A body in search of his soul
This time I wasn't distracted by spoilers of doom - though I still am, I'm following these developments like a hawk. Why do you ask? - but by the pretty, pretty pictures. I only wanted to take a few screencaps to make the review look more pretty and now I have lots of pretty pictures but not the energy to write a review.
Just a few quick thoughts and pictures. Did I mention pictures? *g*?:
There was a very interesting little titbit during the opening monologue. For those of you who tune out during these, here is what it said:
A broken vessel. An empty shell. What is a man without mind, without memory? A ghost, a body in search of his soul? With no compass to guide us, how can we know, if our destiny is to seek the good or ? the demons that whisper in our ear. The blank slate hungers to be written upon. The body thrives when the heart has a mission.
Now, we all know that Heroes attempts to be ~deep~ and lyrical with its opening monologues and montages but in this case I just hope there is a little more to it, maybe even a hint of future developments. During the first part we see Sylar examining his body which is self explanatory. But when it comes to this part:
...A ghost, a body in search of his soul?...
The camera sweeps over Nathan's cluttered, neglected desk and focuses on THE wedding picture on the word soul.
These little touches in addition to the constant jabs at Peter's cluelessness ("No, I haven't lost a brother." "No, Hiro. My life is fine, I don't need your help.") make me hopeful that they haven't completely forgotten about Nathan's death and the ramifications for Peter. But basing on the available episode descriptions, it looks like there will be absolutely no build up. As usual. *sigh*
My favorite scene was the opening with Peter and Hiro. I only realized some time later that these two characters have hardly interacted in their present incarnations. Can you remember the last thing they said to each other?
Present Peter and Hiro meet the first time at Kirby Plaza for a few minutes, they meet again in Powerless where Peter goes all Sylar on Hiro and they share some space in Fugitives. It's actually surprising that Peter considers Hiro a friend and goes through so much trouble to save him. But the best part? It didn't really matter because you instantly bought their friendship. From the moment we saw Peter sitting at Hiro's bedside through the night, the nice little touch when he hands him his glasses and the overall heart warming interaction during this scene. Perhaps Masi and Milo's friendship bled through their characters or we have seen so much past/present/future interaction that we just accept their friendship. Anyway, it worked for me. And that was some really old school S1 Peter right there.
Cuteness in pictures:
Like many of you I was a bit confused about Zach's portrayal of amnesiac Nathan/Sylar. After reading your reviews and rewatching it became more obvious that he was supposed to be amnesiac Nathan more so than Sylar or Gabriel but I didn't really got that from his performance. There were also these ~helpful little explanations of other character assessing the situation:
Lydia: "It's like there are two sides at war within him."
Well, that's awesome, Lydia. But can we see this war, please? Instead of just being told about it?
Overall I did enjoy watching Sylar at the carnival, though. After the neck breaking pace of Sylar!Nathan reverting back to Sylar, I honestly expected to see the old Sylar back by now. So, I was pleasantly surprised that they managed to maintain a little suspense. I can't help but wonder, how much more affecting it would have been to see Nathan realizing that he is Sylar instead of an amnesiac being confronted with his murderous past though.
Also, Nathan's small cameo when Sylar saw the jets flying over was a cool moment in motion but it looks freakishly creepy in pictures:
Ahhhhh. That's worse than these morph sites where you can morph babies or two celebrities. Or perhaps my horror stems from trying to imagine Nathan in purple flannel...
I enjoyed getting more insight into the carnival and different character relations within. For the first time they didn't feel like a set piece or plot device but like a group of characters with complicated histories in a living, breathing carnival. One thing that bugged me about Samuel was though that he didn't know Nathan. I mean, Sylar appeared with Peter and Claire on Lydias back. He knows who Bennet is, did his research on Peter and he doesn't make the connection between Sylar's Nathan babble and the Petrellis? He must have heard about him and the government operation at least.
Hiro and Emma: I really liked them together. Emma eases into the group seamlessly, Hiro appears to be less childlike without Ando and I just loved how these story lines intersected.
As for the dynamic duo also known as Team Bennet/Petrelli:
Yep, still awesome. Although they weren't given much time to interact this time around since their arc was very plot centric. I still can't decide whether I want to ship them or just enjoy their father/son/partner dynamic. I need more scenes to decide.
And this is for cadesama who complained about the lack of shirt rending and concern on Noah's part in the face of Peter's death.
Here: shirt rending.
(And it just occurred to me that we have seen so many of these character die in all kind of ways imaginable. We should make a death contest. Who suffered most beautifully? What was the goriest death? Which was the funniest? The most tragic? Who died like a pro? )
Where was I? Yes, Noah's lack of concern. But he was absolutely giddy to see Peter come back to life:
I mean, look at him? This is such an uncommon expression on his face.
There is also a club for Peter's wonderful, hysterical 'I'm alive!' laugh here: clsclub This is why I love fandom.
In conclusion: I liked the episode, even though it lost a bit of momentum during the last quarter.
And here is a quick fic rec: Baptisma Peter/Tracy, R. I was waiting for someone to explore Tracy's new powers in that way and this was deliciously kinky.