And tonight we have:
Distractions. Hiro deals with explaining his new heroic path in life to his ambitious sister and tycoon father. Niki has the chance to reunite with D.L and Micah. Claude’s mentoring of Peter leads Peter to question those closest to him. Claire goes to a trailer park looking for her birth mother. Sylar wears a disguise and makes a move against HRG.
I thought the last couple of episodes kind of eh, so hopefully this is a return to form.
I’m not actually watching this until Tuesday night, but feel free to yammer away if you’ve seen it. I’m beginning to think that after our initial love affair, only Niall is still carrying the same kind of torch for this show. 🙂
Well, I certainly thought that episode was top-to-bottom good stuff, so …
(I’m not sure I agree “Godsend” and “The Fix” were substandard. “The Fix” had a pretty big structural problem — of all things, too much Hiro/Ando — but I thought “Godsend” did a great job of kicking things off again after the break. Anyway, on to this week.)
… let’s run down.
Claire/Sylar/Mr Bennett/Claire’s mom: fine, but not the star of the show this week. I am enjoying watching Claire grow up and take matters into her own hands; I think it’s really convincing. I think Nathan being her father really works, mostly because it puts Peter into an uncle relationship. I still don’t understand the bolt in Sylar’s head. I don’t understand the fuss I’ve seen in some quarters about how great it is Mom has an “active power” — I will take invulnerability over fire any day of the week, ta thanks. Oh, and brilliant line from Mrs Bennett — “I think it’s really funny how you all refer to him as ‘Mr Bennett’ when I’ve always known him as –” *gets distracted by dog*.
Niki et al: They still need to start interacting with other cast members. Hurry up and get to Vegas, everyone. But I was impressed that they actually had Jessica kill the psychiatrist. And given that Niki actually only spent 2.8 episodes incarcerated, I think they got a good deal of character development out of it, for both her and her family. Also, uh, does anyone else find that Linderman’s henchdude reminds them of someone …?
Hiro and family: I am sad that this is probably all we’re going to see of George Takei for now, but like Niki’s incarceration, it’s a sign that the writers know when not to dwell. Go to the well, get the water, keep moving. And it’s always nice to see characters solving a problem by, you know, being smart. Hiro managed to work out a win-win-win solution, pretty much.
Peter and Claude: Awesome! I love Claude and his bs. I love that Mr Bennett knows Claude. I love that Claude *threw Peter off the roof* (and nicely done misdirect on the flying/regen thing). I love that what Peter saw Simone doing wasn’t a misunderstanding, it was a genuine hurt. Sick puppy that I am, I love that Isaac is painting a post-apocalyptic NY, because I think the heroes failing abjectly would be a great ending to the season. I’m a bit worried that if Peter can remember everyone else’s powers he’s quite quickly going to turn into god, particularly when he meets Hiro, but hopefully they’ll set limitations in a reasonably sensible way.
And considering how much of a serial the show is, I think the writers are doing a really good job of working in thematic parallels (in this case, obviously, what’s a distraction, what’s important) without distorting the story.
Well, Gwenda, I think part of the problem is that Niall has said all there is to be said.
I didn’t think “Godsend” and “The Fix” were all that great – they felt a bit slow, and as I’ve said in the past the one thing this show can’t afford is a slack pace. “Distractions” was stuffed to the brim with events germane to the core plot, which is why it worked in a big way. On the other hand, I agree that George Takei was wasted, and that Christopher Eccleston is wonderful.
Mostly, though, I feel sorry for the Peter/Claire shippers.
I think the Peter/Claire can never be an item thing is probably good, but it also makes their natural chemistry on-screen realllly creepy.
I agree with Niall too, and yep, this was a good episode. (No Mohinder voiceover!)
More thoughts tomorrow.
Actually, I think the revelation that Peter is Claire’s uncle retroactively lowers the squick factor in their shared scenes. Before, I thought the writers didn’t realize how close they were coming to shipping the two characters. It’s nice to the know that the rapport between them was purposefully introduced.