Episode 10 - Eclipse, Part Two (Part 1)

Do it.

Just do it already.


This is what I said to the tv - to HRG specifically - as he held a boxcutter to Sylar's throat. Do it - just kill Sylar. Telling the writers to finally grow a scrotum and revolutionize this series with a jawdropping turn of events. And yes, HRG did kill Sylar. For a short while it seemed this show was throwing out all conventional wisdom and doing something out of left field. But alas, the writers lacked the balls to stick to their guns and as the eclipse faded away and Sylar reemereged, it was all back to the same old, same old. Old friends coming and going, and coming back again. The Heroes way of doing things. Imagine all the internet buzz had Sylar was really killed off? All the positive chatter and hype and hoopla returning to this series that hasn't seen positive chatter, hype and hoopla since season 1. Don't get me wrong - Sylar is my favorite character on the show. Absolutely love him. But I love the show more than I love Sylar and killing him off would've pumped new blood and electricity into this series that's in rapid viewership decline. Let's face it, by all standards Heroes is still a hit series but a show can only bleed viewers for so long until it gets the axe. It won't happen this season, nor next. But suddenly a world without Heroes isn't so hard to imagine these days. Sure looks like Elle is done for, but that's not really shocking all that much and if she really has died (and at this point you can't assume people are dead for long anymore) it was a cheap consolation. The show needed Sylar to be dead. They indeed pulled the trigger and shot him, but once more the gun was loaded with blanks.

Ok, with that out of the way let's continue.

HRG, welcome back. I can hardly think of a better episode you've been in than this past episode. Manipulating people. Hunting suckers down. Killing. All in a day's work for a badass. I also want to thank him for finally laying down to rest the whole "Sylar is a Petrelli" farce. I've already pointed out why that didn't make any sense. Seemed kinda anti-climatic to reveal it that way, though, I was expecting Arthur to doublecross Sylar at an opportune time and with Arthur stating the truth, almost like a reverse Empire Strikes Back moment ("Luke, I am *not* your father"). One thing that is growing increasingly annoying is the fact that Sylar - tv's best villain - is so easy to manipulate. Evil Sylar becomes Good Gabriel because Angela Petrelli tells him she's his mother. Now because a person thisclose to dying reveals to him that he isn't a Petrelli and all of a sudden Sylar is a villain again? Really? Just like that? I understand a season can't go on forever, so unlike a novel the writers don't have an awful lot of time to gradually build things up, but this is lunacy. Sylar has gone from villain to a good guy looking to redeem himself to back to a villain in - get this - half of a season. We're still in the same volume that started back in September. Just 10 episodes in. How can you have a character flipflop like that, willy nilly? I shake my head in disappointment, writers, tisk tisk.

*sigh*

Anyway, one other thing this episode brought was possibly the best Hiro moment thus far. The whole Hiro arriving just in time to save HRG from Sylar by teleporting "Bad man" out of the house - awesome. That's one thing I didn't see coming and it's nice to be surprised. I don't know why Hiro brought Elle to the same place Sylar was, but we'll chalk that up to the mistake of a 10 year old mind. Also, I'm glad we've reached the end of the line with the 9th Wonders comic book (save for Isaac Mendez's unpublished final copy that apparently is going to come into play very soon). The show has several tools, or tricks, in their arsenal they've utilized one too many times - people dying then coming back to life through miracle blood; time travellers altering past/present/future; trotting out HRG at opportune times as the answer to a particular problem, etc - but one recurring trick has been the use of the 9th Wonders comic books as a way to move the story along. Characters in a bind had this apparent book of knowledge that would reveal the future and help explain what their next move should be. It's nice that the writers have answered a question that was growing in internet message board - how many comic books did Isaac Mendez write that a character killed off in season 1 can still be affecting events 2 seasons later by way of his comic books??. The answer is he wrote 2 seasons worth of comic books and now the well has run dry at last (finally!). You mean people will have to figure out things by themselves ? Yes! I'm happy the writers decided to do away with that crutch. The problem with a show about heroes is it gives the writers all these fictional avenues to help write themselves out of jams when they reach a dead end.

Time to see what other tricks the writers have up their sleeves. And if one of those tricks involve a person with the ability to cause eclipses, thereby flicking a switch and turning people's powers on and off - then I will simply end this blog and watch something educational.

The Company

Before we go any further I just wanted to get this out in the open. Has a League of heroes - in this case the older generation that made up The Company (Hiro's Dad, Ma and Papa Petrelli, Parkman's Dad Maury, etc) - ever had a bunch of people with the most useless powers? What kind of crime/villain did they fight anyway? Most of them are dead which goes to show how inept and powerless they were. No one yet knows what Hiro's dad could do, but I don't think it was anything of value since he got taken down (in his case down several stories off the edge of a building) so easily.

And Bob Bishop (Elle's dad), that guy who had the Midas Touch as his power. If you had that ability would fighting evil be the first thing on your agenda? How exactly did he battle villains - offer them gold to go away? I could just picture the following exchange:

Bob Bishop: Hey guys, I was thinking for this next mission I could tag along with you and help battle that nasty group of bad guys we've been having problems with.

[Group looks down at their feet]

Ma Patrelli: Yeah, we're gonna need you to hand in those TPS reports soon, and then after that there's the trash dumpster outside that we need you to convert into gold so we can finance the repairs to the rec room so we don't think you'll have enough time.

What a waste of abilities.

Speaking of waste of abilities, this has nothing to do with the Company, but ponder this:

Papa Petrelli and Peter Petrelli both have the ability to take the powers of other people. But suppose they were the only two people on the planet to have any powers at all - would that not be an epic waste of a power?? That's like someone coming up to you and saying "my power is if I ever were to hold the horn of a golden unicorn - if such a mythical creature were to ever exist - in my hand I would have unlimited abilities and end all suffering for man forever."