The "Heroes" Season Finale: Sometimes I Really Hate Being Right
In my Pick of the Week post, I said that the season finale of “Heroes” couldn’t possibly live up to all of the hype.
Sometimes I really hate being right…
Warning: The remainder of this post contains details about last night’s season finale of “Heroes.”
The risk of getting involved with a serial show is that the payoff won’t be as good as you hoped and you’ll be left feeling ambivalent about the entire season and doubting whether or not you’ll watch the next season.
And that is definitely what happened for me last night with “Heroes”…
In the show’s defense, it would have been better if NBC had made the last two hours of the season a two-hour episode, but I’m not sure it could have helped that much. Most of the episode was all over the place with parts of it not even making good sense.
The most confusing part was Peter’s travel through time to when he first started caring for Simone’s father (They didn’t tell us how he did it.). He learned that Simone’s father was one of the original heroes (with Mrs. Petrelli and Linderman), but he was opposed to the bomb. Simone’s father told Peter that his heart would save the world. I immediately thought of that scene in “Ghostbusters II” when they make the Statue of Liberty walk to “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.” I couldn’t help but groan…
I needn’t have worried though because the scene really didn’t have anything to do with the rest of the show…
One of the qualities I have admired about “Heroes” all along is that it has tried to answer questions all along the way, and I admire them trying to wrap up everything in the finale, but it was all so “Quantum Leap”-ish that it was a huge disappointment…
After watching Nikki struggle with Jessica, her alter-ego, all season long, Nikki manages to get rid of her by punching Candice one time. And why did Jessica suddenly decide to help Nikki anyway? Talk about not making sense…
HRG was determined to destroy The Company’s tracking system, until Matt told him that no one was going to hurt Molly. He was willing to kill Mohinder, but Matt was able to convince him? And HRG didn’t realize before that he would need Molly to find Sylar? And what kind of name is Noah anyway? I’m sticking with HRG (If this was “Lost,” all the message boards would be explaining the biblical references.)…
Hiro went after Ando, against his father’s wishes (apparently Hiro’s dad was against the bomb), and saved him in one quick swoop, taking him back to Japan. This part of the journey he had to do alone, he told Ando. But what journey? It lasted all of about six seconds. He showed up in New York and stabbed Sylar once before Sylar sent him flying through the air (and through time, as it turned out). What was all of that training for?...
And how did Sylar, who had been a step ahead of everyone all season long suddenly let Hiro stab him? I sincerely hope this was just Sylar’s way of faking his death because otherwise, it just doesn’t work…
But what really didn’t work was the wrap-up to the whole bomb story. Throughout the entire episode we had to listen to Mrs. Petrelli tell everyone that the bomb was inevitable and that the world would be better off. If she was a man, she would have been twirling her mustache. I had some trouble going with the whole “the bomb will cleanse the country” story anyway (too 9/11 for me), but she just made it even more difficult.
The big Sylar-Peter showdown would have made the whole thing better, if it had ever happened. Instead we got just a few punches before Peter started going nuclear. I did think Sylar pushing the bullets back into Matt was pretty cool (even though I like Matt), but the rest of it was pretty lame. And last week Sylar was all excited to destroy the world, but this week he’s willing to stand by and let Peter do it?
HRG promised Peter that he would take him out if he couldn’t control Ted’s power, but, of course, Claire showed up like the cavalry to the rescue—only she couldn’t shoot Peter. And then who should show up but Nathan, who probably got as sick of listening to his mother as I did. “There is another way to end this,” he told Peter. But of course, that other way meant the death of Nathan, which I was completely opposed to, since he has become the coolest character on the show…
But no one asked me for my opinion, unfortunately, as Nathan would not be stopped. “You saved the cheerleader so we could save the world,” he told Peter, even though that phrase has absolutely no meaning now since saving Claire didn’t save the world (So I have no idea why the writers would have brought it back up.). Nathan grabbed Peter and flew off into space with him, where he exploded…
I really didn’t want to see “Heroes” continue the bomb story into next season because I was afraid it would go on forever like “Lost.” I should be careful what I ask for…
Because now there’s nothing left. I presume that Peter could come back, but Nathan is dead. Now that Jessica is gone, Nikki is just a mom with a powerful right hook and I never cared about D.L. or Micah. Mohinder will no doubt take Molly and search the world for more heroes, but will we care about them? And I’m thrilled that HRG lived, but what will he do now? Go back to being a father? That’s boring…
And then there’s Hiro. As Book Two began last night, we found Hiro in the 1600s with the Japanese warriors that had fascinated him as a kid. But do we really care about that either? Hiro was cute at first, but those constant subtitles just got annoying after a while. I would have much rather seen Nathan struggle to keep his secret safe while living in the public eye. And what was the purpose of having his wife walk again if they weren’t going to do anything with it?...
On second thought, since she’s played by Rena Sofer, never mind…
Last week, I told you that NBC had major plans for “Heroes.” I’m thinking they may have counted their chickens before they hatched. Now that the story people cared about is over, will they come back to the show? I, for one, am not sure that they will…
I’m not sure I will…
