Heroes: Blood and Trust

By TrinityVixen

I look forward to a Gabriel Gray: Super Counselor spin-off whenever they finally pull the plug on Heroes. Sylar is on yet another pointless road trip, but at least he’s moving in one direction (as opposed to the other heroes currently running around in circles). And yes, he’s still searching for Daddy. Because the one thing this show consistently believes in is that fathers are the only people who shape your entire personality—even when they were never there.

Volume Four, Chapter Two: “Blood and Trust”

Show, we need to talk. I am through pretending that you will ever get better about this problem you have with fathers. I let it slide last week when Sylar said that he needed his father to teach him how to be a good person, etc. etc. and declared that was something “only a man could teach his son,” or words to that effect. I let it go because Sylar is psychotic, and if you put things in his mouth, they are automatically crazy.

But you don’t think it’s crazy, do you? Despite a slew of very charismatic and strong-willed mothers, all you ever let your characters talk about is Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. After three volumes of Christine Rose exercising the power of her magnificent sour-lemon disappointment, Mama Petrelli’s manipulations are resented less than those of her dead-undead-dead again husband? I understand that Mr. Bennet is a hard act to follow, but wasn’t the point of his wife learning about his work that she was awesome and steely enough to keep up with him? Remember Mrs. Gray? Remember how she needled her baby boy in exactly such a way that would explain every single one of his narcissistic neuroses?

No, of course you don’t. Because it’s all about Daddy. Because those women are just means of generating angst for their husbands and sons; they couldn’t possibly be characters in their own right. You have made that quite clear for some time. Claire isn’t a hero; she’s a football to be tossed between her various relations. Niki/Jessica/Tracy are victims all the time. Simone was just the girlfriend, as was every woman who has ever dated Matt Parkman. (Have fun being dead, Daphne! At least you know that your death will give your lover a plot. That totally makes up for you never getting one.) Maya…oh Nathan’s God, Maya. And all that comes before Sylar’s new road buddy turns on his mother after implying that she’s a whore.

What’s a girl to do–besides being killed off the show, I mean? It just so happens that there are rumors that several actresses want off the show, and I can’t say I blame them (though this may not be the time to jeopardize one’s meal ticket). When Angela Petrelli has been cut off from the decision making process, it’s time to cash out.

Things and stuff happened tonight: Claire was recaptured and sent home for her own good—“her own good” being decided for her by her fathers, the most morally compromised men on this show outside of the cardboard villains. After Daphne served as a plot contrivance to get Ando over to the States, she was able to serve as another plot contrivance and got shot and killed in order to give Matt a reason to hate the Super Gitmo crowd. (He needed another reason besides the fact they want to incarcerate him for the crime of being a super?) Tracy is headed back to Super Gitmo, but Peter, Mohinder, powerless Hiro, Ando, and Matt are all ready to throw wrenches into Nathan’s plans. (The men will save us, ladies, never fear!) And, oh noes, Nathan’s militant hunter dude is maybe a little too hardcore about catching the supers. Who didn’t see that coming?

Everybody’s treading water except for Sylar, which is why, no matter how stupid his mission, I’m on board. He picks a random family to torture in front of his pet marine as a means of coercing the solder to talk about where his Daddy has got to. Mom is terrified, but son is only playing along at being scared. Because he, of course, hates his mother like everybody else and has an absent father. Sylar and he are able to bond over this. Sylar, hilariously, tells Mom to stuff it when she starts defending herself against accusations that she is resentful of her son. (“I don’t need an ability to know that that was a lie,” Sylar says, rolling his eyes.) Does nobody love their parents any more? Do parents universally hate their children now? (Is this an LA thing? Because over here on the East Coast, I don’t get it at all.)

This child is also a super, which gets him a foot in the door with Sylar. “It’s a small world,” Sylar comments. If he would stop to think about how many other supers are also pissed at their Daddies, his mind would be completely blown. The kid, Luke, wants to be bad in the worst way and even kills Sylar’s prisoner to prove that he can be. This irritates Sylar to no end because he needed that soldier to help him on his Daddy quest. Luke, missing the unsubtle display of rage all over Sylar’s face, chases him down and is all, “Fatherless children of the world unite?” Sylar looks at him very intently and says, “I let you live, which is kind of a big deal for me.”

I fell out laughing. This episode was not worth it for this one line, but it’s a near thing. Luke rescues himself from a de-braining he doesn’t know is coming by saying he can take Sylar to his father. (They’re neighbors, but Sylar’s Pop is MIA.) Sylar, using his truth-sensing ability, knows Luke is telling the truth and indulges the kid, who then produces some wheels. (Leaving poor Luke’s Mom stranded in the house with a corpse.) Sylar really needs to de-brain West or Nathan and learn to fly, and then he wouldn’t end up in these situations.

Onward go Sylar and Luke in their Station Wagon of Paternal Pathos. Have fun until Sylar kills you, Luke. Somebody wake me up when I am supposed to care.

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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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