Heroes Recap: “The Fix”
Last time…. Peter wrassled the Invisible Man.
- Turns out, Invisible Man is pretty mean. He is more like Pete Townsend than any of us could have predicted.
- Rubber Room. Jessiniki’s getting loads of anti-psychotics.
- Matt the Cop is practicing hearing his wife’s thoughts. I predict he will kill himself soon.
- Sylar and the Roach continue to befuddle scientists. They decide to kill Sylar and bring him back, again and again.
- Hiro tweaks time to save on parking. Seriously folks, can’t he do SOMETHING cool? He debates the sword with his friend, seemingly endlessly, only to be confronted by some bad dudes on the way back to the car. Uh-oh!
OK, now the episode begins in earnest. Mohinder continues his meaningless quest to do something, then Nathan Petrelli knocks on his door. They discuss Peter and the genetic freaks on the list, of 36 people with the genetic marker that gives abilities. Nathan avoids talking about his power, but learns Peter is like a sponge, which could be dangerous if he absorbs an unstable power. Nathan continues to deny everything until Mohinder offers to help Nathan overcome his power…
Petey at the home of Pete Townsend. It’s the building where Petey worked before for the old man who died. Peter wants to learn how to master his power, but Pete Townsend won’t help him and hasn’t a clue. Peter Won’t Get Fooled Again.
Claire and Zach are hacking her dad’s computer, which TOTALLY runs Linux. The PC has nothing on it and they barely shut down before HRG gets home. HRG suspects that something is afoot, but who knows. Claire hangs some wind chimes outside his window to summon MuteHaitian.
Meanwhile Matt the Cop suspects HRG and MuteHaitian caused his problems. He wants to take them down…. hard. Actually this bit is a little cliche. He starts to get himself ready for work and his wife lectures him about his powers. “you can’t control them, or you won’t?” Blah.
Hiro and Ando are hiding under a car. The car they’re under drives off, leaving them without cover. They try to run for it, but Ando is completely retarded and gets busted, so both of them get nabbed. Suckers.
Rubber Room. Jessiniki wakes up next to a shrink, who knows a lot about Jessica and who looks somewhat oddly like Oprah. The shrink wants to help her recover, but Niki’s not buying it. The shrink refuses to let Niki fail, dammit! Meanwhile Mr. Slippery is having a hard time paying rent and feeding his “genius” child who can’t keep track of his own damn lunchbox. Time for Micah to get a suckerpunch, but dad ain’t the beating type.
Texas. Mutehaitian meets Claire, who has nothing but stupid whines about how lying to her father is breaking her heart. Blah blah blah. She wants to know her birth parents, and he statuesquely looks in the distance before saying that her mother died in an explosion in Texas 14 years ago. With that, he sends her back home. Yet, we know that her mother has already been cast in the show. So, come on people — enough with stupid non-drama. Back at home, HRG talks to his stupid wife about Claire, then takes a call from a doctor who confirms that Sylar is dead. “Get the body ready for shipping,” HRG replies. Sigh…. let me guess – not so dead after all?
Researching Meredith Gordon and her 18-month old daughter, Claire finds news reports of her mother’s firey death in Kermit, Texas.
Matt the Cop is getting his butt chewed by his superior officers and is completely inadequate in his replies to their questions. He reads their minds and is sly like a fox through the whole process. He gets suspended for 6 months, deservedly so considering how stupid he acted. Upon arriving home, his plumbing is really busted up. Sob.
In the Kidnapping Van, Hiro and Ando learn who’s abducted them — someone who wants them to stop. They refuse to go back to Tokyo, and Hiro insists on meeting the Big Boss. Bruce Lee?
NYC. Nathan and Mohinder catch up with Peter as he’s packing up. They try to talk him out of leaving, but Peter’s a jerk about it, explaining to Nathan that he can’t fix everything…. then he makes a run for it, evading them all thanks to Pete Townsend, who’s been hiding in the hallway. Frankly, Peter’s jerkiness and unwillingness to get help really didn’t make a lot of sense. Peter offers his apartment to Pete Townsend while he’s gone. Turns out Pete Townsend has a heart of gold and wants to help! Aww. He alludes to having taught others to master their powers. Hunh?
LA. Matt the suspended cop finishes the plumbing at his house, then tells his wife about the suspension. His wife spouts new agey crap about trusting each other as reassurance that they won’t immediately get divorced, and he learns that they’re having a baby. Poor souls.
Rubber Room. Slippery Man breaks in and holds his crazy-ass wife for awhile. Who knows why he broke in — marital advice?? Bizarre scene unfolds for no particular reason while they discuss how Jessiniki’s going to be locked up for a long time. Come on, Slippery. Grow a pair and learn to be a PARENT, and PLEASE LORD KILL THIS STUPID B-STORY WHICH IS UTTERLY LAME. While his dad is having lame heart-to-hearts, his “genius” son hacks an ATM to get some lunch money. LAME.
Texas. Claire can’t quite figure out what happened to her mom, and HRG tries –and fails — to bust her knowledge of manatees. Instead she offers to get rid of her stuffed bears. He really cares about her! He really wants to look after her! He really sees what the wind chime is all about, and he is really going to possibly kill someone!
Back in the stupidland of stupid B-Story, Jessiniki agrees to let Oprah help her get rid of Jessica. Oprah wants to talk to Jessica. Meanwhile her worthless truant son gets home to Slippery, who comes THIS CLOSE to beating Micah, but no dice. Micah is pretty unimpressed by his dad’s love speech, as are the rest of us. Micah’s got his bazillions, yo, and tells his dad that he has a secret, too. His secret: his character SUCKS.
Kidnapping Van. Hiro and Ando meet the Big Boss, and it isn’t Bruce Lee, at all — it’s George Takei!!! Captain Sulu himself, who is Hiro’s father. Sulu glares at Hiro with phaser eyes.
Back in Texas, Claire is calling the whole town of Kermit to try and find her dead mom. Well hey, guess what! She finds her, nursing a cigarette, which she lights WITH HER BARE HANDS. Mom is the Human Torch. FLAME ON!
HRG enters the Sell of Sylar, to examine the corpse. Indeed, it’s the doctor’s body, not Sylar at all! Sylar is standing right behind him, with a bolt sticking out of his head. “How’s Claire,” he asks. Oooooo, creepy, and not at all predictable.
In sum: not a lot of real momentum or real plot-moving, but some nice tidbits. The B-Story is really just dead weight here. They could axe the Jessiniki/Slippery/Micah storyline entirely and no one would care.
And pathetic cop-dude, too, unless his story makes some quick turns soon. Maybe next week- the preview looked like Flying Man might be Claires dad, and HRG looked like he might be in a tad bit of a bind in the cell with Sylar- lets hope.
Comment by tracy m — January 30, 2007 @ 12:41 am
Next episode: Micah takes the online Google test and is employed without any further process. He is about to take over the universe until he is arrested for using the subways without swiping his MTA card.
Comment by danithew — January 30, 2007 @ 5:14 am
I thought last night’s episode was probably the weakest of the season. It’s not that nothing happened, but it was very plodding and poorly executed.
Some thoughts:
* I noticed George Takei’s name in the opening credits, then forgot to notice him as Hiro’s dad. I suppose like me, everyone else just assumed that Hiro and Ando were being taken to Linderman.
* Actual conversation during last night’s episode:
Allison: “How’s Hiro’s Japanese?”
Greg: “It’s perfect. But the translations aren’t always exact.”
Allison: “What about the creepy white-haired guy?”
Greg: “His accent sucks, but the dialog is good Japanese.”
* Why even bother having that Matt the Psychic Cop story last night? It told us nothing and just depressed me about one of my favorite characters and favorite actors. Also, you’d think the whole marital infidelity would have been a bigger issues. Obviously, Psychic Cop’s wife realizes now that Matt knows she was cheating, and you’d think a cop would be just a little bit suspicious that his wife’s baby isn’t his.
* I like invisible guy. That character has potential, and I like the character/actor a lot. He knows a lot that he’s not telling yet. I think it’s likely that he defected from Horned Rimmed Glasses’ posse.
* Anyone who didn’t see Sylar’s return coming from a mile away probably hasn’t watched much TV or seen many movies. Crack-pot theory: Sylar was able to project his lifeforce into that giant cockroach, then back into himself once he had been pronounced dead.
* I think it was odd that someone who was supposed to have died 14 years earlier would be living in the same town under the same name. I also think it was odd that Zach was able to find the name of a woman who had died 14 years earlier in Texas. I mean, it’s not like there would have been just one. Also, have you ever tried researching a current event that happened 14 years ago? Almost nothing was online 14 years ago. But hey, Zach’s good with computers and stuff.
* Micah is really annoying me. At this point, no one in that family doesn’t annoy me. The “Mom may be a homicidal psycho-bitch, but at least *SHE* never forgets my lunchbox” routine is getting really old.
Comment by BTD Greg — January 30, 2007 @ 9:18 am
tracy, we know that Claire’s dad is someone familiar. It would not surprise me to learn it was Nathan the puss-face. And apparently they are ready to make HRG a full-on villain, dropping a bit of the nuance we’d seen before.
Comment by Supergenius — January 30, 2007 @ 9:20 am
BTD, I agree — Zach was nothing more than a plot device, using “the internets” as a shortcut for actually painstaking research that should have taken weeks. At least when they did it on Buffy they occasionally used microfiche.
Comment by Supergenius — January 30, 2007 @ 9:23 am
From the shot of Nathan’s pink sleeve and cuff links we saw during the preview, it looked like Nathan to me.
It could also be Linderman, the mutant-obsessed crime boss.
Comment by BTD Greg — January 30, 2007 @ 9:27 am
Interesting. My business partner’s wife is Japanese and she thinks Hiro’s Japanese is weak and that he’s obviously an American. (I don’t know if he is American of Japanese decent or grew up in Japan – plus my business partner’s wife is from rural Japan which might account for part of it)
The whole roach/Sylar bit is a bit mysterious still. The idea of switch back and forth makes some sense, but not a lot. Just switching with the roach would have been more interesting.
I agree with the Jessica thread. Lamo. It better have a point soon. Reminds me of the Starbuck/Apollo sub plot. When will writers realize that subplots have to either have sympathetic characters or be somewhat relevant to the overarching plot?
I don’t think we can call Mute Haitian the Mute Haitian anymore. Hasn’t he talked a tad too much for that?
The writer did say they are going to make HRG a full baddie, albeit one who loves his family a lot. I don’t like that. I liked the ambiguity a bit better.
Can the Psychic Cop from Alias be any dumber? What did he think would happen if he filed that report? And it’s pretty heavily telegraphed that the kid isn’t his own.
Regarding internet archives. Most newspapers I’ve looked at have all their articles from when they first went digital for stories. Typically in the mid 80′s. Our local paper has everything back to 88. Claire’s 14 so that would only require 94. Although you have no idea how depressing it is to suddenly realize that 14 year old heroines were born after I graduated from college.
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 10:28 am
BTW – Michah’s power is lame and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 10:31 am
Clark, I am going to keep calling him MuteHaitian until he has something interesting to say.
Comment by Supergenius — January 30, 2007 @ 11:13 am
Claire is only 14? I thought she was older- “homecoming queen”, cheerleader and all that at 14?
I like the actor who plays Psychic Cop dude, but the story is lagging close to Jessinickie/Michah in it’s uninteresting-ness.
Comment by tracy m — January 30, 2007 @ 11:20 am
Apparently, she was 18 months old at the time of the explosion, which would make her 15 and a half (or possibly closer to 16 if “14 years” was just an approximation).
Comment by BTD Greg — January 30, 2007 @ 11:23 am
My co-worker who is half-Japanese told me Hiro’s Japanese accent isn’t very good. He also said the waitress who got killed early on, who was just learning Japanese, had a better accent than the guy who plays Hiro.
BTW, the guy who plays him used to be a special effects programmer guy for Industrial Light and Magic:
http://www.us.playstation.com/News/Editorials/43
Kinda cool.
Comment by Susan M — January 30, 2007 @ 11:30 am
That’s right. My bad. She told her dad last night she was almost 16 too. Still, that leads us to 1991 and at that time most newspapers were digital.
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 12:02 pm
We were just thrilled to see Christopher Eccleston again! (he’s the invisible guy) He played The Doctor on Doctor Who 2005 season. Yay! We also think he may have at one time been on the HRG team, but wised up after some horrible incident.
I also think that the Black Lady Shrink is a plant, sort of like Eden. I think she’s on the HRG team, but not necessarily a subordinate of HRG, more like a co-worker. They all report to the same boss. I think she’s strategically placed as a psychiatrist in order to find people with “powers” who have been committed. She’s way too interested in Jessica…
Comment by Jessie T. — January 30, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
P.S. BTD Greg’s crackpot theory isn’t so crackpot.
Comment by Supergenius — January 30, 2007 @ 12:55 pm
Clark,
The actor who plays Hiro is American.
Okay, I’ve gotta say that I’m really getting bored with Heroes. I’ve said before that the characters are all too…sad. They all have these heavy baggages to carry around and they don’t think their powers are cool, except for Hiro.
I guess I just don’t think the writers of the show are writing a good story right now.
Comment by Dan — January 30, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
Well we all were predicting last week a cockroach switch.
The big question was, where was the roach this week? Was he there and I missed it? And what’s up with the fake death?
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 1:14 pm
Actually, Dan has a good point there. The politician-dude who can fly at supersonic speed or whatever – he seems to be rather nonchalant about his ability – as if it’s an afterthought and has little to do with his real life.
Comment by danithew — January 30, 2007 @ 1:26 pm
danithew,
I think Nathan is living in constant fear that revelation of his secret ability will ruin his political career. That part actually seems pretty plausible to me.
I’m a big LOST fan, so I don’t have a problem with characters who are weighed down by heavy baggage.
Comment by BTD Greg — January 30, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
don’t get me wrong BTD Greg, I love LOST and characters that have some serious baggage to get over. I just don’t see it working well in the setting of a superhero tale. Just look at the commentary to this point. How many of the characters currently on the show do we wish would just go away?
Frankly, the only characters that interest me at this point are Peter, Claire and Hiro. I really don’t have any connection to any of the other characters.
Comment by Dan — January 30, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
I kind of dig the artist guy, although he’s been a minor character. I really like HGB or whatever he’s called. It bums me out a bit that he’s going to be a baddie.
I liked the mind reader for a while, but since the return last week he’s been annoying. It’s too bad since he’d be an interesting character but they’ve written him into being an idiot too much.
That’s the problem (something Lost has as well far too often). The characters just don’t do things we’d expect them to do. I can excuse that to a point – some people are idiots after all. But it’s gotten to be a bit much.
But I do agree that there are far too few likable characters. I thought Peter’s interactions with the invisible guy last night were more than a tad annoying as well.
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
I don’t think Junior’s power is genius (though he may be wicked smawt too) — his power seems to be controlling machines. So he didn’t hack the ATMs he controlled them with his power. Several episodes back he put his hand on a broken pay phone and made it work so he could call his psycho mom too.
Matt does seem like a hapless idiot. He had to read people’s minds to know he came off as a nutjob?? Plus, he was reading minds before he got abducted so blaming HRG seems a bit dumb.
The Nikki story is indeed lame but I am curious to understand her power better. The Jessica character seems to have super strength so I’m wondering how that works (since they share the same body and all.) Is she some sort of Hulk rip-off? If so why is she only strong when Jessica takes over?
Comment by Geoff J — January 30, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
Oh, I agree it’s controlling machines. That just seems a dumb power all things considered. He doesn’t just control them either – he can repair them by thought like he did with the telephone when they were on the run.
Comment by Clark — January 30, 2007 @ 11:00 pm
In the X-Men movies there’s a kid who changes television channels by blinking his eyes.
Micah seems to be a character designed to have similar connections to technology in some degree.
I think this ability has potential to be very interesting, but there have to be better ways to use the power than to fix a busted payphone or cause an ATM to spit cash. Those seem to be the main manifestations of his abilities.
It’s not clear what he’s actually doing … how did the phone fix itself? Were the materials in the phone reconstituting themselves or was he just achieving a computer connection that was somehow disrupted? Is he altering mechanics physically somehow or is he just hacking into them? His abilities could be more interesting if there was more detail to them – if it weren’t simply him waving his hand magically over the device or touching it or whatever. At the point where the details of the ability are revealed, then the limitations/potentials become clear – which can contribute quite a bit to plot development.
If he could alter mechanics, then he could create devices that would aid his family and friends in the way they use their powers – just as Magneto creates Cerebro for Professor X.
BTW, while I like Hiro’s character overall, I don’t like seeing him scrunch up his face to get his power to work.
Comment by danithew — January 31, 2007 @ 6:09 am