Nathan learns of his father's plans, while Flint and Knox launch attacks on Hiro, Ando, Peter, and Claire. Meanwhile, Matt tries to revive Angela, Sylar meets with Elle, and Mohinder begins testing of his newest superpower formula.



Chat away

OOH previews looked great! Although life without heroes is like life as we know it.

Okay I only saw last half of ep because of work but I will watch full ep tomorrow. It was pretty good from what I saw. I liked Sylar and Elle sort of getting chummy and Matt and Daphne.

I think next Heroes arch will be Heroic Couples...

I liked the ep. Especially the second half.
And I'm sorry, but I like Claire and Peter. There were lots of them. Why do they have to be related? I liked the Sylar/Elle stuff too. And please, someone just off Papa P.
So did I understand right? Sylar is pretending to be on Papa P's side? Did I miss something?

I still think Sylar is pretending to be on his side. I think he is starting to smarten up again and realize Papa P is using him and he does not like to be used.

I agree I with Peter and Claire were not related either. You can see why they are a couple in real life, they do have chemistry.

Yes I seem to be drawn to those types of pairings
But I hated it when we all found out they were related.

That chick that has more lives than a cat that is now a Political aide or something. I still don't like her and her incarnation is horrible.

Yeah me too basically.

I liked Ando tonight. Okay, I always do
And I liked the reappearance of the comic book.

Claire being the possible catalyst is good.

Yeah Ando was good and it was nice to see the Comic Book brought back.

Claire being the catalyst seems obvious to me actually, being she is basically indestructible.

I was out tonight, so I've only seen the first half of the ep so far, but there are definitely a few interesting aspects. I agree with you two about Hayden and Milo's chemistry. They are great together. I remember in Homecoming, being sad that there was such an age difference. It never occurred to me that they would be related!

I am not quite so excited about Elle and Sylar, although I continue to like Sylar this season. This is one of the few shows where I am not a shipper, so I am hoping it does not become a shipping show. I have not really liked most of the couples.

I like the whole aspect of empathy with Sylar absorbing powers. That was actually my theory about Peter from Season 1, that he absorbed powers by connecting with people. On the other hand, I also feel like this is a far too convenient device by the writer's to easily make Sylar turn good. I much preferred the idea that it was an addiction to be controlled.

"We're all at war with ourselves, that's what it means to be human."- great quote from Sylar. Thoughts?

Wow, it turns out that Papa P does have the smallest ounce of good in him.

Suresh continues to bore me this season, but he is far less annoying than he was in the beginning. I forget, do we know who his "test subject" is? It's hard to tell with all the stuff on his face.

I also like the return of the comic book concept.

If Claire is the catalyst, that would explain why Kito gave her to Noah for save keeping.

I'm excited to see next week's episode. We're back to that philosophical question of what makes a hero? Throughout the series, we have seen several people without powers acting heroicly, so what will the "heroes" choose to do when they don't have powers?

I admit, I only really love Suresh as eye candy. If he was not so fine I could do without him, but now they are sort of making him icky looking, at least not the face...yet. When they touch the face I will be pissed.

Okay that was my shallow moment.

Same reason that I love Peter, although when they messed with his face, it only made him more good looking. I didn't know you were still on the board, I added a couple more thoughts above.

Well yeah that is a good point about Claire too and that is partially why I thought it was obvious that she was the one.

Yeah next week does look interesting.

In a recent convention appearance, Tim Kring provided some insight into the writing process for “Heroes”, and some of his frustrations. Over the course of the presentation, a number of issues emerged, many of which explain the current state of the series. As it turns out, Kring does understand some of the problems with how the story has evolved; his responses just don’t quite make the grade.

Apparently “Villains” has been his response to the realization that several characters had become so powerful and unbeatable that some plot device was necessary to mitigate that drawback. It’s the “Superman” effect times ten, only with only one apparent source of kryptonite (the Haitian). Peter, Sylar, Claire, and Hiro were all overpowered, and the writers routinely had them make stupid decisions to ensure those powers were out of play. By the end of this episode, Peter is “normal”, Sylar is becoming another Peter, Claire is the Chosen One, and Hiro has mentally devolved into a 10-year-old (so that, of course, he has the priorities of a kid and therefore won’t just end the whole threat in a matter of seconds, as he certainly could).

More disturbing is the contention by Kring that so many of the show’s problems have been caused by its serialized nature. On the one hand, I understand his frustrations. The show has too many divergent plot threads over the course of a volume, and by the time they come together, at least half of them have lost momentum. And like “24”, it’s all too easy to fall into patterns and become too focused on plot over character.

Ironically, one show has struck a near-perfect balance: “Lost”. “Heroes” was supposed to be the anti-“Lost”, the show that provided better and more timely answers with more action and fan service. There’s one major difference. Early in the first season, the showrunners of “Lost” determined the road map for the series and conceived an ending. That sense of purpose has been evident, especially once the series was given a definitive end date.

Kring admits that “Heroes” has no plan, and certainly has no ending. There is no ultimate purpose to what is happening from volume to volume. Part of the problem is the decision, driven by popularity and the network, to abandon the original premise: each season telling a new story with new characters. Once again, this is very similar to what “24” has faced. That show was also supposed to reboot every season, but thanks to the popularity of Jack Bauer, those plans were tossed aside.

So now Kring has found himself on a series with too many characters with too much power, sticking around way too long, and with much more history and continuity than he had ever anticipated. And I think the strain is showing. It’s fashionable these days to bash “Heroes” for its faults, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bandwagon. It means that Kring has made a number of mistakes in adjusting from his original plan to the current reality, and it has taken too long for those adjustments to take effect. As he said himself, this third volume was already filmed and in the can by the time it premiered. As much as he discounts some of the criticism, he has yet to actually make changes based on the reception of “Villains” that can be seen on the screen.

Circling back to the question of whether or not this series is too serialized: this episode is better for it. Whatever criticisms might be made about how the characters arrived in their current state, one can see the threads coming together. I had hoped that the heroes would abandon Primatech and Angela, given their questionable history, but it’s still interesting to see how the battle lines have been drawn.

I liked Matt’s attempt to save Angela, how it intersected with Daphne’s ethical quandary and led to a moment between Angela and Arthur. It took the most obvious plot choice and turned it into something a bit more character-based, however slight. I also liked the tension between Peter and Claire, and how his time in the future factored into that. Claire’s ability is profound, yet here we see some of the limitations. And I liked Mohinder’s conflicted work on the metahuman serum, since it feels more authentic than his self-experimentation.

Surprisingly, my favorite part had to be the interplay between Sylar and Elle. Accepting what has been revealed previously without further judgment, the scenes in this episode were quite well done (no pun intended). Kristen Bell and Zachary Quinto are both very strong, and I can accept that Sylar would run through this particular gauntlet to find some way to replicate powers without killing. It might appear to drive him firmly under Arthur’s influence, but I think it’s more likely that this will give him the courage to stand on his own.

I don’t want the series to lose the elements that make the end of each volume so satisfying. No matter the issues that plague the continuity of the series, there is a sense of resolution. If the series lost much of its serialized nature, that strength could be lost.