Heroes "Volume 4" Finale 'An Invisible Thread' 3.25

So, remind me, how come Claire's blood wasn't used to restore the real Nathan?

Even when this show redeems itself (with a few decent episodes strung together) it puzzles the fuck out of me, and I don't mean that in a good way.

It sucks. It always has. Now it's just painfully obvious.

Too late after he bled out maybe?

I've been telling you all how much this sucks. Vindication. Actually it's very touching knowing that your mommy would

Angela's so heartwarming. I just puddle up thinking about her. Peter could have shape shifted into Nathan to tell the president what he needed to hear. Well, at least Hiro and Mohinder are safe, thank God. Can't lose those two lummoxes.

Heroes SUCKS. Words can't properly articulate the suckitude. This is why I watch Supernatural instead as my genre show of choice. It's beyond heads and shoulders above the rest. It actually improved its game during its fourth season. Not many can say that.

^ To be fair, there's no evidence anyone but Mohinder and Noah know that Claire's blood can be used to heal, and they weren't there... were they?

Why didn't Noah suggest it later? He arrived quickly enough to suggest that Matt put the whammy on Sylar. Yes, he was there soon enough. He revived with Clare's blood a few hours after being shot in the eye (which would have gone directly into his brain). If Noah can revive, why not Nathan? Why are these writers so damned enamored of Sylar? The character needed to be put to rest 2 seasons ago; he's another character--like Peter and Hiro--who is simply too powerful. Peter could have shape shifted into Nathan long enough to tell the president what needed to be said, then Nathan could officially "die" later. Angela's desperate enough to keep around the man who murdered her son as a way to still have Nathan around? That's absurd.

So much for Bryan Fuller being a savior. God he sucks. Did he write that garbage? Oh well. At least stupid Mohinder, god awful annoying Hiro and bratty Claire are safe. Give me bipolar teddy bears that come to life and then attempt suicide, angels who rescue you from hell (but are dicks anyway) zombies, vampires, and demons any day.

Since Heroes began, and we've known Peter and Sylar were two juggernauts of power, we've wanted one thing; A knockdown-dragout fight between the two of them. It finally happens, and what do we get?

A closed door and flashing blue lights. What are they spending their money on over there, hookers and blow?

There's never going to be a big fight between Peter and Sylar. They don't have the budget anymore and they sure won't have it next fall when the budget and episode order number is cut.

People are still watching Heroes?

24 is the way to go people.

Is volume 4 season 3?

This is absolutely painfully terrible.

I actually logged into the forum just to whine about this ridiculous ending, but it seems I'm beaten to the punch by a fair amount of people...

a.

The blood thing. I'm not sure Angela fully knows about it, but we'll come back to that. Claire is a dingbat, so I wouldn't expect her to think of it. The only time Peter saw the magic blood work was when Adam used it to restore the crispified Nathan, who at the time still had a beating heart.

Noah obviously knows all about it, but that's not necessarily a plot hole. Consider that Noah is the ultimate pragmatist. He might have recognized that being rid of Nathan wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Plus he was pissed the last time someone took Claire's blood, might not be too keen on the idea of draining her to save the day. Knowledge of that option could lead to her being locked up and exploited for it.

Angela, for all her agonizing grief, has been prepared to sacrifice her sons before. She may on some level be thinking like Bennett-that it will be easier in many respects to run damage control using a shape-shifting Sylar whom no one will feel the slightest remorse for manipulating, than to rely on the unpredictable douchebag of a son who got them all into this mess in the first place.

I missed the beginning of the next chapter. Did I see the Ali Larter Ice Queen reconstituting from a puddle and conversing with Angela? Anyone got a summary of that exchange?

Volume 4 was the second half of Season 3. Volume 3 was the first half of Season 3.

Oh yes indeed.

It wasn't Angela. It was one of the Gov. Spooks from Building 26. She says, "and you're number four" or something like that. Apparently she's going around bumping off the dudes that kept her prisoner.

Ah. Neato.

You'll have to tell me what happens next fall. I'm officially done with the show. How far are we expected to go to rationalize it? It's crap. These characters bend over backwards to rationalize not killing the lunatic Sylar. Letting him remain as Nathan is beyond stupid, beyond implausible, and beyond dangerous considering the fact that Sylar is now in a position of power. The writers thought Sylar was more important than Nathan and they'll script any implausible development to keep the character. It's amateur hour. Worse than Smallville, and that's saying quite a bit.

I'm limbering myself up to watch STXI in a couple of weeks.

Sometimes I get hopeful about the show. There are signs that they are still trying to tighten things up and correct or fix things - arguably writing mistakes - from the past.

Angela feeding Sylar a 'snack' that included the power to see something's history always stood out to me as a WTF? moment, that demanded some kind of follow up. It may have been the single greatest sign that Angela is evil shown to date, and yet it sped by as almost a throwaway scene, tucked in near the end of an episode - Angela was trying to convince Sylar he was her son and he brought her some guy to eat (either to feed Sylar's "innate hunger," or establish her bona fides with Sylar as "mom", or because Angela had an agenda that required Sylar to have the history power). Now, it seems, perhaps it was the middle one alone.

Suddenly, out of nowhere (after what, like 15 episodes?), the past two episodes, Sylar twice mentioned the feeding, and I almost thought we'd get some kind of explanation of Angela's 'odd' behavior (by odd read "homocidally inappropriate", or 'unredeemable act of privation').

Now, I'm beginning to get it. The big payoff of Angela's evil deed. Sylar's reminiscing was solely to remind viewers so Sylar could become Nathan. The writers weren't trying to fix a writing mistake, or legitimize or explain Angela's behavior, but simply were explaining a plot point to get them to Sylar/Nathan as a snazzy way to start a new season. [vomit]

Offhand, I can think of three examples where a character has pulled a shitty, revealing their dark/evil side. I get it - the recurring theme of 'shades of grey,' that deep down all the heroes might possess aspects of villany, if only to achieve some justifiable end.

Horn-rimmed Glasses attempting to murder his friend Claude, the invisible man.

Angela's peculiar mother's milk for Sylar.

Nathan the scumbag turncoat.


The first was just dropped I guess - that's just Bennett. Wink.
The second we just got answered, it was so Sylar could take Nate's place for a brief while.
The third: Geez, I made a mistake, thought it was the right thing to do, sorry guys, I'll make up to you. No harm, no foul, I guess.

Freudian slip there?

Yeah, they really need to do a better job of plothole-proofing the show.

When they first had Sylar tranqed I thought they were going to use Sylar's blood to revive Nathan.

If they wanted to go this direction, they should have paved the way properly. All they needed to say was, "He's too far gone to revive him" or something.

Other inconsistencies: How the hell is Sylar/Nathan the only one who could possibly convince the President of...well, whatever they want to convince the president of? I guess shutting the operation down and having HRG in charge of a new operation, but it wasn't even really explicitly said.

Let's say that the many deaths and the civil liberties footage and the unmitigated failure of the Building 26 regime and so forth weren't enough.

1. They have a mental master in the form of Parkman who can command the President to do whatever the hell it is he's supposed to do. Or Peter could take Parkman's power and do it.

2. Peter has the morphing ability and could do "Nathan" long enough to convince the president.

Sylar technically didn't even bother to take Nathan's power, did he? He just slit his throat.

Noah was "dead" longer.

Not to mention that Peter and Claire and the rest are supposed to just pretend Sylar is Nathan.

Even if you suppose that having Sylar as Nathan is the one and only way the President will do what's right, why not kill him immediately after?

Wouldn't you have to know that there's a risk if Sylar ever gets over his mind whammy?

OK, I could fanwank that it would take someone who was actually Nathan-like in all his sharkish, charming, political ways and in his actual memories to convince the president, and that Peter-looking-like-Nathan somehow wouldn't be good enough. But would it kill them to address that for five seconds?

One can watch more than one show. But I agree with you about "Supernatural."

Claire knows (Noah told her how he was able to come back, I'm pretty sure) and of course she was there.

I assume they like Zach Quinto as an actor, and they figure the fans responded well to the character in Season One.

I could buy it. Angela's a little off in general and the traumatic death of a son could make her even more so. I wouldn't be surprised if some people who had their children murdered could "erase" the murderer's personality and looks and overwrite it with their own children would actually do it either because they were so desperate or because they can manage the cognitive dissonance to embrace the person and ignore that the person's really gone.

The sad thing is that this is the second such fight. The first one was kind of cool in a low-budget way, and it made sense because Mohinder had no powers and seeing things from his perspective was sort of novel.

This time, it didn't make sense because 1. Sylar was so much more powerful than Peter and Nathan combined that there wouldn't need to be all the flashing lights. Sylar could have shocked them, frozen them, TK'ed them, etc. There's no particular reason to think that the depowered Pete could have withstood more than a second or two of that. 2. There was no reason for Claire to just be cowering behind a closed door. Last I checked, she's invulnerable, and three on one is better odds than two on one.

TiVo is the way to go.

But the people who would be using that option were family, not people who would exploit her.

I could see him wanting Real Nathan out of the way -- Real Nathan threatening him as father figure, Real Nathan needing to pay the price for what he did, Real Nathan being erratic and unpredictable.

I don't understand how he would want Sylar Nathan around one second longer than he "had" to be around.

But again, why would anyone let him live a second longer than when he had served his purpose? Especially since common sense should say there's a possibility that the mind whammy might not last?

There were two things that happened in the teaser to Vol. 5: "Redemption."

One of Danko's former agents comes home to find a puddle of water. It turns into a naked Ali Larter who drowns him and says, "You're number four."

I wasn't sure if this is supposed to be Tracey, who had ice powers but was shattered and conceivably could have also had the power to turn herself into water but didn't know it, or if this is the third triplet.

Anyway, then the scene cut's to Nathan's office, where he's reading a newspaper with an article about mysterious drownings. Angela comes in and says she hasn't heard from him for weeks and was beginning to worry.

Sylar Nathan says he hasn't been feeling like himself. Then, Sylar-like, he notices that his office clock is a minute and a half fast. He turns it back and Angela is a little horrified that Sylar might be asserting himself through the mind job.

I totally didn't remember Sylar getting this power on-screen.

Anyhow, it reveals another writing flaw:

Angela knows that Sylar can shapeshift. She knows she "fed" him the memory power. She should know that between those two things, it would be hard to tell Sylar apart from the real deal. And she should have conveyed that to the rest of the people trying to take Sylar down.

But she didn't.

Did I make a writing error? Maybe you're over my head.

I simply meant that they were trying to fix mistakes made by previous writers (for convenience we'll just blame the guys they sacked).

One man's "mistake" is another man's "plot development." I said arguably just to avoid sounding too arrogant.

Good points and post.

Tracey winked after she shattered, with her head separated from her body. I'll assume this is Tracey. Good reporter's instict, though, assume nothing.

You meant to say they were "righting" mistakes, and in correcting them, yes? What you wrote is that they're "writing" mistakes, as in writing them down on paper.

See why it's inintentionally humorous?

Oh, and - it defies belief that anyone as wicked as Sylar can be using Puppet Master powers on Claire and leave her clothes on. Sorry, that'd be first on my agenda.

True that.

True, but really good genre shows don't seem to come along in bunches. You have a DS9, then a Farscape, then a nuBSG, (and hopefully Caprica) and so on. My other favorites are Big Love, Dexter, The Shield, and Mad Men. Completely different types of shows.

The spoilers for the last three eps of Supernatural are looking outstanding. Kripke really, really knows how to craft these characters and to put a fraternal relationship through the ringer without ignoring it and then letting it die. *coughTIMKRINGcough* Even when Dean and Sam are being dicks to each other, you're invested in them. They don't screw each other over and have everything be magically okay again like Peter and the late Nathan. I love you Pete. I love you too, Nathan. Too bad you shot me and then I set the government on your ass and put you in detention, but we never discuss that, do we? Who needs continuity or short term memory?

Dang, then I misread what you wrote.

Because the writers are fucking idiots. You must have missed the news bulletin.

You know, there are shows which I happen to think suck.

Thinks is, I can't tell you shit about what's happening on them because I never watch them!!!

It's about time you figured out that rather simple yet liberating concept.

Just by the way, i do not think Heroes is tightly constructed well-plotted high end drama.

It's cheese.

Comic book

professional wrestling

I enjoy watching it with my brain mostly turned off....i like some of the performances, some of the characters...but mostly it's about as "deep" as Dragon Ball Z or some such.

But I'm not often sadly disappointing with the plot twists and character turns because I'm not expecting greatness.

I was under the impression Sylar was holding the door shut when she tried to rush back in.

Me too. I'm left wondering, do Pete & Claire even know that Syler is "standing in" for Nathan? I really can't see either of them being on board for that, especially Pete, who's always on his high horse. Kring needs to back a dump truck full of money to Time Warner and Tom Welling's houses to get Clark Kent to guest star and kick some serious "Hero" ass next fall.