SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, secure your viruses and watch last night’s Heroes.
“When you’ve been around as long as I have, patterns become clear. Constant war, famine, disregard for the environment…”
Wow. At NBC, green really is universal. So at last we have a motivation of sorts for Adam. A plausible one, though? Keep in mind, we met Adam as a 17th-century proto-hero, using his powers to gallivant around Japan, get rich and have a good old time masquerading as a good guy. Then he gets jilted and joins up with the bad guys–understandable enough in a comic book way, but still a long way from trying to eradicate mankind. There’s a lot that you could do, in a dark, misanthropic, Swiftian way, with the idea that if you live long enough, you will eventually come around to the idea that humans should be done away with, but Heroes isn’t really that kind of show. So let’s just take our motive and call it a day.
I can see that I’m already shifting back into complaint mode, probably because this week’s episode wasn’t as well written or compelling as last week’s. But really, I’m satisfied enough that the last five episodes have produced some kind of storyline that I won’t even mention that the storyline of the first six episodes was Waiting for the Last Five Episodes. Except that I just did.
No, I have an entirely different thing to complain/wonder about. Last night, Claire made a simple, elegant threat to Elle: to go public with her ability and blow the Company sky-high. Which made me finally articulate a problem with this show that’s been percolating somewhere in the back of my mind from the get-go. Why has no one ever just posted a video of themselves using their powers on YouTube, or tried to use their power to become rich or famous? Yes, I know, the Company, danger, being considered a freak, etc. But the premise of the show is that normal people, in our world, are constantly discovering their superhuman abilities, most of them initially unaware of any intrigue about the Company. You’re telling me not one of them’s going to try to get on Oprah?
I’m sure there’s a perfectly rational explanation that would have occurred to me if I’d been paying more attention or read more comic books, so let me have it.
In any case, still looking forward to next week, because the virus storyline–and Parkman’s story, if we get more of it–are still intriguing me. Sylar and Maya’s scenes, on the other hand, have gotten painfully bad (how did they managed to take a compelling villain and turn him into a cliche-spouting, skeevy annoyance?), while the Jessica/Micah storyline just sits there, with the barest connection to the main arc.
God, I’m cranky this morning, aren’t I? Maybe it’s because for the second episode in a row, someone pointed a gun at someone and started monologuing long enough to get taken down. A little faster on the trigger, slower on the mouth, people!