Ongoing Process

My main enduring gripe about Heroes is that the writing is a bit sloppy. They don’t seem to think anything of throwing consistency out the window if it makes it easier to get to a plot point. And for the end of their otherwise fabulous first season, it seems they really pulled out the stops.

First, the Peter thing. Why didn’t Claire just shoot him? Then nobody would have had to die. Past that, why didn’t Peter just fly out of range himself? Then Nathan wouldn’t have had to die. A two-for-one of entirely pointless.

Next, the Sylar thing. Of every character on the show, Sylar is written the sloppiest, and that doesn’t change here. Sylar, the apparently (and absurdly) unstoppable demigod, is suddenly struck helpless by the fact that Hiro appears in front of him. He can stop Parkman’s bullets in mid-air, but he can’t stop Hiro’s sword? Riiight. And then to top it all off, they just couldn’t let him die. They had to do the whole “mysterious exit” thing. Blah.

On the other hand, the Lost finale fairly rocked. It was true to the enduring Lost theme of “never answer questions, and when you do be sure to raise a hundred more”, but I expect that by now. However, they did shake things up a lot and broke out of several tired ruts they had been in.

I liked that they killed Charlie. I never really liked him as a character (whiny and spineless come to mind), but that’s not why. I liked that they built up to it all season and then carried through. He had to die to pay off the storyline, but a lot of shows would have wimped out. But they did it, which rocks. My only complaint is that they executed it poorly. Charlie very clearly had plenty of time to exit the door and then lock it behind him. Sloppy writing can really take the zing out of an otherwise great moment.

The highlight of the show for me was the face-off between Jack and Ben. Ben has been throwing them around the whole show, practically without breaking a sweat. Then we get another corny countdown; you’ve got one minute or your friends get it! But when it gets to the last seconds, rather than bowing down yet again, Jack desperately holds his ground! It was a great moment and really gave some power back to the good guys. Of course, it would have been even better if they actually had killed his friends, but I suppose you can only kill off so many main characters in one episode.

Lastly, I loved that Sawyer killed Mr. Friendly. It was an awful, chilling moment. But it was exactly true. Well done.