Ch-ch-changes: Indeed, David Bowie said it best many years ago. Gone are the "save the cheerleader, save the world" plots. It's nice to see what the show can do when the fate of the world isn't hanging in the balance. I applaud this. It feels fresh. If feels more real (well, as real as you can expect about a show that involves people with super powers). This is exactly what I would expect to happen if the guv'ment ever found out about people with powers. They'd be hunted down, detained and most likely tested on. People would be forced into hiding. There's a very Star Wars Episode IV/Guantanamo Bay aspect to this season (evil empire hunting down people with powers, detaining people who are both real threats and others who are innocent). What this show needed all along was a shakeup on the writing staff. I mentioned no lulls in the storyline - there's been times in the past where you'd scratch your head wondering "how does this character/plot fit in with the overall story?". I'm looking at you Ali Larter, Alejandro, Mya, Micah and Micah's cousin.
Less annoying characters: Minimal Suresh? Check. Brief scenes with Tracey? Check. Tougher Peter? Check. Shit, even Claire is back to acting more like a high school teen than some powerless vigilante hero. We needed this from her all along! She has yet to cause me to massage my temples in order to sooth the frequent headaches her shinanigans would bring. Getting back to Peter - his exchange with Nathan right before Nathan doublecrossed him was a big step for this character. He seemed tougher. When Nathan asked him if flying was Peter's only power, Peter's response was "who are you supposed to be...the cops?" with a perfect "that ain't your muthatrucking business, fool" sneer. Only flaw, which may just be a character flaw, is he's still too trusting, falling for the ole "I'm your family member, give me a hug" embrace of death, but more troubling than that is he shows his hand too much still. Has yet to master the art of "I'll go along with you so that I don't raise any red flags, but deep inside I'm keeping my eye on you just to find out what the caper is". Don't invite Peter to a poker game, that's all I'm saying.
Nathan has been refreshingly consistent. He flip flopped a considerable amount last year. What seems to be odd is the lip he takes from that menacing bald government guy. I'm assuming
the menacing bald government guy is beneath Nathan in terms of authority - Nathan should have him dealt with. Whoever casted that guy deserves an award, btw - how menacing and evil does he look? He could make smalltalk at the office water fountain seem like uncomfortable doom. Looks like he gets pleasure from using scissors to cut the ears off of tiny bunnies. Look into the deep abyss of darkness where his eyes should be, you'll know what I'm talking about. And all in all the writers have kept Suresh out of the way, and Tracey doesn't seem to be getting much meaningful screen time now that she's in shackles. I can't ask for more to be honest.Tidbits on other characters: It's still kinda lame that the writers can't think of any other way to contain a very powerful person than to render them powerless. Kring, the creator of the show, actually came out and acknowledged a conscious effort to go easy on time travellers running amok in the storyline and altering events whenever they knock over a potted plant. Still, it's been a very long time since Hiro has had powers - don't you think he's suffered enough? Shit, that's longer than Peter went without powers and Peter was a bumbling idiot up until now. Now, it's obvious Hiro's underlying message is we can all be heroes with or without powers. That's great and all, but we kinda got that message previously when Peter was powerless. Sometimes it's almost as if you feel the writers should just kill off anyone they don't think they can handle rather than resort to the old "you have to take a power time-out, now go sit in the corner until we decide a convenient time to give you your power back" routine. I do like their solution for Peter - one power at a time, loses the previous power he had, needs to physically touch the person to get their power. A far cry from the day's when Peter could be in a room with like 5 heroes have instantly get their powers. Yeah, that wasn't gonna be tough to write around. What the hell were the writers thinking?
Sylar is back (unnecessarily and inexplicitly), and remains the lone badass on the show, the way it should be. He seems to be the only one capable of having the responsibility that having many powers come with. He seems disciplined, unlike Peter who would run amok expecting to save the day. I really like this journey to find his father, who else is expecting one demented kook? I'm also expecting his Dad to have some type power as well. I think this is perhaps the 2nd time the show has had Sylar killed off in a cling hanger, only to have him return. Writers: 3rd time is NOT the charm. Let's put that to rest now. It seems the writers assumed that we would assume Sylar didn't die in the explosion in the last episode of the previous volume - they didn't even bother acknowledging him walking away from the wreckage. At least they gave us some credit for not being that gullible that they felt it'd be a waste to explain him surviving. He just appeared in the 1st episode of this volume like nothing happened.
And thank you for getting HRG back into the mix. It was a crime that he was as underutilized as he was last volume. I thoroughly look forward to the upcoming episode to see where his character is going to be going for the rest of the season.
Ok, I'll stop here, this is a blog - not a novel. If I think of more stuff to point out I'll do so in a separate entry.
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