Meta: Episode 4x16 "Pass/Fail"
Appropriate icon is appropriate?!
A little late--I got held up with RL--but here's the meta for 4x16 Pass/Fail!
--
Somehow, I don’t think taking cues from Law & Order is going to work…
(Hiro, Ando, Adam[!], Kaito, Dream!Sylar, a plethora of characters in Hiro’s Subconscious, and brief appearances by Mohinder and Noah)
--
ADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM. -- superkappa
NO HIRO, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL HIM AGAIN. -- superkappa
Hope you liked the return of Mohinder, because it's all we'll have in this episode! Seriously, they're already getting rid of him? He's coming back, right? -- schtroumph_c
Hiro! I just want to point something possibly important: Family was represented by his father. Friendship was represented by Ando. Love was represented by Adam. Who called him by the pet name he gave him, Carp. Everything is a product of Hiro's subconscious. Conclusion? -- schtroumph_c
I'm not sure what thinking of Mom Plot Device. The scene was nice, but still, obvious plot device. Basically, Heroes. Creating some perfect scenes one second, make us wonder what they're smoking the next one. That's how they kept us hooked. The one win amongst 20 losses in a money game, the one who make us keep playing just in case it was luck coming back and staying. Until the next time. -- schtroumph_c
KENSAI! How I missed your wry little face. -- ladymalchav
Hiro and Ando, BFFs even in hallucination land. -- ladymalchav
Hiro's trial was fairly pointless. There was no actual trying going on. Adam and Ando brought up a bunch of random events from previous seasons and let them lie there instead of actually constructing any arguments with them. And the verdict was apparently that no matter what ridiculous, contradictory thing Hiro does, it's okay because he's a hero. Mess with the timeline, don't mess with the timeline...whatever, it's all good. -- the_other_sandy
[About Mohinder] Which girl did you break a promise to? Mira? Cuz I can think of another certain someone who is lost to the ages... -- ilikethequiet
HELLO ADAM YOU SEXY SON OF A BITCH. This right here is the reason I am iconning this episode. -- ilikethequiet
Oh god, Ando is your lawyer? You're doomed. -- ilikethequiet
Adam and Sylar should have done the world domination thing together, they really should have. -- ilikethequiet
OMG Sylar death list! Whee! I'm glad Sylar remembers these people, NO ONE ELSE DOES! -- ilikethequiet
Are you gonna mention that your father was murdered by the prosecutor? -- ilikethequiet
Hiro ends up in the place where all television characters with brain injuries/tumors do; a wacky alternate universe where all the people he knows are there, but in some thoroughly amusing fashion. In Chicago Hope, the injured brain surgeon ended up doing a song and dance number with the cast to “Luck Be A Lady.” In Bones, Booth ended up having sex with Temperance, as half the fanbase had been clamoring for for years. Hiro ends up in a retelling of “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” Unfortunately instead of a jury of his peers, he gets random extras. Lame! -- jaune_chat
Oh Snarky!Sylar, we’ve missed you so! Yeah, how many people died after Hiro let Sylar go? A whole huge amount. A whole lot. And his casual and half-forgetful recitation of them all (“Ted Sprague! That’s it!”) made me giggle. Lots. He should do that to more people in the cast. Give them a wake-up call about… stuff… Snark can be a very useful tool that should be employed more often on this show. -- jaune_chat
“Objection. He’s reciting the opening from Quantum Leap.” Takezo Kensei does not have time for this bullshit. He has some unfinished sword battles to do! -- jaune_chat
Aw. Mohinder just nods to Hiro and it's all okay. Because nobody ever holds a grudge in Heroes unless you're a vee-run or a blonde. -- ewinfic
Hello, cheap excuse to bring back Adam. I find myself remarkably okay with this. -- ewinfic
Lackadaisical Sylar is so much win. :D Sylar says willy-nilly. Can we just have him say that a few more times? Oh, wait, "Eden-ish" is even better. "Ted something..." Oh, Sylar, this only perpetuates that which was proved at the beginning of this season: you are at your finest and most fun when you are buried in someone else's subconscious. -- ewinfic
Dead!Mommy healing = made of fail. I'm hoping it's as one viewer stated; that the doctors healed Hiro and Mommy was just a metaphor. But this is Heroes. Of COURSE she came back from the dead in his mind and healed him. *sigh* Of course she did. -- ewinfic
Oh shit, a healed and living and sane power/time master. Because This Time, We Can Handle It. We Promise. And anyway, if anything goes wrong, we'll just revamp Sylar and have him take care of it. -- ewinfic
First off, Mohinder announces he's going to wander off aimlessly. Oh, all right then. Nobody seems very distraught, perhaps since they hadn't noticed his absence in the first place. And since he's going back to his demanding put-those-secret-files-away-NOW girlfriend, he may well return at any moment, begging to join Bennet's "women don't understand me" club. -- redscharlach
Speaking of Bennet, I notice that Lauren was conspicuous by her absence, so yet another romantic failure to add to the long list. If he doesn't get any action soon, I fear that people will soon start calling him No Nookie Noah. -- redscharlach
But Bennet's love life will have to wait, because Hiro has collapsed and found himself in his own private remake of A Matter of Life and Death. Sadly, it contains Adam (boo!), who always makes my heart sink and my ears flinch, but on the plus side, it's got added Kaito (yay!), banging a sugar shaker and doing his SRS BZNS face. -- redscharlach
Darn, Dream!Sylar is a sexy bitch, all blithe excuses ("Willy nilly...") and gratuitously unbuttoned shirt. If I were Hiro, I'd examine my subconscious closely and see if there are any yearnings there that require further exploration. -- redscharlach
However, despite providing a couple of minor amusements, such as the Quantum Leap reference, this whole subplot tasted like filler to me. At no point did I ever believe Hiro's life was ever in real danger, so it was just a matter of watching him flail around in his own mental cul-de-sac and waiting for whichever bolted-on solution would save him (answer: medical handwaving in the general brain area, accompanied by a subconscious dash of mother-kissing-it-better). Still, the field's now clear for a climactic bout of rescuing Charlie from wherever she's gone. (And since the answer to that question is "Glee", I hope that Hiro and Ando can work up a suitably spectacular musical number to save the day.) -- redscharlach
--
They did not mention PSYCHOPATHIC SUPERPOWERED SERIAL KILLERS in the brochure!
(Sylar, Claire, Gretchen)
--
I kind of ship Gretchen/Sylar, don't judge me. -- superkappa
SYLAR SHIPS GRETCHEN AND CLAIRE. -- superkappa
And Claire, okay, I get it, you want company, I really understand being freaked out and all, but don't you want to tell someone where Sylar is? That you saw him? What you learn from his passage, his emo phase, that he'll try to get rid of his powers, that the description of his friend Lydia sounds a lot like your friend Lydia? Please, tell me you got this. You paid enough attention to hear the (fake) hint about Gretchen, tell me you heard his link with Samuel. And call your father!! -- schtroumph_c
That's it, Gretchen had NO sense of self-preservation AT ALL! -- ladymalchav
Oh woooooow, Sylar. You have reached the HEIGHT of creepy wrongness, there. -- ladymalchav
Sylar needs to bug off, yeah I said it. -- ilikethequiet
Lolz see just from that exchange I ship Sylar/Gretchen more than I ever would Sylar/Claire. -- ilikethequiet
Randomly: this is a college, people. Shouldn't there be students and teachers all over the place? WHY ARE NONE OF THEM HERE?! -- ilikethequiet
Sylar wants to talk to Claire. He wants to have a Hallmark moment. And really, he’d have more of them if he did go all Jack Nicholson in The Shining on Claire. Writing all that stuff on the blackboard and then trying to grill Claire about her feelings is not helping! Damn, if Sylar had just gone to college he wouldn’t have to make up for lost time by sucking on Claire’s face to gain insight into her feelings. -- jaune_chat
It disturbs me on several levels that Sylar was actually able to accurately peg Claire’s issues. I mean, it does make some sense, between Lydia’s power and Sylar’s intuitive aptitude, but it doesn’t make it any less creepy! Also creepy is Sylar continuing to analyze Claire while in Gretchen’s form. Even if he was right. Creepy. Creep-y. Just saying. -- jaune_chat
Though I found it very interesting that Sylar realizes he has to give up being Super Special to remain human. And sane. I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to involve going back to everyone and trying to convince them to help him. Which is going to be messy and painful for all involved. The resulting fireworks should be highly entertaining! -- jaune_chat
Claire actually looks like she might not have molded her hair today with the requisite seven layers of shellac, and there's the teensiest possibility that her eyemakeup might be smudged. Oh, television. Your concept of "looking like shit" amuses me. -- ewinfic
Zachary Quinto is really not a creepy person. He's actually a really stunningly fluffy and nice person. That said, it's ASTOUNDING how creepy he manages to make it sound and look when Sylar asks to sit with Gretchen. My skin is absolutely crawling. (Skeeve 101 had a really good prof, apparently.) -- ewinfic
I'm happy to see that Sylar has some of the same questions the audience has. And he's asking the right questions... but I'm really not sure he ends up with the right answer. -- ewinfic
Sylar, I love you, I do. But seriously, nobody but NOBODY cares if you need a friend. I'd recommend a puppy, but, well, you're you. -- ewinfic
With the mouth-dropping shock of a thousand buckets of icy water, I find that the Sylar/Claire kiss was actually written coherently and in character. Pardon me while I do a hard reboot on my brain. ...>*<... *sound of chimes*
Sylar. Is psychoanalyzing. Claire. I think I need another reboot. -- ewinfic
Sylar, in an unusually utilitarian fashion, gets Claire and Gretchen together. Wait, what? "We've been trying to generate sparks here all season long, and it's just not working. Let's have Sylar do it." I mean, did ANYBODY actually believe Claire was distancing herself from Gretchen because of anything other than Gretchen's slightly creepy devotion? -- ewinfic
I sort of love the uneasy truces people tend to form with Sylar on the basis of, "There's actually no way to kill you, so I'm going to uh, sit here and watch as you leave." -- ewinfic
The Sylar/Claire kiss was entirely unerotic and almost totally unnecessary, especially since they'd already smoothed over any rape anxieties with the "I just want you to listen to my problems" speech. True, Sylar does like grossing people out, but that's more old-school chaos-loving Sylar, and not what Claire describes as "the emo apologist version". Still, the eyeball-meets-pencil was even more revolting so we'll call it evens for now. -- redscharlach
Sylar's psychoanalytical meta-musings were great fun, though: it really is all in the significant pauses: "All these moments, so ripe with subtext." You know we'll be reminding you of this insight the next time you meet Peter, right? Good, just checking. -- redscharlach
"Maybe that's his answer. In order to become human again, he has to get rid of all his powers." - Foreshadowing: your clue to quality drama! I take it that this is where the series finale is heading, but I'm now wondering how this elimination of powers can be achieved, given that Arthur Petrelli is no more and that Mohinder never did manage to come up with a handwavey-science cure. I suppose Sylar could handcuff himself to René the Haitian, that might work for a while. Well, until Sylar drove René crazy with his incessant sarcastic banter, that is. -- redscharlach
Oh, why do our heroes never bother to tell their loved ones, "BTW, if you ever meet a dark-haired guy with huge eyebrows, BE AFRAID"? I know, I know: because then there'd be no story, that's why. -- redscharlach
What does Sylar want from Matt, anyway? Is he hoping to get a telepathic power block installed in his head, or is he now on a mission to sort out the issues of everyone in the Heroesverse and Matt's simply the next in line? -- redscharlach
--
Probably The Wrong Way™ to tell your crush you like her…
(Samuel and Vanessa)
--
Oh Samuel, kidnapping is not the way to a girl's heart. -- superkappa
Oh Samuel, no one cares about your temper tantrum -- superkappa
Samuel was... Okay, maybe they were going for romantic, but it's not what I perceived. Oh Vanessa. "How do you do it?" I think specialists called it Stockholm's Syndrome. -- schtroumph_c
Samuel tried to regain his title of Creepiest Man Alive, not knowing Sylar has raised the bar far out of his reach. -- ladymalchav
Oh jeez, don't tell me Samuel's end game in all of this was to make a love shack for the girl he's been stalking. -- ladymalchav
Hey, Samuel, have a piece of unsolicited dating advice. It's always a plus to acknowledge that your date is an autonomous person. Don't tell her what she wants and what she likes; she knows that better than you do. -- the_other_sandy
I think Samuel has another ability that's just been glossed over so far--the ability to brainwash people with food. He keeps the carnies in line with blueberry pancakes, he got Claire to sign on to the carnival with popcorn, and he maneuvered Vanessa from freaked and kidnapped to smiles and smoochies with a strawberry milkshake. Then again, maybe he just uses rohypnol and his magically appearing and disappearing Irish-ish accent to talk people into things against their better judgment. -- the_other_sandy
All work and no play makes Samuel something something. Apparently, Samuel's fantasy girlfriend rejecting his offer to move into the Hammerspace Cottage of Lurve was enough to make him decide it wasn't worth pretending he's not a psychopath anymore. Gosh, I can't imagine any girl passing up the chance to date a guy who destroys entire towns every time he has a tantrum. -- the_other_sandy
Samuel has the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy with his first crush. -- jaune_chat
Samuel: “Well… FINE! You just go home! It’s just fine, I’ll be fine, I don’t care! I’ll just take my ball, and this village, and make it fall into the center of the earth. I’m going to throw a huge fucking tantrum and kill thousands of people because I couldn’t get lucky tonight. Fuck my life.” -- jaune_chat
Vanessa helpfully summarizes the situation for those of us who didn't bother to suffer through the most recent episode. -- ewinfic
Samuel the WonderShovel apparently never matured past the age of thirteen and is still wooing girls with diner milkshakes and dresses and shit. And how is Vanessa still not in the least bothered by the fact that her family estate (if not her family) sank into the ground several weeks ago? -- ewinfic
Ahh, the Samuel meltdown... I was waiting for that. Here comes the mushroom cloud. I'm constantly amazed by how Heroes comes up with these remarkably fragile villains. Sylar and Samuel, each possessed of grandiose, earth-shattering powers... each with the relative maturity and socialization level of a toddler. Sylar likes to point rudely, and Samuel makes lots of mud pies. I'm envisioning some deeply disturbing playground fic here. -- ewinfic
We end on a note of, "Nice people have friends, not-nice people make entire towns fall into massive sinkholes." And I think that's an important lesson for all of us. -- ewinfic
Samuel and Vanessa: My Milkshake Doesn't Bring All the Girls to the Valley -- redscharlach
I noticed that, at one point, Vanessa graphically demonstrates why she split up with Samuel in the first place:
Hmm, all the megalomaniacal earthmoving makes a lot more sense now. He's compensating for something. -- redscharlach
Undaunted by this insinuation, Samuel reveals his amazing surprise: he's making a TV show called Extreme Valley Makeover and she's the first lucky contestant! As usual, it's Samuel's job to bullshit loudly while most of the work has been done by his unseen co-hosts, who are the plant-growing guy and presumably some folk with architectural planning and interior design powers. But the show's researchers have made a boo-boo, and based Vanessa's dream house on out-of-date information, delivered twenty years ago while drunk on tequila. Now she's older and wiser, she's no longer willing to give up all those modern-day conveniences, like proximity to Starbucks, and having friends and a career and stuff. -- redscharlach
Instead, he has to go all HULK SMASH! SAMUEL STOMP! GRRR! DESTROY EVIL ICE CREAM EMPORIUM! NOBODY LOVES MEEEEEEE! Oh, pull yourself together, man. I know milkshake-based insanity won Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar, but you're not him. And besides, I bet you're just overreacting because you're embarrassed about the frolicking earlier. -- redscharlach
--
The Rest
(Miscellaneous)
--
In the category 'Let's create interesting bad guys and make them pathetic', we have the champion Sylar and the challenger Samuel. -- schtroumph_c
Allow me to summarize: Bored bored bored bored SQUICK SQUICK SQUICK OMG MY EYES bored bored bored bored aww how cute SQUICK SQUICK SQUICK aww how cute bored bored bored bored you've got to be kidding me bored bored bored.
In conclusion: Fail. -- the_other_sandy
It's probably a testament to how bored I was tonight that I kept getting unreasonably distracted by Zach's eyebrows. Do you ever get the feeling that if he stopped grooming them into submission, they'd form a continuous loop around his head like the rings of Saturn? -- the_other_sandy
I can haz Petrellis nao plz? -- the_other_sandy
Tonight's episode was about three bad guys:
Sylar - Wants not to die alone, love, a friend, a puppy.
Samuel - Wants not to die alone, love, a carnie utopia
Adam - Really just wants to eff your shit up from beyond the grave.
Guess which one of these guys I love? What was that? Yes, Adam Monroe is my hero ♥ -- ilikethequiet
Hiro is confused, Samuel is "disappointed," and Sylar is... Sylar. -- jaune_chat
You know, many shows would have second thoughts about putting the word "fail" in an episode title, but Heroes is the show that either knows no fear, or does know fear but jumps off tall buildings straight into a big steaming pile of it. -- redscharlach
A little late--I got held up with RL--but here's the meta for 4x16 Pass/Fail!
--
Somehow, I don’t think taking cues from Law & Order is going to work…
(Hiro, Ando, Adam[!], Kaito, Dream!Sylar, a plethora of characters in Hiro’s Subconscious, and brief appearances by Mohinder and Noah)
--
ADAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM. -- superkappa
NO HIRO, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL HIM AGAIN. -- superkappa
Hope you liked the return of Mohinder, because it's all we'll have in this episode! Seriously, they're already getting rid of him? He's coming back, right? -- schtroumph_c
Hiro! I just want to point something possibly important: Family was represented by his father. Friendship was represented by Ando. Love was represented by Adam. Who called him by the pet name he gave him, Carp. Everything is a product of Hiro's subconscious. Conclusion? -- schtroumph_c
I'm not sure what thinking of Mom Plot Device. The scene was nice, but still, obvious plot device. Basically, Heroes. Creating some perfect scenes one second, make us wonder what they're smoking the next one. That's how they kept us hooked. The one win amongst 20 losses in a money game, the one who make us keep playing just in case it was luck coming back and staying. Until the next time. -- schtroumph_c
KENSAI! How I missed your wry little face. -- ladymalchav
Hiro and Ando, BFFs even in hallucination land. -- ladymalchav
Hiro's trial was fairly pointless. There was no actual trying going on. Adam and Ando brought up a bunch of random events from previous seasons and let them lie there instead of actually constructing any arguments with them. And the verdict was apparently that no matter what ridiculous, contradictory thing Hiro does, it's okay because he's a hero. Mess with the timeline, don't mess with the timeline...whatever, it's all good. -- the_other_sandy
[About Mohinder] Which girl did you break a promise to? Mira? Cuz I can think of another certain someone who is lost to the ages... -- ilikethequiet
HELLO ADAM YOU SEXY SON OF A BITCH. This right here is the reason I am iconning this episode. -- ilikethequiet
Oh god, Ando is your lawyer? You're doomed. -- ilikethequiet
Adam and Sylar should have done the world domination thing together, they really should have. -- ilikethequiet
OMG Sylar death list! Whee! I'm glad Sylar remembers these people, NO ONE ELSE DOES! -- ilikethequiet
Are you gonna mention that your father was murdered by the prosecutor? -- ilikethequiet
Hiro ends up in the place where all television characters with brain injuries/tumors do; a wacky alternate universe where all the people he knows are there, but in some thoroughly amusing fashion. In Chicago Hope, the injured brain surgeon ended up doing a song and dance number with the cast to “Luck Be A Lady.” In Bones, Booth ended up having sex with Temperance, as half the fanbase had been clamoring for for years. Hiro ends up in a retelling of “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” Unfortunately instead of a jury of his peers, he gets random extras. Lame! -- jaune_chat
Oh Snarky!Sylar, we’ve missed you so! Yeah, how many people died after Hiro let Sylar go? A whole huge amount. A whole lot. And his casual and half-forgetful recitation of them all (“Ted Sprague! That’s it!”) made me giggle. Lots. He should do that to more people in the cast. Give them a wake-up call about… stuff… Snark can be a very useful tool that should be employed more often on this show. -- jaune_chat
“Objection. He’s reciting the opening from Quantum Leap.” Takezo Kensei does not have time for this bullshit. He has some unfinished sword battles to do! -- jaune_chat
Aw. Mohinder just nods to Hiro and it's all okay. Because nobody ever holds a grudge in Heroes unless you're a vee-run or a blonde. -- ewinfic
Hello, cheap excuse to bring back Adam. I find myself remarkably okay with this. -- ewinfic
Lackadaisical Sylar is so much win. :D Sylar says willy-nilly. Can we just have him say that a few more times? Oh, wait, "Eden-ish" is even better. "Ted something..." Oh, Sylar, this only perpetuates that which was proved at the beginning of this season: you are at your finest and most fun when you are buried in someone else's subconscious. -- ewinfic
Dead!Mommy healing = made of fail. I'm hoping it's as one viewer stated; that the doctors healed Hiro and Mommy was just a metaphor. But this is Heroes. Of COURSE she came back from the dead in his mind and healed him. *sigh* Of course she did. -- ewinfic
Oh shit, a healed and living and sane power/time master. Because This Time, We Can Handle It. We Promise. And anyway, if anything goes wrong, we'll just revamp Sylar and have him take care of it. -- ewinfic
First off, Mohinder announces he's going to wander off aimlessly. Oh, all right then. Nobody seems very distraught, perhaps since they hadn't noticed his absence in the first place. And since he's going back to his demanding put-those-secret-files-away-NOW girlfriend, he may well return at any moment, begging to join Bennet's "women don't understand me" club. -- redscharlach
Speaking of Bennet, I notice that Lauren was conspicuous by her absence, so yet another romantic failure to add to the long list. If he doesn't get any action soon, I fear that people will soon start calling him No Nookie Noah. -- redscharlach
But Bennet's love life will have to wait, because Hiro has collapsed and found himself in his own private remake of A Matter of Life and Death. Sadly, it contains Adam (boo!), who always makes my heart sink and my ears flinch, but on the plus side, it's got added Kaito (yay!), banging a sugar shaker and doing his SRS BZNS face. -- redscharlach
Darn, Dream!Sylar is a sexy bitch, all blithe excuses ("Willy nilly...") and gratuitously unbuttoned shirt. If I were Hiro, I'd examine my subconscious closely and see if there are any yearnings there that require further exploration. -- redscharlach
However, despite providing a couple of minor amusements, such as the Quantum Leap reference, this whole subplot tasted like filler to me. At no point did I ever believe Hiro's life was ever in real danger, so it was just a matter of watching him flail around in his own mental cul-de-sac and waiting for whichever bolted-on solution would save him (answer: medical handwaving in the general brain area, accompanied by a subconscious dash of mother-kissing-it-better). Still, the field's now clear for a climactic bout of rescuing Charlie from wherever she's gone. (And since the answer to that question is "Glee", I hope that Hiro and Ando can work up a suitably spectacular musical number to save the day.) -- redscharlach
--
They did not mention PSYCHOPATHIC SUPERPOWERED SERIAL KILLERS in the brochure!
(Sylar, Claire, Gretchen)
--
I kind of ship Gretchen/Sylar, don't judge me. -- superkappa
SYLAR SHIPS GRETCHEN AND CLAIRE. -- superkappa
And Claire, okay, I get it, you want company, I really understand being freaked out and all, but don't you want to tell someone where Sylar is? That you saw him? What you learn from his passage, his emo phase, that he'll try to get rid of his powers, that the description of his friend Lydia sounds a lot like your friend Lydia? Please, tell me you got this. You paid enough attention to hear the (fake) hint about Gretchen, tell me you heard his link with Samuel. And call your father!! -- schtroumph_c
That's it, Gretchen had NO sense of self-preservation AT ALL! -- ladymalchav
Oh woooooow, Sylar. You have reached the HEIGHT of creepy wrongness, there. -- ladymalchav
Sylar needs to bug off, yeah I said it. -- ilikethequiet
Lolz see just from that exchange I ship Sylar/Gretchen more than I ever would Sylar/Claire. -- ilikethequiet
Randomly: this is a college, people. Shouldn't there be students and teachers all over the place? WHY ARE NONE OF THEM HERE?! -- ilikethequiet
Sylar wants to talk to Claire. He wants to have a Hallmark moment. And really, he’d have more of them if he did go all Jack Nicholson in The Shining on Claire. Writing all that stuff on the blackboard and then trying to grill Claire about her feelings is not helping! Damn, if Sylar had just gone to college he wouldn’t have to make up for lost time by sucking on Claire’s face to gain insight into her feelings. -- jaune_chat
It disturbs me on several levels that Sylar was actually able to accurately peg Claire’s issues. I mean, it does make some sense, between Lydia’s power and Sylar’s intuitive aptitude, but it doesn’t make it any less creepy! Also creepy is Sylar continuing to analyze Claire while in Gretchen’s form. Even if he was right. Creepy. Creep-y. Just saying. -- jaune_chat
Though I found it very interesting that Sylar realizes he has to give up being Super Special to remain human. And sane. I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to involve going back to everyone and trying to convince them to help him. Which is going to be messy and painful for all involved. The resulting fireworks should be highly entertaining! -- jaune_chat
Claire actually looks like she might not have molded her hair today with the requisite seven layers of shellac, and there's the teensiest possibility that her eyemakeup might be smudged. Oh, television. Your concept of "looking like shit" amuses me. -- ewinfic
Zachary Quinto is really not a creepy person. He's actually a really stunningly fluffy and nice person. That said, it's ASTOUNDING how creepy he manages to make it sound and look when Sylar asks to sit with Gretchen. My skin is absolutely crawling. (Skeeve 101 had a really good prof, apparently.) -- ewinfic
I'm happy to see that Sylar has some of the same questions the audience has. And he's asking the right questions... but I'm really not sure he ends up with the right answer. -- ewinfic
Sylar, I love you, I do. But seriously, nobody but NOBODY cares if you need a friend. I'd recommend a puppy, but, well, you're you. -- ewinfic
With the mouth-dropping shock of a thousand buckets of icy water, I find that the Sylar/Claire kiss was actually written coherently and in character. Pardon me while I do a hard reboot on my brain. ...>*<... *sound of chimes*
Sylar. Is psychoanalyzing. Claire. I think I need another reboot. -- ewinfic
Sylar, in an unusually utilitarian fashion, gets Claire and Gretchen together. Wait, what? "We've been trying to generate sparks here all season long, and it's just not working. Let's have Sylar do it." I mean, did ANYBODY actually believe Claire was distancing herself from Gretchen because of anything other than Gretchen's slightly creepy devotion? -- ewinfic
I sort of love the uneasy truces people tend to form with Sylar on the basis of, "There's actually no way to kill you, so I'm going to uh, sit here and watch as you leave." -- ewinfic
The Sylar/Claire kiss was entirely unerotic and almost totally unnecessary, especially since they'd already smoothed over any rape anxieties with the "I just want you to listen to my problems" speech. True, Sylar does like grossing people out, but that's more old-school chaos-loving Sylar, and not what Claire describes as "the emo apologist version". Still, the eyeball-meets-pencil was even more revolting so we'll call it evens for now. -- redscharlach
Sylar's psychoanalytical meta-musings were great fun, though: it really is all in the significant pauses: "All these moments, so ripe with subtext." You know we'll be reminding you of this insight the next time you meet Peter, right? Good, just checking. -- redscharlach
"Maybe that's his answer. In order to become human again, he has to get rid of all his powers." - Foreshadowing: your clue to quality drama! I take it that this is where the series finale is heading, but I'm now wondering how this elimination of powers can be achieved, given that Arthur Petrelli is no more and that Mohinder never did manage to come up with a handwavey-science cure. I suppose Sylar could handcuff himself to René the Haitian, that might work for a while. Well, until Sylar drove René crazy with his incessant sarcastic banter, that is. -- redscharlach
Oh, why do our heroes never bother to tell their loved ones, "BTW, if you ever meet a dark-haired guy with huge eyebrows, BE AFRAID"? I know, I know: because then there'd be no story, that's why. -- redscharlach
What does Sylar want from Matt, anyway? Is he hoping to get a telepathic power block installed in his head, or is he now on a mission to sort out the issues of everyone in the Heroesverse and Matt's simply the next in line? -- redscharlach
--
Probably The Wrong Way™ to tell your crush you like her…
(Samuel and Vanessa)
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Oh Samuel, kidnapping is not the way to a girl's heart. -- superkappa
Oh Samuel, no one cares about your temper tantrum -- superkappa
Samuel was... Okay, maybe they were going for romantic, but it's not what I perceived. Oh Vanessa. "How do you do it?" I think specialists called it Stockholm's Syndrome. -- schtroumph_c
Samuel tried to regain his title of Creepiest Man Alive, not knowing Sylar has raised the bar far out of his reach. -- ladymalchav
Oh jeez, don't tell me Samuel's end game in all of this was to make a love shack for the girl he's been stalking. -- ladymalchav
Hey, Samuel, have a piece of unsolicited dating advice. It's always a plus to acknowledge that your date is an autonomous person. Don't tell her what she wants and what she likes; she knows that better than you do. -- the_other_sandy
I think Samuel has another ability that's just been glossed over so far--the ability to brainwash people with food. He keeps the carnies in line with blueberry pancakes, he got Claire to sign on to the carnival with popcorn, and he maneuvered Vanessa from freaked and kidnapped to smiles and smoochies with a strawberry milkshake. Then again, maybe he just uses rohypnol and his magically appearing and disappearing Irish-ish accent to talk people into things against their better judgment. -- the_other_sandy
All work and no play makes Samuel something something. Apparently, Samuel's fantasy girlfriend rejecting his offer to move into the Hammerspace Cottage of Lurve was enough to make him decide it wasn't worth pretending he's not a psychopath anymore. Gosh, I can't imagine any girl passing up the chance to date a guy who destroys entire towns every time he has a tantrum. -- the_other_sandy
Samuel has the emotional maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy with his first crush. -- jaune_chat
Samuel: “Well… FINE! You just go home! It’s just fine, I’ll be fine, I don’t care! I’ll just take my ball, and this village, and make it fall into the center of the earth. I’m going to throw a huge fucking tantrum and kill thousands of people because I couldn’t get lucky tonight. Fuck my life.” -- jaune_chat
Vanessa helpfully summarizes the situation for those of us who didn't bother to suffer through the most recent episode. -- ewinfic
Samuel the WonderShovel apparently never matured past the age of thirteen and is still wooing girls with diner milkshakes and dresses and shit. And how is Vanessa still not in the least bothered by the fact that her family estate (if not her family) sank into the ground several weeks ago? -- ewinfic
Ahh, the Samuel meltdown... I was waiting for that. Here comes the mushroom cloud. I'm constantly amazed by how Heroes comes up with these remarkably fragile villains. Sylar and Samuel, each possessed of grandiose, earth-shattering powers... each with the relative maturity and socialization level of a toddler. Sylar likes to point rudely, and Samuel makes lots of mud pies. I'm envisioning some deeply disturbing playground fic here. -- ewinfic
We end on a note of, "Nice people have friends, not-nice people make entire towns fall into massive sinkholes." And I think that's an important lesson for all of us. -- ewinfic
Samuel and Vanessa: My Milkshake Doesn't Bring All the Girls to the Valley -- redscharlach
I noticed that, at one point, Vanessa graphically demonstrates why she split up with Samuel in the first place:
Hmm, all the megalomaniacal earthmoving makes a lot more sense now. He's compensating for something. -- redscharlach
Undaunted by this insinuation, Samuel reveals his amazing surprise: he's making a TV show called Extreme Valley Makeover and she's the first lucky contestant! As usual, it's Samuel's job to bullshit loudly while most of the work has been done by his unseen co-hosts, who are the plant-growing guy and presumably some folk with architectural planning and interior design powers. But the show's researchers have made a boo-boo, and based Vanessa's dream house on out-of-date information, delivered twenty years ago while drunk on tequila. Now she's older and wiser, she's no longer willing to give up all those modern-day conveniences, like proximity to Starbucks, and having friends and a career and stuff. -- redscharlach
Instead, he has to go all HULK SMASH! SAMUEL STOMP! GRRR! DESTROY EVIL ICE CREAM EMPORIUM! NOBODY LOVES MEEEEEEE! Oh, pull yourself together, man. I know milkshake-based insanity won Daniel Day-Lewis an Oscar, but you're not him. And besides, I bet you're just overreacting because you're embarrassed about the frolicking earlier. -- redscharlach
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The Rest
(Miscellaneous)
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In the category 'Let's create interesting bad guys and make them pathetic', we have the champion Sylar and the challenger Samuel. -- schtroumph_c
Allow me to summarize: Bored bored bored bored SQUICK SQUICK SQUICK OMG MY EYES bored bored bored bored aww how cute SQUICK SQUICK SQUICK aww how cute bored bored bored bored you've got to be kidding me bored bored bored.
In conclusion: Fail. -- the_other_sandy
It's probably a testament to how bored I was tonight that I kept getting unreasonably distracted by Zach's eyebrows. Do you ever get the feeling that if he stopped grooming them into submission, they'd form a continuous loop around his head like the rings of Saturn? -- the_other_sandy
I can haz Petrellis nao plz? -- the_other_sandy
Tonight's episode was about three bad guys:
Sylar - Wants not to die alone, love, a friend, a puppy.
Samuel - Wants not to die alone, love, a carnie utopia
Adam - Really just wants to eff your shit up from beyond the grave.
Guess which one of these guys I love? What was that? Yes, Adam Monroe is my hero ♥ -- ilikethequiet
Hiro is confused, Samuel is "disappointed," and Sylar is... Sylar. -- jaune_chat
You know, many shows would have second thoughts about putting the word "fail" in an episode title, but Heroes is the show that either knows no fear, or does know fear but jumps off tall buildings straight into a big steaming pile of it. -- redscharlach