Heroes S4- “Redemption” (Five Years Gone yet?)

Cafe Society
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Welcome back to season 4 of Heroes tonight- TV’s best collection of characters with awesome abilities and the sense God gave those armadillos who play in traffic. Heroes is now on at 8pm, so that probably means fewer heave inducing brain poking/neck snapping/throat slashing effects-which is probably for the best, so maybe the producers can save up their FX budget and give us a big kickass end of the season fight to the fake death this year? A quick recap from last time:

[ul]
Having created a huge government organization to capture People With Abilities and lock them in a storeroom with tubes of goop up their noses, Nathan changed his mind and figured he’d just tell the President it was a dumb idea and can we just let everyone go now? [/ul]

[ul]But before he could get back to Washington, Sylar got Nathan’s DNA by licking something in his bathroom, shapeshifted into Nathan, had a really inappropriate hostage incident/marriage proposal with Claire, then went off to go lick the President and become the Most Powerful Man in the World! Bwah haha ha!! Until Peter and Nathan caught up to him, allegedly had a battle to the death, which ended with- death-Nathan’s by Sylar-slash to the throat. (It was messy, you probably don’t want to go back and watch it on Hulu or anything.) [/ul]

[ul]Sylar goes off to find the President, and does; too bad for him it was President Peter armed with a hypo full of horse tranq. Wailing over her murdered son’s corpse, Angela decides she can bring her boy back by having Matt brainmojothingy a tranq’d Sylar into believing he’s Nathan. Because having your son’s killer become that son is pretty freaking warped but does have some karmic symmetry, if you think about it. Matt (semi renunited with his wife)does it, 'cause he’s a big goof, but being a very ethical and moral goof he’s got issues with it. So now Sylar thinks he’s a senator with an inexplicable interest in clock repair. He also got the government to pony up some DHS cash to restart the company, so Noah’s thinking he’s been blessed by black-ops Santa.[/ul]

[ul]Naked reconstituted Tracey’s back, and she’s pissed; Hiro broke his brain stopping time so much, and now his ears bleed; and Mohinder got tazered about 46 times during Fugitives, so he’s probably got continence issues now. Maybe he’s gone to the Land of Misfit Heroes, or wherever they shipped Molly. [/ul]From the show site:

Claire struggles with adjusting to her new life in college when a mysterious death thrusts her into the spotlight once again. Elsewhere, Hiro and Ando continue their noble quest to help people by promoting their abilities. Angela fears Nathan will soon discover his true identity; while Matt is haunted by an unexpected visitor seeking something he has lost. Tracy Strauss and H.R.G. join forces, looking for the key to unlock the motive behind a horrific crime. Meanwhile, Peter uses his abilities for good, but he is soon called upon to aid an old friend. While the heroes adjust to their new surroundings, a mysterious carnival clan, led by ringleader Samuel, sets their sights on familiar faces.

So, who gets to keep his job after this volume-Adrian Pasdar or Zach Quinto? Or will we just have Dr Petrelli and Mr. Sylar-Hyde for the rest of the show’s run? Or is Nathan’s body being stashed in a freezer somewhere waiting until Claire can go bleed on him?

Note: tonight’s episode is 2 hours, so make sure you set your Tivo to pick up the whole show while you’re watching House.

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ok - thanks for reminding me why I like to watch Hero’s - waiting for your recaps is the best part.

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So the show is listed for two hours tonight… I’m assuming that it’s probably the same as last year, when the first hour was just crap promo stuff (talks with the actors, flashbacks to previous seasons, etc.), but can anyone confirm that? I’d like to watch the first episode of How I Met Your Mother if the Heroes new content doesn’t start until later. Barring that, does Heroes reliably pop up on Hulu or elsewhere online (legally, it should go without saying).

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Yay! Annie’s back!

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No kidding - I also need the recaps to help me figure out what the hell is going on half the time.

Armadillos who play in traffic, eh? That sounds about right. And if they lose Zach Quinto, I don’t think I’ll be watching after that - his delicious evil is about the only thing that keeps me coming back to this show.

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Heroes is two new episodes tonight. No crap flashbacks/promo stuff. But Hulu has already announced both new episodes will appear at http://www.hulu.com/heroes tomorrow.

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Good to know, thanks!

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I guess I’ll be watching. If nothing else, like so many others I love Annie’s recaps. However, given the distinct lack of enthusiasm from even the *cast *about the new eps, my hopes aren’t high. And should they be dumb enough to eventually actually fire Adrian Pasdar, the awesomeness that is Jack Coleman won’t stop me dropping it totally.

I’m crossing my fingers but my hopes for a return to form have never been lower and that makes me sad because this used to be the bestest show ever. Also, I think they are really sticking their head in the lion’s mouth by calling the season “Redemption” - if it in fact sucks, the barbs just write themselves.

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Well, you’ve got to remember: Heros is basically a televised comic book, so the likelihood of someone staying dead is pretty low.

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I’m going to watch it tomorrow on Hulu because the reception is unwatchable in my area.

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So where TF *is *Mohinder?

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Probably off doing something stupid because a bad guy convinced him to.

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Probably by waving an ID badge in front of his nose…

damn, dude didn’t even get the voice over.

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Well that was actually fairly interesting and seemed like an improvement over the previous seasons.

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Damn two parters. Give me a day or so for this one, kids.

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I so want the braless Claire to get down and dirty with her new best friend, who was last seen seducing and then blackmaling David Duchovny on Californication. Yum.

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SPOILERS in this post, for those planning to catch a repeat or watch it on Hulu:

Hey, I actually quite liked that! The carnival people seem interesting enough, and the powers we’ve seen of them were kind of a fresh touch, as well – I liked the prognostitattooing, and the things the guy with overly much eye shadow could do with ink in general. However, I’m kinda confused, as at first he seemed to have some earth-controlling power (or possible some telekinesis) – so is he meant to be some form of power-stealer, as well (‘we found another empath’ – how does everybody know to call siphon supers that, anyway?)? I don’t think this is really a concept they ought to rehash all too soon…

The scene between Angela and Nathan I thought was pretty strong, and the precognition dream showing him as Sylar was a nice touch. The actress (I keep forgetting her name) did a great job showing Angela’s struggle to keep a normal facade towards her son-who-is-actually-her-son’s-killer, but Nathan himself wasn’t bad either – ‘I don’t feel mortal!’, there’s some level of nature vs nurture! (Does he still have the healing factor, by the way? I mean, you’re bound to notice such a thing, right?)

I also liked Matt going crazy. This may almost make the character interesting!

However, not too fond of the whole Hiro/Ando storyline so far. It’s just the same tired old concepts warmed over (destiny! The code! Is it right to change the past?) with an extra dash of goofiness (which I found extremely annoying). Interplay with the carnival folks might get somewhere, but as a whole, I think I’m just a bit over Hiro as a character – his ‘fan favourite’ status kind of prohibits the writers from doing anything really interesting with him.

But why doesn’t anybody, ever, remember the whole ‘Claire’s blood cures what ails you’-thing? ‘I’m dying, Ando.’ – ‘Well, let’s just jet over to America, and tap Claire! Her veins, I mean.’ – ‘Yeah, let’s, we’ll take my private jet!’

I didn’t really buy Tracy being all that easily convinced to side with HRG, either – ‘I was brought together again with one goal, to exact revenge on… uh… you people!’ – ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ – ‘OK, then I won’t. Here, let me spoonfeed you some clam chowder, while you take unnecessarily long to recover from wounds your own daughter could insta-heal, you’re really my only friend right now!’

As for Peter, well, on the one hand, he seems to finally have some sense in using his powers advantageously, rather than just kinda bumbling around, and the nerfing of his powers means he’s less of an uber-hero, so he could in theory be actually used in the story, rather than just being a walking deus ex machina that has to be constantly kept from actually accomplishing anything; however, turning him into the living, breathing personification of guilt tripping, I’m not so sure about that.

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Anyone else think the carnie ink guy was trying to sound like Badger from Firefly? I still think of him there, not as Romo (Fuzzy) Lambkin from BSG.

Liked that the tatooed lady is named Lydia, seems appropriate.

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I liked it. The two hours went by really fast. I love Sylar leaking out into Mama Petrelli and Matt’s subconscious minds…or is it their consciences? He will not be silenced!! :smiley:

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Hey, Ray Park got an actual speaking role! And again he gets to play with sharp objects. I didn’t buy his character who didn’t want to kill again being so willing to kill a bunch of other people who just happened to be in the way. I thought it was implied Danko killed Joseph and he was supposed to be taking vengeance on him. I guess you could argue that he held back a little on the bank guy and Noah since they both survived. Not sorry to see Danko go, that guy was just pure hate.

I was actually happy to see Claire’s roommate get defenestratred, if she had become a regular character I might have defenestrated myself.