Heroes: An Invisible Thread. Take the Fork Out? Maybe This Show Isn’t Quite Done Yet.

Posted by ScuzzBuster

April 28, 2009

heroesbodyburn I have mixed feelings about the season finale of Heroes, An Invisible Thread. While I certainly think that the show has been on a major course correction since even before Bryan Fuller came back on board, it’s still a long way from having all the pieces put back together. That being said, I was happy and shocked at the size of the testicles this program managed to grow in the closing moments of the season closer. Not only shocked, but almost a bit delighted.

First things first, the writer’s have started cleaning up the mess they’ve been sloppily dealing with since season one with Hiro’s outrageous plot killing ability to stop time. As you may or may not know I’ve been droning on about how the show has had a real problem dealing with this, alternating between absolutely ridiculous moments of ignoring it or hoping the audience would forget about it in the weak attempt to maintain suspense or simply coming up with outrageous justifications for not using the powers.

It’s not all nice and clean by giving Hiro the this new wrinkle that threatens his life when he uses his power, but it’s probably about the best they could do under the circumstances. However, the problem remains that Hiro and Ando are still the weakest link in the show with the horrendously piss poor writing and handling of virtually every plot element they pull them into, not that they’ve really been given much to do in season 3 besides wander aimlessly from one disconnected and meaningless story element to another all the while continuing to dumb them down with more and more preadolescent behavior.

nathan Now let’s talk about the tremendous respect I have for what they’ve done in the finale. I will qualify this first by saying they can easily cop out of this early in season 4, but I think that would end up being a show killer. I firmly believe that even if the show excels early next year that it’s probably never going back to win back the viewers they’ve been bleeding mercilessly since the end of last season.
However, giving Nathan Petrelli a gruesome and pitiful death at the hands of Sylar was very nice. Putting a major character down in this manner was a bold choice. The argument can be made that this doesn’t really carry weight since it doesn’t seem to impact Arian Pasdar’s role as Nathan in the show, but I disagree even though it can be argued that the death of Ali Larter’s season one character carried almost zero impact in similar circumstances.

This scenario is the first moment in the entire season where I was genuinely shocked as well as intellectually moved by drastic events and questionable choices made by the characters. This was a bold move by the writers to push this show firmly back into the “moral gray area” themes that they played so much with in the first year. Even though throughout season three we have had Noah Bennet as well as Angela Petrelli openly discuss and even use the expression “moral gray areas” this is the first real exploration of that concept in a long time.

ohnogreg They’ve spent much of the season bringing Sylar back down into the depths of depravity in preparation for what they had to do here. Suddenly, we have an incredibly interesting triangle of characters that are going to have to keep an evil secret, and it appears that Matt Parkman is going to be the one that has the most difficulty living with this decision. To basically erase a human being from existence and promote an astonishing lie is going to eat at him. Hopefully the writers can make something of that, and Greg Grunberg, who’s performance as Parkman has been acceptable but hardly more, can pull it off. Grunberg really fit the character of Parkman well in season 1, but the more they try to diversify and grow the character, the greater his range as an actor seems to be stretched.

It’s refreshingly bizarre to come to the season finale of Heroes and genuinely be dwelling upon the implications of what I’ve seen, especially when 6-8 weeks ago I was considering the possibility that I may never tune into the show again after this season wrapped. I’m begging them not to cop out of this. Part of me just feels that 3 episodes into season 4 they’re going to completely destroy this momentum by having Hiro flit around in time again and change these events bringing Nathan back. That would be such a betrayal of fan trust I would have to turn the show off simply out of principle.

I’m still not 100% back on board yet, especially with some of the perplexing decisions they continue to make with characters like Hiro and this whole outrageous come back that Ali Larter is making, proving my point from a few weeks ago that they ARE making her out to be Zan from the Wonder Twins. And now suddenly she’s the serial killer? I dismissed that whole tacked on ending in the finale hoping it’s a bad dream.

Whatever happens, they’ve got me back for the premiere of season 4 later this year. It’s starting to a feel a little bit like Heroes again. In spite of completely ruining the character of Mohinder Suresh, it’s good to see that they’ve turned back to his narration as the philosophical grounding and conscience of the show. notamerryman Peter Petrelli is starting to become defined and interesting again, and yes, even I’m embarrassed to have been sideswiped by not seeing his stealing of Sylar’s shape shifting ability to impersonate the president (played by Michael “Worf: I am not a merry man” Dorn in another of the Heroes’ staff’s nod to Trek). Of 44 minutes of the Heroes season finale, they did right for over 30 minutes of it. It’s up to them to hold me from here. An Invisible Thread get’s an uncharacteristic and shockingly satisfying thumbs up from this cynical fan.