Cold Wars

The season is going great, another good episode. Lots of HRG which is always a good thing, and the menacing Hunter guy seems to steal every scene he's in. I say the episode was "good" and not "great" because on the whole not much happened. Here's what I'm seeing:

1. Was it necessary to spend a whole episode backtracking as to how HRG got involved with the government project? Ok, I know it was necessary to reveal that a basically bored HRG wanted action (more than he wanted to protect Claire) and he wanted to head his own group. As he got pushed to the sidelines and saw the actual intent of the government project he decided it wasn't his bag anymore and switched allegiance. Not necessary to take a whole episode for that. And was it just me, but in the end when HRG was walking with the Hunter and he swore 100% loyalty was it not obvious that HRG had already flipped to the other side? When he walked back to Angela Petrelli and revealed he's back on her side were we supposed to be "ohhh snap, I don't believe it!"? There was no drama or tension there, the episode had shown HRG gradually moving away from the goals of the project, by the end there was virtually no surprise. Even when he offered to walk Matt outside the motel after Matt had been captured it was very obvious he did so expecting Peter to swoop in (literally) and take Matt. That was the revealing turn of events, slightly grinning at the sky as Matt was whisked away, that it was obvious HRG had flipped - not his conversation with Angela Petrelli. I don't know, that was somewhat weird - I hope the writers gave us more credit than that.

2. Suresh sure does annoy other people, not just me. I loved the part when Suresh objected to interrogating HRG that Matt screamed at him "if you don't like it...leave!". Quite frankly up until that point Suresh was dead weight anyway. There's no room for having a moral compass when you're being hunted. What exactly was his alternate plan anyway? How could not wanting to get more info be a bad thing? Obviously we found out he didn't want it to be known that he was aware of the government project - but as soon as they all were rounded up in episode 1 wouldn't that have confirmed what HRG told him in the taxi? At that point why wouldn't he tell the others "hey, HRG mentioned this would happen, I didn't believe him but here's what I know"? Some faulty writing there. The writers made it seem like Suresh was clueless as much as the rest, but being abducted should've been the telltale sign that whatever info he obtained was in fact correct and he should share it with other huntees.

3. Why didn't we get more "Rebel"? I'm having a great time trying to determine who that is. I don't know if the writers would introduce a new character (like when they introduced Matt's dad as the person who was haunting Molly's dreams) or if it'll be someone we already know. I like to think there's no drama/surprise when you just create a character out of the blue, that the only proper way to do a "ah ha! so [insert familiar character here] was the Rebel!" moment is in fact with a familiar character. With that in mind, I want to go over some facts we know to arrive to who the possible suspects are: the person communicates electronically; the person knows the characters (Claire, Hiro/Ando); it has to be someone not already getting much (or any) screen time this season. That leads me to believe it's either Micah (ugh) or Angela Petrelli. Micah could've possible communicated via text (to Claire) and fax (to Ando/Hiro). Angela is the only one (not preoccupied with running from The Man) who could determine that Hiro/Ando would be in India before they actually got there, as the fax was there before they arrived. Heck, even the Haitian is still out there somewhere and he's had some history on some level with Claire and Hiro/Ando.

Or it could just be a totally new character which would suck.

4. So Claire's new friend is basically Aqua Man. Yuck, horrible and useless power to have. He's so inept and useless I can't muster enough motivation to write more on this. What a waste of a power (outside of Ando's useless power). Couldn't they have made Ando's power that he can supercharge *anything*? Like if he hopped on a motorcycle he'd make it ridiculously fast. Or if he touched a normal person they'd become super strong. That'd be cool.

Still waiting for the return of the comic book store geeks, hopefully they make another appearance.