Summer Plans, Heroes, and The O.C. Finale

[aciss]

Summer's coming, it seems; it's been getting hot these past two weeks (but not without occasional rain, of course, global warming style). My dad had been planning a family trip to Europe during the Easter holiday/Holy Week, but as my sister would have to miss her university graduation, he's scheduled a Cambodia (Siem Reap) - Vietnam (Saigon) - Thailand (Phuket) trip instead. My mom's still paranoid about going to Phuket, but my dad insists tourists have been coming in droves again and that it doesn't seem tsunamis will wash over the place again in the next couple of months.

I got around to catching up on most of my shows over the weekend. Heroes has been amazing these past few weeks. Prior to the most recent episode arc Brothers & Sisters was my favorite new show of the season, but now I'd say they're on equal footing. Truth be told I was really looking forward to following Peter and Isaac's story this week and was initially disappointed (but not surprised) to find a Claire-centric episode, but needless to say I actually enjoyed it. Thus far I've been apathetic towards H.R.G., but apparently an encounter with Matt Parkman and Ted the nuclear guy was all he needed to liven things up and make it one of the (three) best episodes of the season/series. There were quite a few great moments, to say at the least:

• Claud the Invisible Man's appearance, in which we realize why H.R.G. had said he was "supposed to be dead."
  
• Little Hiro's appearance playing video games at an early age! Hiro, Sr.'s apperance! H.R.G. thinking in Japanese! Global conspiracy!
  
• The moment where Claire demands that Matt shoot her. Which Matt does, of course. Great bit of acting there by both Greg Grunberg and Hayden Panettiere. (So Hayden actually knows how to act?!)
  
• Ted goes nuclear. And a heroic Claire gets in the house to neutralize him while getting her face burned along the way. Whee.
  
• Claire picks out her dad's awful glasses in a little father-daughter bonding moment.
  
• The Haitian shoots H.R.G., who requests that Haitian take Claire as far away as possible and erase any memory of her. This probably means H.R.G. will be forgetting how much he loved his daughter and how much he was willing to risk to protect her. (Misunderstood. Been watching too many espionage shows, apparently. Sorry.) "Right here. Two inches higher...I'm dead." Ah, the greyness of H.R.G. at its best. Beautiful scene that made me ugly and weepy. "I love you, Claire bear."

Also, I have a lot of filler episodes to catch up on, but it may be the only time I'll be saying this about any television show: The O.C.'s finale was probably easily the best episode of the series. Especially love how things ended up with the Cooper family, and the very last scene of the series, of course (predictable, but that doesn't make it any less touching). It's sad how this show had to end after it managed to rise from the ashes (the previous two seasons were dreadful, to put it kindly, and even season 1 made us deal with Oliver, a.k.a. one of the worst TV characters ever), but at least it got to exit as a great show (which is more than I could say for most others).

Should wash up and get to sleep early. It's almost March and I have yet to catch up on sleep.