Saturday, May 17, 2014

Heroes Season 1 finale review

The season finale of Heroes aired last night. I was skeptical about this show. It seemed to me to just be an X-Men knockoff. Once the first episode aired, however, I was hooked. It's very rare for a show to start out strong, even the greats like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Futurama need a few seasons to find their footing so that they can get the ball rolling. Heroes seemed to come out guns blazing. The whole season has been a hell of a ride and the expectations were high for the explosive finale (given the story line this season that could have been a very literal statement).


I myself enjoyed it. It seems that others weren't so fond of it. Rather then do a straight review I'd like to take the time to address some of the issues that many people seemed to have. The first question that many have asked is why didn't Peter just fly off on his own? He had the ability to use other's powers without them being in proximity, he could have easily just flown off without having to have his brother come in and go on a kamikaze run right? I would have to say no. At this stage, Peter's only been able to manifest one power and that slot is currently occupied by going nuclear. If you were to not see it as a use of power, it's pretty clear that Peter's more focused on not exploding and even that isn't holding it back. I'm sure he was afraid that if he dropped his concentration at all it would go off and kill the millions that Linderman predicted it would. Nathan had to go in and save his little brother A: because it reaffirms that Peter needs him as he told Claire and B: it shows that Nathan isn't a "Birrain" . He was tempted by the power of the Oval Office but when push came to shove he had his brother's back and was going to do the right thing, even at the cost of his own life.
Many also complained that the much hyped Peter vs. Sylar fight wasn't as big as it should have been. Yes, there was not much of a mono e mono confrontation but instead we got something a little cooler, that is a bunch of the Heroes coming together and ganging up on him. Seeing Matt, Noah Bennett (HRG finally given a full name), Peter, Nikki, and Hiro all come together to take on this one opponent (sylar) was quite cool to see. I know "team ups" like that will be rare as Kring wants each Hero to go down his or her own path before they become their own Justice League or Avengers. Let's also remember that while Peter was the only one who had a chance of stopping Sylar, he was also unable to beat him so a one on one fight would've been suicide. Having all the characters there also ensures that the vision that Peter had earlier was, for the most part, true. It was changed due to different circumstances but it wasn't inaccurate.
Sylar's survival (or suggestion there of) caught me off guard. It was predicted that Hiro would kill him and that went down pretty much as the comic said it would. There was even a teaser when Molly said that there was a meta human out there who's "worse then the boogeyman" hinting that it would be the "big bad" for next season. I am actually rather curious as to what the writers have planned for that. Sylar was a pretty serious threat that will be difficult to top. I'm also curious as to what role he'll play. They could work in two villain plots but that seems a little odd. Sylar could defect, after all he did claim that he was the hero. My guess is that he'll be more of a wild card. He's still going to be hunting the super powered populous but when the big threat that's worse then he is comes around he's going to grudgingly join their ranks.
One final point on Sylar, many were baffled by his apparent turn. He did stand over the city, grin, and say "Boom" implying that he intended to blow up the city. I don't think this was the case. His initial reaction was one of horror when he realized that he might be the one who explodes. He was able to rationalize the deaths of the others as having powers. In the case of Papa Churesh and Ando (the attempt anyways) it was anger at being written off as a nobody and a ridiculous attempt to kill him respectively. He wanted to kill Peter anyways and as for him claiming to be the hero. That seemed to be typical villain goading and gloating (further decreasing the odds of the aforesaid defection). Let's assume that he still intended to take out NY, if he killed Peter, then he'd have all the powers that Peter has (active, dormant and the "empath" ability that is his definitive ability), this includes Claire's healing factor which would in turn allow him to survive if he chose to blow up later. One has to wonder if Sylar would've kept killing if he had Peter's empath ability. He kills them to steal their powers so if he did take it, that takes away his whole motivation. He's insane so I'm sure he'd come up with some other excuse though.
This season was one hell of a ride and it's already being shot out in a full volume dvd box set so we can all watch it again and catch things that we missed and watch it without the two month hiatuses every 7 weeks. The finale may not have been the big blow out that many were expecting but the faults people have found are seemingly invalid, at least at this point in time and from my point of view. The show is open to interpretation which is another great thing about it. It leaves you asking questions and talking about it, which is what great TV drama should do.

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