Angry Puppy

[Hey, kids. If you've been reading all my recaps this season, then you know I try to keep the snark to a minimum. This time, though, I offer my apologies in advance to the snarkophobic.]

After last week’s thesis entry, we have a short Heroes recap for you this week.  Although there did seem to be a theme around the pitfalls of pride (Peter’s “I’m the most special!” and Mohinder’s every other word), I’d rather not focus on it. Instead, let’s face it: “Dying of the Light” was more irritating than entertaining or enlightening.

Which leads us to:

Big Irritation #1: They’ve got to get rid of the narration and those pre-show intros once and for all. The good-vs.-evil paradigm in the show itself is at least a bit more subtle and a bit less polar than they let both the promo department and Mohinder tell us it is. It’s getting a little insulting that they find us so stupid.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Adam Monroe: At first I thought the thing he feared was not death, but rather that Arthur Petrelli was going to suck the youth out of him. Invulnerability and near immortality are much less fun in the body of a 93-year-old man than they are in the body of a cute young Lothario like Adam.  Then suddenly, gah!, he turned to dust in Arthur’s hands. So, he’s really dead dead and not just sort of dead like so many other Heroes characters?

The Petrelli Brothers: I sincerely thought that Ma Petrelli was lying about Gabriel being her son, but it seems that the crazy family tree is here for keeps. Gabriel and Peter don’t look much like brothers, but I suppose that happens in the real world too. I did like their Superman-vs.-Shazam battle in the hallway, but did anyone else notice that throughout the episode they kept shooting from weird angles so that we wouldn’t notice that Quinto has a good three inches on Ventimiglia?

Which leads to:

Big Irritation #2: Enough with the comas! It’s getting to be like watching Days of Our Lives.

The Possible Someday Parkmans: I still like Daphne’s character. Her interactions with others generally seem to make sense (at least on her end), and she’s not totally incompetent. For instance, when she discovered that Suresh was “as bad as the rest of them”, she not only did her job of delivering the Pinehearst card, but also managed to avoid standing around gloating and letting him cocoon her. She was in and out. No muss, no fuss.

I also enjoyed her interactions with Matt, though this was mostly due to the turtle than to either of them. But this leads to:

Big Irritation #3: Why is she so surprised that Matt knows things about her and her family? She’s well aware that he can read minds. Which leads to:

Big Irritation #4: Pinehearst is holding something over Daphne, and she seems afraid to quit working for them. Matt wants to know what this thing is. If only he could read minds…

Perhaps her thoughts move too fast for him to read, but it didn’t seem that way, and if that’s true, the writers need to let us know.

Hiro and Ando: OK, Hiro is officially too stupid to have survived this long. I don’t know why he thought he could surprise “Mr African Isaac”, but even if we accept that, how can he possibly be so dumb to just stand and stare at the painting showing Usutu hitting him on the head with a shovel. The minute you see that painting, you, oh, I don’t know, freeze time or something. Which leads us to:

Big Irritation #5: I feel like Comic Book Guy for even thinking of writing this, but I can’t help it. Not half a dozen episodes ago, we clearly established that when Hiro freezes time, Daphne moves at regular speed. The whole premise of Ando’s “death” hinges on Hiro being able to freeze time, travel to Japan for supplies, come back, talk to Ando, then go back to where he was originally without Daphne knowing. Now, I know people’s powers progress as time goes by, but this just happened a few days ago in real time, right? Perhaps Hiro, like a grandmother who lifts a two-ton car off a small child, had a huge adrenalin surge which increased his abilities and let him truly stop time. That’s fine, but if you’re going to break a clearly established point to resolve a cliffhanger, you have to address it.

Time travel in general gives me a headache, but I’m particularly troubled by Hiro’s little time loop with Usutu. After he gets conked on the head the first time, One-Minute-In-The-Future Hiro takes the place of Regular-Time Hiro (or vice versa). I feel like there should be consequences from that. It’s not irritating, just migraine-inducing.

All of this leads to:

Big, Unforgivable Irritation #6: Claire and her Mothers

Marc was irritated by Doyle and his motivations (or lack thereof) altogether, though I actually like the character and the scene itself. He is, after all, the puppet master and clearly just gets his jollies from pulling people’s strings. Incidentally, I also find offensive muscle control more disturbing than mind control, perhaps because the victim is more aware of what’s being done to him or her.

What irritates me about this whole scene is that it highlights the near absolute lack of consequences to any action in the Heroes universe. As soon as we saw that Doyle was going to make the three ladies play Russian roulette, I knew that one of them would get shot, and I knew it would be the one who could survive it with no permanent injuries. But it’s even worse than that. Not only can Claire heal, but we’ve established that she no longer feels pain. So, there were absolutely no negative consequences of her having been shot by her mother. A neat trick, but dull as far as stories go.

Don’t get me wrong. I do like both Sandra and Meredith and would hate to see either of them die. In fact, Sandra delivered my favorite line of the episode:

“Your father always said, ‘one of us, one of them.’ I’m one of us.”

But if one mother had been killed by the other, the story would have been so much more interesting. Imagine Claire’s reaction if Sandra had killed her birth mother, even if she had no choice, or if Meredith had taken out the woman who had raised and protected Claire for nearly two decades. Instead of irrevocable (and intriguing) consequences, though, we get platitudes from Meredith that, though Claire has her genes, she got her heart from her adoptive mother, Sandra. Gimme a break.

OK, I feel better now. I’m hoping for a better episode next week, but feel free to let me know if you think I’m way off base on this one.