kiss, and, due to lack of aforementioned doors, Kensei sees. He turns Hiro, his girl and his father over to White Beard for a boon. What that is or whether he even wants it (revenge might be enough, you never know with a petty drunkard like Kensei), we do not know. In our time, Ando gasps and demands to know more. He is the lone voice sounding that call, let me tell you.
In the other plot-going-nowhere-fast, Caitlin has recovered from the death of her brother with the kind of lightning speed that Quicksilver would envy. She and Peter head off to Montreal to find the building from his painting. She must be less than thrilled at the expense and hassle of traveling only to discover what amounts to a thrift shop at the location of painted destiny. Peter’s got nothing except a note written by Adam Monroe, an unknown person of interest to the Company (no word on whether there’s any relation to Storm, but all signs point to I STILL DON’T CARE). He’s got to save the world—again! Caitlin throws herself at him for an overly passionate hug from a grieving sister (I’ve heard of Irish wakes, but this is ridiculous)…
…and then I discover that if there’s anything worse than a green-screen city half a world away it’s a green-screen version of the city in which I live. Okay, it’s nitpicky, but BARCODE in Times Square went out of business ages before whatever disaster has depopulated Manhattan as of June 14th, 2008. Sloppy, show. Not to mention that, hello, there are loads of iconic New York sites for you to rape with your bad digital work. Couldn’t you pick one with slightly less foot traffic to make the absence of people a little less heinously fake? And if you’re going to film this show in California, why can’t you just imperil a city out there and spare me the suffering of bad CGI just to drive home the point that Peter’s tapped into yet another stolen ability he didn’t know he had?
There’s a disease, blah blah blah quarantine blah. The only reason I care is the promise that next week there will be mandatory quarantine-related scrubbing down of Peter. I may not be able to stand Milo Ventimiglia’s acting choices or the character of Peter at all, but I can at least appreciate him shirtless and wet. It’s shallow, sure, but considerably less so than, say, using your superpowers to freak out someone you don’t like, Claire and West. That’s her brilliant plan for blending in? Standing out so obviously in front of bitch-cheertator Debbie? The girl might have been booze cruising (for no other reason than the show wanted to make it seem at all plausible that she wouldn’t be believed for reporting what she saw), but she’s going to sober up hard and come after you with all the furious, flouncing anger of a cheerleader scorned. And since she’s seen that you can break Claire into pieces without affecting her, Deb might come at her a little harder-hitting for it.
Also: West and Claire are complete and total dickweeds for coming up with this plan. Where’s the Alchemist so he can dose up these two for pulling such douchebaggery? Perhaps this is further proof of the falseness of the Alchemist’s relative morality stance. I firmly believe that there’s a time and a place to serve up steaming cups of drain-cleaner-laced Heathers justice, and then there is what West and Claire did (and the lame-ass way it was “justified” by giving Debbie a drinking problem). Anything short of Sylar is okay? I don’t think so. Let’s give Claire the crazy ebola for superpowers already. She’ll shoot it down with her ability, and the Company will have both weapon and cure and can use the disease only against the evil while having a remedy for the good. Ha! Totally kidding! I as much buy the reform of the Company as I would a tearful reunion with hugs, kisses, and closed bedroom doors between Mohinder and Sylar. At least my scenario has the reality-buffering factor of being really freakin’ hot.
About TrinityVixen: There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup.
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