“No tongues.” - Elizabeth, Young Frankenstein

By TrinityVixen
I declare a moratorium on all time travel to the past (exceptions will be made for Sam Beckett and the Doctor). Such visits are excuses to relive and repeat past mistakes. And I am not talking about those of the fictional characters at this point.

When will the writers learn that the suspense lies in the uncertainty of the future, not the supposed mutability of the past? To a certain degree, even the future is set (sorry, Kyle Reese), as Isaac’s paintings have been, to a one, infallible. So when the present remains stable, any hijinks in the past have already proven to be benign or else have been incorporated seamlessly into what we understand as the present. Big hairy deal. Hiro’s current track record for jumps to the past includes one dead and one abandoned girlfriend and the complete decimation of Takezo Kensei. He should have taken a longer look at the scary Alternate Universe Hiro who was driven to bad-assery and bat-sh*ttery by his constant revisits to former events. Whereas all trips to the future have bent Hiro and others on the course of righteousness, giving previously self-centered folk a ken to save the world (hey, even Sylar freaked out about destroying New York).

Hiro returns to today, geeks out with Ando, and is one hundred times more interesting in a tenth of the time than he was for the entirety of his quest in feudal Japan. The precipitous escape comes after Hiro and his princess realize that, for the Kensei legend to survive the man’s fiery, explosive death, Hiro must let his deeds supersede those of the real thing; for, lo, the real thing is a traitorous, petty disappointment. However, being nigh immortal, he has not gone out in a blaze of glory at all but survived to cause trouble in the present. Kensei is the elusive Adam Monroe, bane of the Company, possible cohort of pre-amnesiac Peter.

NBC HEROES SEASON 2 DVD COVER 1ST RUN PACKAGE SDCC NEW

US $4.99 (1 Bid) End Date: Thursday Aug-28-2008 14:28:11 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

Heroes #2 NBC San Diego Comic Con Variant Rare NM

US $44.99 End Date: Thursday Aug-28-2008 15:39:25 PDT Buy It Now for only: US $44.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

2008 SDCC NBC Heroes Future/Present Hiro Bobblehead

US $30.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Thursday Aug-28-2008 15:39:49 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

(11) HEROES 1 2 3 4 5 OFFICIAL MAGAZINE PX variant NBC

US $74.99 (2 Bids) End Date: Thursday Aug-28-2008 16:00:42 PDT Bid now | Add to watch list

Kensei/Adam would be another exception to my no-past-time-travel rule. David Anders has a doll’s face; he is too impossibly, prissily pretty not to play period dress up as Kensei through the ages. Ostensibly, the flashbacks would show how Kensei/Adam moved through time to become the Company-threatening, murder-encouraging loony of today. We need to reintroduce ourselves to Kensei-as-Adam, really. I want to see Kensei tarted up with sideburns and a waistcoat for authenticity of said flashbacks, Highlander: The Series-style.

It would be a welcome relief from the other abuses of soap operatic convention run rampant. A lot of the bomb-drop reveals feel diffuse. Weak tea, if you will. Kensei’s turning up as Adam was probably the closest to being “dramatic.” Sarcasm in the scare quotes, folks. In other plotlines, West finally runs into Mr. Bennet before Claire can explain and the impact of a juvenile running across his former kidnapper barely registers. I feel for West, in theory–were Mr. Bennet my enemy, I’d freak and fly to the stratosphere and stay there–but the scene is over too soon to truly empathize. Similarly, Matt confronts his father in the dreamtime and defeats him heroically with barely more acknowledgment than “Matt Parkman has gained a level.” And Matt only gets that after having Greg Grunberg embarrass himself by airing insecurities that are so Hollywood–oh my! Matt has always felt fat (as opposed to being meant to seem so next to aerobic-addicted cast members).

But his character bashing is nothing compared to Niki. Niki has been a problem since the show backed down from accepting her as a strong, sexual woman. Instead of allowing her some control over (or, God forbid, pride in) her sex work, she doesn’t make it one episode before being sexually assaulted. From there, Niki’s been knee-capped with dissociative identity disorder, an extremely rare (and equally controversial) condition affecting less than ten percent of people in the United States. Niki is also a super, an even rarer status, so the odds of her being both are astronomical–ten to the power of seven figures against with no chance of normality restoration.

All along, there has been an exquisite explanation that would have relied less on psycho/medical babble (which the show does not fake well enough to pass) and more on the metaphysical science of superpowers (where they have more room to take liberties): make Jessica also a super. As an identical twin, she should have a better chance of having superpowers if her twin does. If Jessica had been a super with the ability to absorb/project personalities the way Peter does powers, it would explain how Jessica grafted herself onto Niki. It would also explain why Niki has only the one extra personality with whom she can also communicate (communication with the other personality is more a feature of schizophrenia than DID). Jessica, having died so young, could only graft herself onto Niki, and the ability has been lost.

I hold out hope that my much more authentically comic-book-y explanation will, eventually, be vindicated. There was some teasing as to its possibility, with Daddy Parkman invading the Company with intent to kill the Alchemist by showing Niki visions of her dead husband. Niki, you see, is a broken woman. She may be newly integrated with her homicidal half, but, rest assured, she can still be reduced to a quivering, tearful mass who completely disregards logic and acts on passionate impulse. Of course, I am more forgiving of the inevitable salvation play by the strong, logical male as said male is Nathan, with the Pasdar in full-on inappropriately hot mode. He makes steamy eyes at Niki and calls her back to herself before the Nightmare Man’s lies can drive her to chalk up a kill on her recently cleared conscience. Niki stabs herself with a new strain of the Shanti virus (the one that killed Mohinder’s sister) to bring herself fully around. Since the new strain proves impervious to Mohinder’s antibody miracle cure, Niki transitions to a new archetype: the damsel in distress. The race is on to save her.

To that end, Mohinder sells Bennet out to the Company in order to go after Claire (her regenerative powers could provide the cure to the new strain of virus). Why he preferences Niki to Bennet, I cannot say. Maybe it’s a power play to pretend Mohinder’s come clean and abandoned his subversive tendencies so that he can continue them openly under the nose of the Alchemist, but I don’t credit Mohinder with brains so large, no matter what “degree” he “earned” from “an accredited university.” Regardless, Bennet’s up the creek this week, as Mohinder’s broken nose and shiny Company-perk firearm are two more dots connected in the series of eight that will lead to Bennet’s death. And Claire is leaving him. Sure, his repressive rules and absurd security paranoia are lifestyle challenges worthy of some goth poetry on MySpace, but she’s the one who let her boy-toy talk her into playing dead in front of witnesses. Claire’s bouncing on Mr. Bennet has less to do with sticking up for poor, kidnapped West–especially as it seems he suspects her complicity in Mr. Bennet’s former work and has left her ass behind–and more to do with complete irrationality, a Heroes trademark for its female characters.

Yes, running away to do your own thing with zero resources and a hit out on your head is a good idea, Claire. Amazing deductive reasoning there. All should be forgiven, according to Kring and company, since Claire’s super-special and will save the world. She won’t be allowed to actualize her destiny herself, but the show will never acknowledge it. Claire’s duty is to be, not to do. In a show with more guts, there’d be a tacit admission that the only thing Claire is fated to do is to be cut up like Bennet has always feared she would be. The complication of facing such a terror for the greater good would be a goldmine of dramatic potential. As is, we’re left pretending this week (as with many before it) that Claire will ever have the writers’ permission to act. We already know where she’s headed; I’d prefer not to be patronized at the same time as my gender is being ignored or marginalized, thanks.

One stand out moment for those of a double-X persuasion: some revelation as to Mama Petrelli’s power. In the near future, Peter’s in quarantine in the disease-scoured remains of the United States. As soon as he’s found an identity, it is stripped away by the rubber-stamp on his file that declares him deceased. Angela Petrelli shows up to bring him back to himself. Christina Rose knocks one tiny scene out of the park. No specifics on the type of powers brought to bear, but her presence brings around Peter’s memories of times too impossibly happy to have ever happened to a Petrelli. Peter finally recognizes her as his mother even as he finds out his brother is dead (I hereby give notice–writer’s strike or no writer’s strike, if they kill off Nathan, I give up on the show) and his girlfriend is being deported. Peter tries to get back to Caitlin and return them to the relative safety of the present (see, what did I say about future-vs.-past time travel?) but ends up abandoning her to her post-apocalyptic nightmare and flying solo. So much for Nathan’s bewilderment as to how you can “lose” a time-traveler. Doesn’t seem so hard to me; it’s more a miracle that it hasn’t happened every time anyone moved more than a second out of phase with the world.

Peter’s back in Montreal, and, though power-challenged in the future, he manages a bolt of lightning when he hears an intruder. The intruder is Kensei, and he’s been waiting for Peter to show up so they can start saving their world and remaking it in Kensei’s pernicious image. I imagine Sylar will have something to say about that if he’s ever allowed out of sun-and-dirt country with the terror twins. We’ll find out next week. They promised.

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.

Technorati Tags: heroes, heroes recap

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS

Powered by ScribeFire.