Bricking it

[redscharlach]

The penultimate dose of Heroes, and I can already feel the wibblings of withdrawal bubbling in my system. Or maybe that's the Côtes du Rhône I just drank (hic).

Anyway, here are some thoughts on The Wall:

• Bennet, Claire and Company: Silly con Carnival
  
  
• I had a retrospective thought about last week: exactly how DID Bennet and Lauren find the carnival? I know they had a home-made compass but Mohinder specifically pointed out that it would only work in the hands of a special. So did they pick up a superpowered hitchhiker and dump him on the highway before they arrived? Or did they parachute down from the same Invisi-Jet that took Peter Petrelli to California? We'll probably never know.
  
  
• As part of his latest tedious plan for world-domination, Samuel wishes to remind everyone about Bennet's contractual right to a bout of black-and-white backstory every season. He therefore forces Claire to stand around in the plasma-screen House of Mirrors (now with Dolby surround sound!) and watch some rather extraneous flashbacks, without the aid of popcorn or other tasty nibbles to help them go down. How cruel.
  
  
• From the "I Wasn't Born Yesterday" file: I seem to recall that Bennet didn't look like that in the mid-eighties, he looked like this. I must admit, the one-time Dynasty fan in me is just a teensy bit disappointed that they didn't break out a blond mullet wig and cast Heather Locklear as his first wife.
  
  
• Rather oddly, his non-Heather first wife says that he ought to be at home writing plays. Plays? Seriously? I never pegged Bennet as a great loss to the theatrical profession, but I'm now imagining his unwritten works: Matt on a Hot Tin Roof, Look Back in Angela, Who's Afraid of Virginia Gray?, Haitian for Godot...
  
  
• For one moment, I thought that the killer of the first Mrs B was going to be Samson Gray, which could have made an interesting twist. But he wasn't, so it didn't.
  
  
• Still, we got gratuitous cameos from Thompson, Sandra (aw, I miss Sandra), René T. Haitian, and of course, our old friend, A Map With Bits Of String On It. Plus, bonus invisible Claude, who sees you when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake... no, hold on, I'm getting him mixed up with Santa Claus. Or possibly Ceiling Cat.
  
  
• "You are desperate. And you're small." - Ha, Claire has clearly been talking to Vanessa about Samuel's little problem. Next week perhaps she can present a psychology paper on whether Samuel's penchant for making big holes is actually a form of vaginal envy. If she manages to dig herself out of his Freudian symbol first, that is.
  
  
• Peter and Sylar: Allies in Slumberland
  
  
• In a show so pitted with happily gaping holes, it seems strange to point out the lack of a hole, but I'm going to do it anyway. Are we expected to believe that Matt shoved Peter's unconscious body to one side, finished building that brick wall in front of Sylar, and then left them both downstairs while he and Janice popped out for some celebratory KFC? There's neatly finishing a half-done task, and then there's psychotic behaviour. I fear Matt is unclear on the difference.
  
  
• Nonetheless, I can't complain about this crossing of the fine line between symbolism and stupidity when it leads to such an insanely delicious world of shamelessly slashtastic wonders. It's only a shame there was such a small portion of this compared to all the Carnival meanderings. But maybe restraint is a good thing. After all, I'm sure we can imagine the rest for ourselves. THEY WERE SO HAVING BRAIN SEX THAT WHOLE TIME, IT IS TRUFAX, YOU CANNOT DENY. Ahem.
  
  
• I loved Sylar demanding an explanation for all the books in his head, including ones he hasn't read, and Peter's valiant attempts to explain it that petered away into "Argh, I don't know! Sillier things than this happen to us every week and nobody demands a reason for it! Handwave, darn you, handwave!"
  
  
• "But I can sure as hell swing a sledgehammer." - I should think so too. After all, Peter + Gabriel = Sledgehammer. Pop culture mathematics at its finest!
  
  
• Other pleasures were legion. Sylar first reaching out to touch Peter on the chest, but then having second thoughts and touching his shoulder instead. Those dreamlike sweeping vertigo shots of the empty city. Sylar casually dropping Nathan's memories into the conversation as if they were his own. The wrapped birthday present. Peter's exhausted acknowledgement that Sylar really has changed. Sylar bursting through the basement wall like a stripper out of a cake. "Does that make it any less real?" OH, BOYS. How I love you.
  
  
• Even Eli says "Sorry to break up the lovefest", and all he's seen is the two of them standing in a messy basement. The subtext must be so strong that people can smell it wafting up the stairs.
  
  
• In conclusion: by any stretch, a bizarre hotchpotch, especially the sudden desire to give Bennet a load of backstory we didn't know he had, which doesn't seem like the best possible use of the limited amount of on-screen explanation time that remains. But the Peter/Sylar stuff made me do a big silly grin so wide that I find myself not caring. Crikey, I'm shallow.
  
  
• Ye Olde Predictions for the Finale (please note: I deliberately haven't seen the trailer, so this is based only on my own head.)
  
  
• Hiro rescues Charlie. I have no idea where she is, though. Surely Samuel didn't just look ahead at the TV schedules and choose to take her straight to the season finale date without passing go?
  
  
• Someone also needs to unearth the Bennets. Hiro again, perhaps? At least he and Ando have extensive digging experience, albeit usually involving holes of their own making.
  
  
• Peter and Sylar beat the crap out of various Elis (well, if Lauren can beat him and all his little clones, they can presumably do it in their sleep), Peter replicates cloning (I'm guessing here), Sylar scoops Peter up in his manly arms and flies him away (I've now moved from guessing to fantasizing wildly, sorry)...
  
  
• The whole Emma/mass destruction thing will come to a head, but surely it can't be as straightforward as Peter dreamed it, can it? I'm expecting some sort of nasty twist with Bad Consequences for someone.
  
  
• Tracy will put in an appearance, if only to justify her presence on Bennet's contacts list. Matt will discover the mess in his cellar and be peeved. Angela will pull a face of thin-lipped stoicness. Claire and Gretchen might even get some liplocking action. Or is that too much for primetime?
  
  
• Is the season finale just standard-length? If it is, blimey - by the time they devote half the running time to Samuel making tedious speeches about how no one understands him (you know they will), that doesn't leave much time for any of this, does it? No matter: I'm as braced as I will ever be. Bring it on...

In other news, there's a meme going around that involves finding out what was number 1 in the charts on the day that you were born. I knew my own answer to this one without looking it up: it was "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart. And now I feel utterly ancient, but fortunately not as ancient as Rod.