Same Old Same Old

NBC finally seemed to be pulling out of a slump with one of the highest rated dramas on television: "Heroes." I'm afraid that it might not last, though. I know that we've all enjoyed discussing the nuances of the show since the pilot, and I do want to discuss some more of that later in that post. First, though, in the vain hope that someone who might know someone who might have seen someone that might have a little influence over the show will read this blog I want to say ENOUGH ALREADY!

We get it that there are people out there with special powers. We get it that they got them suddenly. We get it that they don't totally understand how to use them yet. We get it that there are people out there that seem to know more about these Heroes than they know about themselves. We get it that there may be more of them than we've already met. What we don't get is why that's all we see week after week. Surely I'm not the only viewer out there that's tired of this story not moving along.

It seemed, at first, like things were moving along rapidly. We met new characters every week. They had new powers. We saw interesting intersections in their lives. That was the first four. These last three, on the other hand, did not really contribute anything of substance to furthering the story. I haven't even had that much to write about on this blog lately for lack of new revelations to discuss. It's almost like the writers haven't figured out where the show is going, and they are stalling until they do.

That doesn't mean that I don't have any thoughts about last night's episode, though. I'll just have to dig deep to find hidden meaning, so hang on for a wild ride through my mind:

Peter was dreaming about a conversation with Mr. Devereaux and at the end he flew by himself. Peter knows that he can't fly alone, so I wondered about the scene briefly before I realized that it was a dream. Or was it? Later in the episode Simone visited and told Peter that her dad had died and that he had spoken of Peter just beforehand. It sounded like the conversation her dad recounted was taken from Peter's dream. So was Peter communicating with Mr. Deveraux telepathically? If so, the implication is huge. Peter's power is to mimic those around him. Obviously, the real question here is who has telepathic powers and was near Peter while he slept? Was it Mr. Bennett's assistant? Was it someone else?

Micah apparently has the ability to repair electronics, but it appears that the repairs only work for him. Or maybe the extent of the repair is something he can control. This explains how he repaired his computer in the first episode, though. He's not a child genius, he just touched it and made it work. It was interesting, though, that Micah responded to Jessica (Friki as we call her) as if to say, "Lady, we've been around this block before, and I know all about you. Get my mom on the phone!"

Niki must have some kind of power besides super strength when Jessica appears to have survived D.L. "scrambled insides" move. That or the writers have the wrong idea about the average IQ of their viewers. If whatever he did hurt her badly enough to make her pass out, then there must have been some kind of damage.

Claire's secret is out now, so what is her brother going to do with the knowledge? I imagine that he'll let something slip and Mr. Bennett will then be forced to do something about it. Of course, I still am not convinced that Mr. Bennett is evil. When you look at his character across all of the episodes, you've never seen him do anything that necessarily wrong or bad. Perhaps he's duplicitous, but I still think that he may just be interested in protecting Claire. Or perhaps in protecting all of them.

Radioactive man was a nice touch this week. It reminded us that there may be others that we don't know about and that they could be good or evil. Of course, when he told Matt not to shoot because he might explode, it got me to wondering if he's the actual cause of the nuclear explosion that they are trying to prevent. Maybe he gets transferred to New York for one reason or another and then Sylar attacks him and BOOM! Anybody else thinking that?

Also, how about the little intersection with D.L., Ando, and Hiro. I thought that was nice, and I loved Hiro's line about wishing he had super strength, too. Along those same lines, I have to agree with Nathan's observation that being able to fly isn't really all that useful as a super power. I mean, let's look at all the characters and their abilities:

Isaac – Precognition. Pretty useful if he could get off the smack. It would always be nice to know what's going to happen.

Niki – Super strength when Jessica is around. Pretty handy stuff. It made her a millionaire.

D.L. – Phasing. The guy can walk through walls. You could do all kinds of good with that.

Matt – Telepathy. What detective wouldn't want that ability? It's almost as good as seeing the future.

Peter – Mimicry. Or whatever you want to call it. Pretty cool and useful to be able to do anyone else's super power. And he even better if he finds out that he can combine them.

Hiro – Bend space and time. We've already seen lots of uses for this and he's already saved several people.

Micah – Electronics. Can he just make it work, or can he also control it. Either way I could see lots of applications where you could save people.

Claire – Regeneration. If you couldn't get hurt, what would you do to help people?

Nathan – Flight. So he can make a quick getaway, but what else good does it do? Without super strength he's not helping aircraft that are in trouble.

More on Nathan, though. Why did he lie to Peter about the painting? It sure seemed like Mr. Linderman was willing to let him at least see the painting, but he told Peter that there was no way. Hmmm…what's Nathan hiding? He's always made me a little nervous, but this seems downright dirty. Does he plan to keep the painting for himself? Does he know why Peter wants to see it? Does he know more than he's letting on?

Lot's of questions and not many more answers. Until next week!