Heroes 4-5 'Hysterical Blindness' (10/12/09) (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Damn, another meaningfully symbolic episode title. Sounds like all talky; no shooties- no smashies again.

Last time, everyone’s still trying to get on with the gett’n on, part 2:

Noah’s hanging out in his 2nd floor basement, eating cereal, probably playing some dopey on line game. Peter tries to get him to oneofus on a mission to figure out about that damn compass that appears on his arm randomly, but Noah doesn’t feel like it, nor was he enticed with the job ads for tree product sales that Claire used to lure him back in the world of employment. After some ‘do what you love, the money/self satisfaction/chance to kick bad guy ass will follow’ speech to Tracey, he listens to his own advice and starts up his own living room wall of compass based /Who’s this speedy knife guy? research.

Tracey’s journey back to the slimy halls of power made her realize that she could do more good in the world freezing things and sloshing up kitchen drains than she could by hustling legislators. Oh yeah, she want to do something that will * help people*. (How about finding that orphaned nephew of yours? Last we saw Micah was homeless and being chased off by a delusional serial killer. He should be in school.)

Hiro learned that it’s not enough to go into the past and change events, you have to change the root cause of the events themselves. Then he hugged his sister bye bye, and blooped off into the unknown rivers of time. Nathlar had a memory about accidentally killing a girl via head wound. Finding this both frightening and familiarly comforting Mr. Honesty tells the girls mom, who explores her grief by having Nathlar shot and buried in a shallow grave. This causes him to reformat his primary drive, and Sylar pops up from the dirt. Status of data on hard drive: unknown. Unless you read the blurb below:

From the show site:

Samuel prepares for new additions to his family, while Lydia warns him of the consequences. Claire discovers that her roommate Gretchen may have a hidden agenda. Meanwhile, Peter finds an unexpected way to connect with Emma, who would prefer to stay distant. Elsewhere, a different side of Sylar emerges as he desperately tries to remember the person he used to be.

He got it backwards: first you rise from your grave, then you go for the brains!

And from the previews last week: Girl smoochies!!! And maybe Peter gets lucky (run, Emma, RUN!!! Peter’s last two girlfriends were shot/trapped in a plague ridden future!)

(Spoiley picture): I don’t know why he looks so pissy here, it couldn’t have hurt that much. And for the week after, not spoily: Hard core BBQ:

2

Not reading the spoiled blurb, the previews last week mad it look like Sylar was still using his Nathan programming, but wearing his Sylar face.

3

I wasn’t sure if he thinks he’s Nathan, Sylar, Gabriel, Matt or has general amnesia. Or pretending.

4

Once again, a much better episode than the majority of seasons 2 and 3. Not sure how much influence Fuller had. I like the whole “only show certain characters in each episode” style. Cuts down on the filler.

You know, I was kinda interested to see where they were going to go with the deaf girl storyline. A person with an ability that completely useless in a “save the world” capacity. Nevermind about that.

Also, if the writers know what’s good for them, they should make teleporting invisible girl be the invisible man’s daughter.

5

Well, not all the abilities are going to be show stoppers- someone has to get the ability to talk to bugs or the grow-on-command fingernails, but who knew the offensive capabilities of a cello?

6

And that’s when they’ll find some bug that happened to be a secret meeting or a manicurist villain they need to distract. Remember, there’s always a canal.

7

Very much a mixed bag this week, I thought.

The interrogation of Sylar felt kind of corny and that female officer acted in ways that just felt unbelievable. Lowlight - when she asks the other guy to leave the keys to Sylar’s handcuffs on the table on his way out. Yeah, right. I think Heroes tends to struggle in general when it tries to ‘do’ police stuff. It always feels like the writers get their research from watching episodes of Starsky & Hutch. I thought Zachary Quinto’s acting was poor this week too, which is unfortunate because that whole storyline rather depends on the audience being able to not only buy into the emotional side of things but also to literally get a sense of who we’re looking at. Still, maybe not entirely his fault - I think in general the directing was very choppy and disjointed so maybe that all had something to do with it.

I don’t know what we’re supposed to make of Gretchen now. I would be very surprised if they make their first acknowledged gay character mad or evil but even discounting the ‘make Gretchen look bad’ actions of Evil Carnie Sorority Girl, she’s not shaping up well. For me, the big red flag wasn’t the googling or facebook stalkage, it was the whole “Oh, let’s not have other friends bit”. Yikes! Still, I find it darkly amusing that we are invited to think she is dodgy despite she’s nowhere near as bad as West was in her boundary issues. Incidentally, so much for Jump/Push/Fall test as carried out by Claire, eh?

I’m a bit flummoxed by Peter’s sudden abandoning of his plan to go all crazy in his self imposed isolation from everyone. What was the point of this plot in the first place? And what has made him change his mind? It 's like they stuck it in the show just so it would be plausible that Peter wouldn’t notice there was anything up with Nathan and that now that problem has gone, they’ve just dropped it all without really bothering with a pay off to it or explanation.

On the plus side, I enjoyed Angela’s scene greatly with her all quietly panicky about Nathan’s vanishing and Peter misunderstanding it and being all annoyed that she just wasn’t being sufficiently wowed by his sudden graciousness in allowing her back into his life. It always amuses me how self centred Peter is.

I am really liking Emma, and for this reason she has my sympathy that she’s now apparently channeling Dazzler, one of the most gloriously lame heroines ever. Here’s hoping she starts trundling around the place on disco roller skates. Did she have that cello all along and that’s how she could play it last week? Was it a gift? Just bought it? She looked vaguely surprised to see it there.

8

I thought she was a psych consultant. At that point, Winston had no real reason to believe Syar was dangerous. That naturally changed after he took the ride through the window.

[QUOTE]
I don’t know what we’re supposed to make of Gretchen now. I would be very surprised if they make their first acknowledged gay character mad or evil but even discounting the ‘make Gretchen look bad’ actions of Evil Carnie Sorority Girl, she’s not shaping up well. For me, the big red flag wasn’t the googling or facebook stalkage, it was the whole “Oh, let’s not have other friends bit”. Yikes! Still, I find it darkly amusing that we are invited to think she is dodgy despite she’s nowhere near as bad as West was in her boundary issues. Incidentally, so much for Jump/Push/Fall test as carried out by Claire, eh?

[QUOTE]
I am relieved to see that Claire’s stalker is just a normal stalker, for once.

I read it as the younger (less favored) brother feeling like he’s being upstaged by his older brother, who isn’t even there. I actually felt sorry for Peter. He’s trying to reach out to his mother, who isn’t paying him any attention (like usual), because she’s thinking about his big brother. Of course we all know why she’s worried. His big brother is really an evil psycho-killer who is now AWOL.

I don’t think she can teleport. Remember: the Evil Carnies have their own Master of Time and Space on the oxygen tank. He must be pretty powerful if he can move the entire carnival on demand.

9

I thought she was a psych consultant. At that point, Winston had no real reason to believe Syar was dangerous. That naturally changed after he took the ride through the window.

[QUOTE]
I don’t know what we’re supposed to make of Gretchen now. I would be very surprised if they make their first acknowledged gay character mad or evil but even discounting the ‘make Gretchen look bad’ actions of Evil Carnie Sorority Girl, she’s not shaping up well. For me, the big red flag wasn’t the googling or facebook stalkage, it was the whole “Oh, let’s not have other friends bit”. Yikes! Still, I find it darkly amusing that we are invited to think she is dodgy despite she’s nowhere near as bad as West was in her boundary issues. Incidentally, so much for Jump/Push/Fall test as carried out by Claire, eh?

[QUOTE]
I am relieved to see that Claire’s stalker is just a normal stalker, for once.

I read it as the younger (less favored) brother feeling like he’s being upstaged by his older brother, who isn’t even there. I actually felt sorry for Peter. He’s trying to reach out to his mother, who isn’t paying him any attention (like usual), because she’s thinking about his big brother. Of course we all know why she’s worried. His big brother is really an evil psycho-killer who is now AWOL.

I don’t think she can teleport. Remember: the Evil Carnies have their own Master of Time and Space on the oxygen tank. He must be pretty powerful if he can move the entire carnival on demand.

10

I actually quite liked the episode, though I’m still somewhat in the dark about what the overall plot arc is shaping up to be. But that’s some travelling circus for sure!

Also, when the thrown tattoo needle just hung there, caught by an invisible hand, just for a moment, I hoped…

11

Well done so far this season, although I have some questions about how invisible college girl ends up at the head of the sorority…she must have gone back as a freshman, and made it through two or three years to get to a powerful level in the sorority. Shades of The Sixth Sense on this one…

I was quite surprised to see the carnival show up for Sylar, which is good. This season is humming along quite well :slight_smile:

12

I acknowledge the point about her being a psych consultant but I still felt her wide eyed trusting was unrealistic. Given that he doesn’t have a mark on him, from their perspective he’s covered in someone else’s bood and can’t explain that fact or anything else.

Heh. Poor Claire. She does seem to attract them.

I don’t really disagree that’s what they seemed to be suggesting. But really all we usually see with these two is Angela basically assuring Peter he’s the apple of her eye and Nathan’s this hopeless loser whom she is regretfully forced to spend all her time on lest he fucks everything up. This week’s scene was unusual in it appearing (from Peter’s pov) to look like the other way around for once. Still, I felt sorry for Peter too. A bit, anyway.

13

So, uh, Peter takes powers inadvertently now? If that’s the case, why didn’t he get Carnie-man’s power when they shook hands?

14

Yeah - that bugged me, too.

15

Sure, it’s all fun and games until Hank Pym makes the bees go for your eyes. :wink:

16

I can overlook this by thinking…

Because Carnie-man was pushing the “earth ink” into him, he could not draw his power out.

Works for me…

17

Just off the top of my head, she badmouths Peter behind his back; he saw her once talking to Charles Deveaux about him, saying he was a sweet kid but too dumb to get out of his own way, or something. With both boys, she’s using classic behavior modification: Alternate positive reinforcements with punishment/neg reinforcement- eventually people will put up with 19 neg’s because every so often they get a positive. “Bad Peter, bad Peter, bad Peter, you’re mommy’s favorite!”

The two instances when Peter accidentally sucked up someone’s power (this, and on the plane when he got Tracey’s freeze), 2 things in common: 1) extreme life or death adrenalin response 2) pretty hot chick. :smiley:

18

You know, you have a point, she does. Plus that signature face stroking thing that becomes a slap which kind of sums up her attitude to him in one little gesture. Amusingly, she only does the face pat bit of the move this week but plainly I wasn’t the only one expecting the slap - Milo Ventimiglia visibly braced for impact. Cristine Rose is awesome :slight_smile:

On the other hand, I tried to think of Angela ever saying anything positive whatsoever about or to Nathan as a person and I got nuthin’. I think it’s negative reinforcement all the way, there.

19

I hope they are doing better in the ratings, this season is back to season 1 quality goodness.

20

While I liked the episode I cannot figure out how the invisible girl is head of a sorority, unless she was recruited recently by the carnies. I guess that is the most plausible, although it isn’t particularly plausible.

I got a kick out of the music when Peter tried to run fast and failed. It would start up and then peter (no pun intended) out, then start up again and peter out again.