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talkingsoupHoly potatoes.
This was a very, very good season finale. This was also a pretty damn good episode, though not perfect.
A season finale, especially for a show like this, should have a "coming together" feeling about it, and that's what the whole thing was about--the Heroes coming together. There was also a coming-together in terms of the characters themselves. Through the whole season, each character had insecurities, regrets, things that were haunting them, things they couldn't escape or overcome. But this episode did them all justice and each one of them came to terms with whatever it was that had been haunting them all season.
Peter accepted his destiny. Nathan accepted the role of the hero. Hiro accepted his own destiny and overcomes his insecurities. Matt finally made a decision about what he was going to do and whose side he would choose. Mohinder found a person worth living and dying for, a Purpose by the name of Molly. Bennett, like Matt, made his decisions and for the first time put his entire self into one thing. Claire came to terms with her ability and began to think and act for herself. Even little Molly came to terms with her fear of Sylar so that she could help in the fight against him.
And Nikki. Nikki, Nikki, Nikki.
She's been one of the weakest characters on this show--inconsistent, badly written, often shunted into a corner because she's pretty much the one and only female Hero. But honestly, I've liked her since episode one, and she has grown over the season more than any other character. She started as insecure, afraid, a woman using everything she possessed, even her body, to help her son and herself survive. She suffered through the terror of blacking out and suffered under Jessica's control. And now, here at the end, Jessica and Nikki merge into one. Nikki has overcome her fear of Jessica, of herself, and of the other things that have tried to hurt her. She's not going to take it anymore. She's strong, mentally, physically, and emotionally. She is, you could say, fully-grown as a character and as a Hero.
Then they had to go and ruin it.
Alright, yes, Peter and Hiro were supposed to be the main players in the fight against Sylar, but that could easily be remedied--make the damn fight scene longer! Seriously, here we are expecting Luke vs. Vader, Harry vs. Voldemort, Beowulf vs. the Dragon, Neo vs. Agent Smith, Naruto vs. Sasuke, and what do we get? God, I don't even know--James Bond vs. a henchman. No pulse-pounding action! No nail-biting! It was weak, diluted, colorless! This should have been a massive battled, with Peter and Hiro and Sylar as the main players, but with the others, even Mohinder, lending a hand. Why the hell didn't Mohinder fight at all? Admittedly, he'd tried to fight Sylar before and gotten stuck to the ceiling as a result, but this is the man who murdered his father. He should have been allowed to put his two cents in.
And Nikki! What the fuck? Here they've built her up, given her this amazing moment when she's fighting Candice when she realizes that she is powerful and does not need help, and they make her run off to be the Mommy? "Mom, Dad needs you?" He was walking around a few minutes later (yeah, never mind the logistics of that). "Go to your family?" Could we be more obvious about the sexism? It made me practically stop, in the middle of watching this fight scene that was already anti-climactic, and go, "okay, what the fuck?"
Admittedly, why was she fighting at all? She'd never met Peter or Sylar before, how could she possibly know which guy she was supposed to clobber? Major plot hole.
Nikki aside, the whole rest of that fight scene could have been so much better. Particularly when Hiro stabbed Sylar. Why didn't Sylar try to stop him? Why didn't he taunt him at all? Is he that stupid and arrogant? Well, arrogant yes, but it's not like he underestimates his enemies--he might think they're all worms, but he's certainly quick to kill them before they can get a chance to fight back. Where did his speed go? Hiro was about ten feet away and comes rushing in, sword pointed right out (I know nothing about swordplay and even I know that a charge like that is incredibly easy to dodge and/or deflect), and he does nothing? No.
This might sound like I absolutely hated this episode, but actually, I loved it to little bitty pieces, except for the plot holes and the fight scene. Really, there was just so much going on, and the way they brought everyone together, in terms of their characters as well, it was just so brilliant. We learned things, we lost people, we were surprised. Bennett's first name is Noah, though I'll probably continue to call him Bennett. Nathan completely shocked me by showing up at the last minute and giving his own life to save the city. I honestly wasn't expecting that. This finale did everything a finale is supposed to do, except for blowing the audience away--they left us satisfied and they left us wanting more at the same time.
And there were some delicious lead-ins to the next season as well. Hiro has landed in feudal Japan and is about to meet Kensei, the wielder of his sword. Sylar has managed to escape, despite being skewered by Hiro. Bennett and Claire are back together as a family. Peter no doubt is alive somewhere, and will probably make a Jesus/Buddha-like reappearance someday.
And, above all, the "Four Toes" of Heroes, they introduced--sort of--a new villain. Worse Than Sylar.
I don't know about everyone else, but this is the thing that has really got me excited about next season. I'll be glad to see everyone again, but it turns out that there will be more new characters and less of the old ones. It'll be fun, but I'll miss the old guys. Worse Than Sylar, though--he's the hook for the second season, at least to me. Who is he? Why is he worse? How does Molly know him? What's his ability? How powerful is he? How are they going to bring him into play? Lol, another guy with no name who will probably come to be known by that title, Worse Than Sylar, or just WTS. I wonder if he and Sylar will meet up, and whether they'll end up "working together" or becoming enemies. Wouldn't it be funny if Sylar was forced to team up with other Heroes (maybe even Peter?) to defeat the man who is Worse Than him? It all depends on what Worse Than Sylar's goals are? So many questions--see, this is why I love shows like this. It's like Four Toes in last season's finale of Lost. The Four Toes thing is the thing that hooked me to the next season and what kept me going through the really crappy parts of this season.
Worse Than Sylar. Can't wait to meet him.
My two favorite moments in this episode were the long shot of the blood trail leading to the sewer drain that showed Sylar had escaped, and then the focus on the cockroach. It's like coming full circle--Mohinder was talking about cockroaches in the very beginning, and Sylar was locked in his cell with a roach. That moment, and the moment of the eclipse in the little teaser, of Hiro look up in the exact same way as in the beginning to see the eclipse. Another way to come full circle, and there's a double-metaphor there, since the solar eclipse is itself a circle. And eclipses have lots of meanings. For the most part they're bad luck, but they can also represent change.
Overall, a wonderful finale, and a wonderful episode. Could have been better, but what can you do? And one last thing, to conclude this review:
Where the hell is the Haitian?
I've been running all over, trying to get applications in before I leave for the wedding. Spent the better part of the day at the mall, turning in applications and buying a few things. I managed to buy Lisa's wedding gift, though I still need a dress of some sort. I don't think any of my skirts are nice enough. Ugh. I also bought a new pair of shoes, very nice, comfortable black sandal-things that were godawful expensive, but what can you do in that stupid mall? So it goes.
I've still got to check the hotels and do two more online applications.
This on top of writing a chapter of my fanfic before I leave Thursday, finding a dress, watching the Lost finale (now THIS one had damn well better be the Luke/Vader, Neo/Smith thing I was talking about), and the various and sundry other things I need to get done.
I'm also officially on a diet, though no diet that has a name. It pretty much consists of exercise and cutting way, way back on what I eat. No more junk food. And I'm not going to be able to order giant cookies every night like I did this semester. It all added up, and it did not add up nicely. Fortunately I have all summer to lose the extra weight and actually fit into my fucking clothes again.
This was a very, very good season finale. This was also a pretty damn good episode, though not perfect.
A season finale, especially for a show like this, should have a "coming together" feeling about it, and that's what the whole thing was about--the Heroes coming together. There was also a coming-together in terms of the characters themselves. Through the whole season, each character had insecurities, regrets, things that were haunting them, things they couldn't escape or overcome. But this episode did them all justice and each one of them came to terms with whatever it was that had been haunting them all season.
Peter accepted his destiny. Nathan accepted the role of the hero. Hiro accepted his own destiny and overcomes his insecurities. Matt finally made a decision about what he was going to do and whose side he would choose. Mohinder found a person worth living and dying for, a Purpose by the name of Molly. Bennett, like Matt, made his decisions and for the first time put his entire self into one thing. Claire came to terms with her ability and began to think and act for herself. Even little Molly came to terms with her fear of Sylar so that she could help in the fight against him.
And Nikki. Nikki, Nikki, Nikki.
She's been one of the weakest characters on this show--inconsistent, badly written, often shunted into a corner because she's pretty much the one and only female Hero. But honestly, I've liked her since episode one, and she has grown over the season more than any other character. She started as insecure, afraid, a woman using everything she possessed, even her body, to help her son and herself survive. She suffered through the terror of blacking out and suffered under Jessica's control. And now, here at the end, Jessica and Nikki merge into one. Nikki has overcome her fear of Jessica, of herself, and of the other things that have tried to hurt her. She's not going to take it anymore. She's strong, mentally, physically, and emotionally. She is, you could say, fully-grown as a character and as a Hero.
Then they had to go and ruin it.
Alright, yes, Peter and Hiro were supposed to be the main players in the fight against Sylar, but that could easily be remedied--make the damn fight scene longer! Seriously, here we are expecting Luke vs. Vader, Harry vs. Voldemort, Beowulf vs. the Dragon, Neo vs. Agent Smith, Naruto vs. Sasuke, and what do we get? God, I don't even know--James Bond vs. a henchman. No pulse-pounding action! No nail-biting! It was weak, diluted, colorless! This should have been a massive battled, with Peter and Hiro and Sylar as the main players, but with the others, even Mohinder, lending a hand. Why the hell didn't Mohinder fight at all? Admittedly, he'd tried to fight Sylar before and gotten stuck to the ceiling as a result, but this is the man who murdered his father. He should have been allowed to put his two cents in.
And Nikki! What the fuck? Here they've built her up, given her this amazing moment when she's fighting Candice when she realizes that she is powerful and does not need help, and they make her run off to be the Mommy? "Mom, Dad needs you?" He was walking around a few minutes later (yeah, never mind the logistics of that). "Go to your family?" Could we be more obvious about the sexism? It made me practically stop, in the middle of watching this fight scene that was already anti-climactic, and go, "okay, what the fuck?"
Admittedly, why was she fighting at all? She'd never met Peter or Sylar before, how could she possibly know which guy she was supposed to clobber? Major plot hole.
Nikki aside, the whole rest of that fight scene could have been so much better. Particularly when Hiro stabbed Sylar. Why didn't Sylar try to stop him? Why didn't he taunt him at all? Is he that stupid and arrogant? Well, arrogant yes, but it's not like he underestimates his enemies--he might think they're all worms, but he's certainly quick to kill them before they can get a chance to fight back. Where did his speed go? Hiro was about ten feet away and comes rushing in, sword pointed right out (I know nothing about swordplay and even I know that a charge like that is incredibly easy to dodge and/or deflect), and he does nothing? No.
This might sound like I absolutely hated this episode, but actually, I loved it to little bitty pieces, except for the plot holes and the fight scene. Really, there was just so much going on, and the way they brought everyone together, in terms of their characters as well, it was just so brilliant. We learned things, we lost people, we were surprised. Bennett's first name is Noah, though I'll probably continue to call him Bennett. Nathan completely shocked me by showing up at the last minute and giving his own life to save the city. I honestly wasn't expecting that. This finale did everything a finale is supposed to do, except for blowing the audience away--they left us satisfied and they left us wanting more at the same time.
And there were some delicious lead-ins to the next season as well. Hiro has landed in feudal Japan and is about to meet Kensei, the wielder of his sword. Sylar has managed to escape, despite being skewered by Hiro. Bennett and Claire are back together as a family. Peter no doubt is alive somewhere, and will probably make a Jesus/Buddha-like reappearance someday.
And, above all, the "Four Toes" of Heroes, they introduced--sort of--a new villain. Worse Than Sylar.
I don't know about everyone else, but this is the thing that has really got me excited about next season. I'll be glad to see everyone again, but it turns out that there will be more new characters and less of the old ones. It'll be fun, but I'll miss the old guys. Worse Than Sylar, though--he's the hook for the second season, at least to me. Who is he? Why is he worse? How does Molly know him? What's his ability? How powerful is he? How are they going to bring him into play? Lol, another guy with no name who will probably come to be known by that title, Worse Than Sylar, or just WTS. I wonder if he and Sylar will meet up, and whether they'll end up "working together" or becoming enemies. Wouldn't it be funny if Sylar was forced to team up with other Heroes (maybe even Peter?) to defeat the man who is Worse Than him? It all depends on what Worse Than Sylar's goals are? So many questions--see, this is why I love shows like this. It's like Four Toes in last season's finale of Lost. The Four Toes thing is the thing that hooked me to the next season and what kept me going through the really crappy parts of this season.
Worse Than Sylar. Can't wait to meet him.
My two favorite moments in this episode were the long shot of the blood trail leading to the sewer drain that showed Sylar had escaped, and then the focus on the cockroach. It's like coming full circle--Mohinder was talking about cockroaches in the very beginning, and Sylar was locked in his cell with a roach. That moment, and the moment of the eclipse in the little teaser, of Hiro look up in the exact same way as in the beginning to see the eclipse. Another way to come full circle, and there's a double-metaphor there, since the solar eclipse is itself a circle. And eclipses have lots of meanings. For the most part they're bad luck, but they can also represent change.
Overall, a wonderful finale, and a wonderful episode. Could have been better, but what can you do? And one last thing, to conclude this review:
Where the hell is the Haitian?
I've been running all over, trying to get applications in before I leave for the wedding. Spent the better part of the day at the mall, turning in applications and buying a few things. I managed to buy Lisa's wedding gift, though I still need a dress of some sort. I don't think any of my skirts are nice enough. Ugh. I also bought a new pair of shoes, very nice, comfortable black sandal-things that were godawful expensive, but what can you do in that stupid mall? So it goes.
I've still got to check the hotels and do two more online applications.
This on top of writing a chapter of my fanfic before I leave Thursday, finding a dress, watching the Lost finale (now THIS one had damn well better be the Luke/Vader, Neo/Smith thing I was talking about), and the various and sundry other things I need to get done.
I'm also officially on a diet, though no diet that has a name. It pretty much consists of exercise and cutting way, way back on what I eat. No more junk food. And I'm not going to be able to order giant cookies every night like I did this semester. It all added up, and it did not add up nicely. Fortunately I have all summer to lose the extra weight and actually fit into my fucking clothes again.
