Heroes - Building 26: Stop That Wedding! Why?

Posted by ScuzzBuster

February 17, 2009

I’m slightly pleased to announce that I did not hate this week’s episode of Heroes, Building 26. We’re still in ugly territory, but this episode had generally less suckage than about 80% of what we’ve seen so far this season. I know that I come across as a “hater,” but honestly I’m not. In this case, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. And the way I see it, if this series was a race horse, it would have been shot and sent to the glue factory about 4 episodes into this season.

If it means anything, I don’t spend a lot of time nit-picking everything I watch. If you read any of my other reviews at the site, you’ll see that I’m pretty soft on even the some of the most dubious films and that I pretty much go out of the way expressing my continued love for shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost. As it stands, I think my standards are pretty fair and even somewhat low. Yes, I will eventually this year write my long-awaited, glowing review of the movie Ishtar.

However, any Heroes fan that has been with the show since the beginning has to admit –even if they are truly enjoying the current season—that compared to how utterly fresh and amazing that season one was, what we have now is a weak shadow of the uber coolness that was show for the first 20 episodes or so of it’s run.

And so, since my therapist told me that expressing my thoughts in bullet lists is the most psychologically healthy way of communicating, here is my weekly State of Heroes report:

• Come on With the Jokes! By far the best moment in any Heroes episode since the beginning of season 2 is the exchange between Sylar and Microwave Boy in the car on their way to Sylar’s father. If you didn’t see the episode, tough because I don’t want to misquote it, but basically when Microwave Boy refers to Sylar as a “Serial Killer,” which Sylar refutes, he lists the “traits” of a typical serial killer. Sylar has to retort “Okay, so technically I’m a serial killer, but…” I did laugh out loud. However, taking the whole thing at face value, Microwave Boy is quite an annoying little shit. By midway through Building 26 I was desperate for Sylar just to haul off and scalp the kid in his usual manner. This doesn’t really change the fact that this whole line of the story is shaping up to be the most intellectually interesting plot of Heroes: Fugitives so far. That’s not saying a lot since the show is basically working on an extremely low level right now. They might be able to pull this off, though.

• Hiro! Ando! Kill Them Now! Why why why have they turned one of the most interesting duos from the first season into a ridiculous farce? Hiro has just become the intellectual equivalent of an 8 year old kid that wants to be Superman. Ando, who initially was supposed to be the “comedic” sidekick has now become the straight man. It just simply doesn’t work any more. At least in season one Hiro was working towards a noble goal of fulfilling an obligation to be a force for good and “save the world” so to speak. Now there’s a couple of things. First, the writers, finally realizing that Hiro’s powers were so ridiculously out of line, basically the ability get himself out of any situation at any time by stopping time or traveling in it, that they had to take them away in an attempt to begin to be able to generate any sense of danger or drama again. Second, they simply take Hiro and Ando and send them on these wild goose chases that seemingly have no bearing on anything else in the show. Send them to India to stop a wedding? No background. No real explanation. No information or implications for the story arc. Excuse my French but What The Fuck? Please, take Hiro and Ando out of this show and give them their own series that I can promptly NOT watch.

• Aquaboy Joins Heroes! Not that he’ll stick around or anything. The Heroes universe is simply littered with “Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em” characters. They stick around for a couple of episodes and then they suddenly just take a hike never to be heard from again. Now Aquaboy, for those that didn’t really pay attention to the episode (can’t blame you) was Claire’s pet project to save from her Dad. The comic book shop clerk who can breathe underwater. Anyone remember the chick from season two that could “mimic” any actions she saw? Naaa, neither did the writers. Probably a good thing in that case.

• The Bennett Family Chronicles. Despite Heroes repeated attempts to completely destroy the character of Noah Bennett there is still just an iota of hope for Claire and Noah and the family. The one thing that continues to make Noah Bennett an interesting character study is that despite the complete roller coaster of crazy decisions and directions they’re taking his decision making, he does have consistent motivation. From the initial introduction of his character he will do just about anything no matter how morally reprehensible for the sake of protecting his daughter Claire, even after it’s clear to him that Claire cannot accept his behavior even when she thinks that he’s doing it in her own best interests. We finally brought this whole thing to a head this week, and it’s still within the bounds of “might work.”

• So THAT’S Why this Episode Didn’t Completely Suck. It took me until the end to realize why there was less suckage than usual this week, and that’s when the “plot wrecking crew” of Peter, Parkman, Suresh and gang came and drugged Noah in the bar at the end. The truth is that the only thing worse than having too many characters to sustain a weekly drama is to have too many characters to sustain a weekly drama and continually not develop them in any believable manner. Just from a matter of perspective, let’s look at Peter Petrelli and how richly they developed and revolved the entire first season around him. Where is he now? Who is he now? He’s a complete and utter 2-dimensional wash out. Not even a ghost of the character that was written in season one, just another in the countless line of characters that have been utterly mis-treated. Take a lesson from Lost. If you are going to try to build a tapestry around the characters, you need to focus on these characters and devote some significant love to them to make them worth watching. That’s why in Lost it wasn’t unusual to spend entire episodes focusing on just one or two people. It could be two or three weeks between seeing some major characters. This is one of the only reasons there seems to be some small air of resonance and interest in Claire Bennett and Sylar in Heroes right now. They are actually devoting some time to them while simply cramming everyone else into the gaps with nothing important to do.

• This Week’s Spin Off Idea. Tracy Strauss: Home Advisor. Tracy Strauss, Freezer Girl joins forces with Microwave Boy (Luke, or whatever the fuck his name is) to travel across the country to help people in trouble: the unending battle of average families to store food and cook meals. Noah Bennett also is a part of this mix as he is unwittingly employed by the Amana corporation to hunt down Tracy and Luke to imprison them and force them to advertise their refrigerators, freezers and microwaves. In the pilot episode Tracy is trying to demonstrate how to make ground beef by freezing a side beef and shattering it but inadvertently flash freezes the homeowner’s swimming pool while Aquaboy is in it. Luke has to find a way to use his low level microwave powers to thaw the pool at a slow enough rate to not kill him in the process. Zachary Quinto also guest stars in the pilot as Sylar using the telekinetic slicing ability he usually employs to cut open people’s skulls to demonstrate to homeowners how to cleanly cut open vacuum sealed ziplocs.

I give this weeks Heroes two very mediocre thumbs sideways. My message to the Heroes team this week: “The truth is, you’re the weak, and I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m trying real hard to be the shepherd.”