An Ode To Choice And Logic And Reason
Oh joy! Another Heroes rant! It's been barely a week since the last one!
So here's the deal. Some of you or may not know this, but I...am an econ major (dun-dun-dun). And while most people think that sort of thing is about money, or the way in which the world divides limited resources, or invisible hands (hee), to me, one of the best things about economics is how much choice is fundamental to it. I like to think of the world like that; it's all about choices, choices made by people weighing what they think are the costs and benefits of a situation, and for the most part, making decisions based on the best information they have available.
That's how I live my life; I make choices based on the best information I have. And sometimes, I'm as lazy as fuck (sometimes?) and don't do that much research on certain paths, to my own detriment, but for the most part, I like to think I make reasoned decisions.
And when it comes to Heroes, my dear show, the one that pulled me, kicking and screaming, into the wonderful, heartbreaking, tumultuous world of fandom (although, admittedly, it was mostly the folks over at peterandclaude that are responsible for enabling me), I like to think that I make a choice, perhaps weekly, but really, just about daily. That choice is: is it worth it?
Originally, before I had this little epiphany this morning, I thought that the choice was Should I care?. As in, should I really care about things like sloppy writing and continuity issues and the persistent lack of characters I love *grumble grumble grumble claude grumble*? It's just a tv show, after all! There's a real world out there to care about, real issues to get up in arms over! Real people dying for no reason, real women and real minorities being treated in a less than ideal manner and dismissed because they are not Petrellis! This is just entertainment! Not worth getting that upset over!
But this morning, I woke up, and had a moment of intense clarity: it doesn't matter if I should care, or not. Because I'm being a hypocrite: I always tell people, when they make arguments about whether you should do something, that that implies that there are incontrovertible rules set down by an unquestionable authority, who defines the values of should and should not. But this morning I came to realize it: it doesn't matter if I should care. The fact is, I do care.
The fact is, it upsets me: for whatever reason, for whatever components of my psyche and my education as somewhat a purveyor of literature (and who is to say television isn't literature? Plays are; films are; I think TV should definitely count, but that's the Low Artist in me), I do care about things like sloppy writing and continuity issues and the persistent absence of characters I like *grumble grumble grumble did i mention there was no claude this episode because garrr grumble*. I care enough that I genuinely do not feel much appreciation for the good things in an hour of television if they are surrounded by what I consider to be bad things.
Now, don't get me wrong: this episode had some great moments. Hiro with his mother? Touching. Wonderfully written and acted. Masi Oka and Tamlyn Tomita hit those scenes out of the park, and I loved how her power manifests: she's a gentle healer, and her kisses are what trigger it. Also love the irony of her being a healer, and not being able to heal herself, and the fact that they didn't beat us over the head with that. Thank you, writers, for that at least.
And Peter continues being the character I most care about, and most enjoy watching. He shot his dad! And yes, he struggled with it, and yes, that might be frustrating (especially after watching him randomly fire the machine gun in the last episode), but to me, both of those things make sense: it's much easier to wave a machine gun around wildly and, let's face it, mostly fire at the dirt, than it is to shoot your father at point-blank range.
Peter is the moral center of the show for me; Hiro is adorable, but in the end, his views on morality are very black and white, very comic book, and that's as it should be. I like there being those differences between the characters; it's a reminder that they're all human, they all had different upbringings, they all have different pasts. Claire is...well, the least said about Claire the better; she's a teenager, and her morality, such as it is, hinges on how things effect her. But again, she's the favorite teenaged daughter of overprotective, indulgent parents. None of that is exactly a shock.
But Peter, from his backstory, even if it's not always shown out-and-out on the show, had a father who defended mob members; a father who (we've come to learn) is a complete, utter bastard; a father he still cried for at his funeral, and a father he was still reluctant to kill. And you could call that weakness and stupidity (god knows other people have and will, and I might be one of them), but it's also a belief and an expectation that at the core, just because people do bad things, doesn't mean they are completely bad people.
And despite that belief, he can still recognize that some people are threats to all and need to be killed for the greater good; and unlike people like Angela and Arthur, he's not a hypocrite about that belief. The first person he's applied it to? Himself. Right at the end of the first season, he gave Claire the gun to shoot him if she needed to, and he made sure Noah agreed to do it if Claire couldn't.
So I'm liking Peter this season, now that the horrific hungerrrr storyline is over. I'm liking the choices he's had to make, and the way he's been written, for the most part. I'm liking that this is finally a character I'm feeling comfortable with writing, to the degree that I do, and I've been given more for my basis of why he's a decent person and worth writing about.
But these are...these are the minor things. The major things are the ones that pull me so far out of enjoying them that I begin to resent everyone and get grumbly.
Let's start backwards, because...well, because I just mentioned the Arthur shooting. Sylar showing up in the nick of time there? Hated it. That was Peter's moment. It was cheating Peter's moment. It's like...okay, here's the kind of thing that the writers were probably going for: Donna helping Ten push the button that would lead to the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii (and Herculaneum! Everyone always forgets poor Herculaneum). Two individuals, one a consummate pacifist (these days, at least), one a consummate human, with all the sappiness and sentimentality that comes with that (sorry Donna), deciding to share the burden of all those deaths with the understanding that it would save the rest of mankind. But y'know, Peter and Sylar are very much not Ten and Donna; I mean sure, one of them I tend to find kind of drippy on occasion and the other did go through a major personality reboot recently, but still. Not the same.
It's a cop-out, Sylar being the one to release the bullet (which, by the way: suspended in mid-air like that, I'm fairly sure it would've lost the force it would've needed to kill Arthur) and "really" do the deed is cheating. It's giving Peter that moment of decisiveness, without that responsibility for his actions. Killing a random stranger (which is what Arthur is to Sylar, apparently) is nothing to Sylar; he didn't do it because it was the right thing, he didn't do it to keep Peter from doing it (why would he care, really?), he did it because Arthur messed with him and, well...that's really about it.
Now, as to why he used the bullet, instead of oh, I don't know, the forehead slice and power grab? Drama!
And why, with the Haitian there, being all power supressy, he still managed to use his telekinesis? Drama!
And why, with the Haitian apparently incapacitated with exhaustion, as he must have been if Sylar could use his telekinesis, did Arthur not take advantage of the moment to use his frickin' powers to stop him? Drama!
Does this mean I'm not glad Arthur is dead? Aw, hell no! I'm doing the Dance of Joy, here! But the rest of that stuff (and that's just in this episode) is enough to put a serious damper on my enjoyment of it. Enough to do the Dance of Shame after, maybe. I'll see how I'm feeling.
The Hiro and Claire stuff? On the one hand: adorable! Their interactions with each other were brilliant and funny, and I'm a bit of a sucker for the "children go back in time and see their parents when they were younger and themselves when they were babies" trope. When it is done well, it can be aching and sweet and hilarious all at once (cf. Father's Day, and by the way, would it not have been the most awesome thing ever if, as Sandra was handing baby!Claire over to "Bonnie", Claude had burst in and yelled, "Don't touch the baby!" Yes. Yes it would've been.) When it is done badly, it can still be all of those things, while at the same time ridiculously infuriating to the point of making me hate even the good moments.
Can you guess which I thought this episode was? Good for you. Ignoring the utter lack of Eccleston, which significantly decreases the rating I will give any flashback episode, and the reasons why that scene in the greenhouse made no sense in terms of blocking and who would've heard what when, and the fact that the timelines are off, which I figured since the end of the last episode (according to this episode, the roof scene was sixteen years ago; according to the Company Man transcript, it was fourteen years ago; according to Matt Parkman, in this very episode, the events of S1 took place "last year"; something's off, and not just the age of Baby Claire) the whole thing was just so...so...convenient, simple, and, frankly, kind of flat.
Even things that were a surprise were not a surprise in that, "Ah HA!" way that Claude showing up as Bennet's partner in Company Man were. The things that were a surprise were done purely for plot purposes; the Nakamura's in the Deveaux building, apparently living with Charles? Or visiting Charles? Or there, before Charles? Or...something? Does anyone know? Do the writers know? Or was it just: oh, well, we need some touching moments between Hiro and his mom, we can't have 10 Year Old Hiro wandering the streets, so whatever, they're in the rooms attached to the roof, because no one will notice why that's the sort of thing that could be significant and interesting, if we were doing our jobs.
Same with the Bennets in Peter's apartment; first of all, Bennet's living in NYC? WTF? I mean, okay, thinking back on it: Thompson's office in Company Man was definitely not in the Primatech Odessa building we know and love, as there's a model of said building in his office in the "Brave New World" scene. So it's not impossible that Bennet worked in NYC, at the Primatch Upstate New York facility, at least in the beginning, and moved into the big-ass McMansion we definitely saw in Company Man, which happened right about when Claire was adopted, if the line "I know, I know. The baby's been keeping me up for days" is any indication. But...we don't actually get any kind of reveal in that. We don't even actually get a reveal on it being Peter's apartment; the sets are clearly the same, but the numbers aren't there (thank you englishmuffin2, for being as anal about it as I, and checking), which means we're not even sure if it's meant to be the same apartment or not.
Which, on the one hand, okay: you're on a budget. It's difficult to build an entire new apartment set. Peter's apartment hasn't been used in weeks, and probably won't be used again in a while. Throw some paint on it, bam-bam, you're done, Bennet living quarters in NYC.
But on the other hand: you know what kind of viewers you have. The kind with TiVos at the least, the kind of obsession with details to hunt down screencaps and watch online and discuss things at length at the most. You seriously think no one's going to catch that? Thousands of people caught the fact that Peter was listed as female on his passport, and that was on screen for a like a second! So if you know this about your viewers, who are already kind of pissy about how you've been treating their intelligence, why not invest a little time and creativity to at least...at least reference the fact that it is Peter's apartment? So we know for sure if it's meant to be intentional? Or if not: could you maybe do a little more work to hide that it's the same set? Shoot at angles that make it not so obvious? No? All right then.
And while I liked the whole Hiro and his mother thing, and while I was actually pretty bang-up fond of Claire and her mom and herself for a while there, the minute Bennet came back it all went to hell for me.
I mean, ignoring the facts of: wow, Bennet sure convinced Sandra that that baby he suddenly showed up with was legally adopted and wow, Sandra sure came around to her quite quickly and wow, it was so quickly that she's already out of the apartment with her and coming back, and wow, where the hell did Bennet go in the interim, and wow, Claire must have some mad skillz in figuring out where her parents are living without having followed anyone there...ignoring all of that, because I know the reason for it: because the writers went, "Wouldn't it be cool if instead of HRG right away Claire found her mom and then we could get Ashley looking young and pretty and her and Claire could bond and be womanly together and there would also be a baby, aww, who doesn't love babies?"
Ignoring all of that: Bennet, the Company Man, the one who's just had this baby foisted on him, that he didn't want, comes home to a strange blonde girl chatting with his wife and hovering around said baby and reasonably enough, freaks about it. But then, this girl randomly starts in on a vaguely Terminator-esque bit about how he's got to keep that baby safe because it will save mankind it will be turned into a catalyst, and that they'll love each other, and he'll be a great dad, and blah blah blah, and he believes her.
Just...does. Because...the Company doesn't do jacked-up shit like that to its employees to test their loyalty. Or anything. And he decides not to answer the phone, and he decides not to bring Claire in, and Claire (who when we last saw her with her dad, was phenomenally pissed off at him, but okay, she did see the tail end of a conversation where he had a baby thrust in his arms that he quite adamantly said he didn't want to take care of, so I'm sure that healed all her resentments, and that she will never again make the pouty face when he chooses to be badass Company!Bennet) gets a nice Noah side-smile out of the deal, and all is well because he didn't bring her in.
Except. Except! Here's what I'm going to call the main problem with all of this. I was bitching about them retconning Claude out of the roof scene which, you know, understandable. They couldn't get CE back, and as much as that hurts, and makes me grumpy, I get it; you work around what you can get. It's fine. What really, really gets me steamed is: they've retconned Claude's role in Bennet's life.
Because it's now Claire that made Bennet into a good daddy, by showing up and telling him he would be. It's Claire that points out he's trying so hard not to get attached because he's got to bring the baby back (which, by the way, is crap: they've had that baby for about half a day, at most, and he hasn't even been around all that long; the only thing Bennet is worried about is the crazy time traveling robot in his apartment). It's Claire that makes him think a bit beyond his Company Man persona, and to come to realize how much more important his family is.
None of which actually happened 14/16 years ago. All of which only happened after Bennet shot Claude, all of which only happened after that admittedly touching scene with young Claire and the glasses. That's the point of the freaking HRGs, isn't it? The whole point of Company Man, the best episode, probably, the show has ever done. The failure of his ability to separate his family life from his work life, and the tragic consequences of that.
But no. Lets ignore all that. All of that buildup, all of that character development. Let's make it goddamn Claire and her time-traveling hijinks that save the day.
And we do have to ignore all that. This episode nullifies (given the conception of time travel, to the past, means that these things that we watch happen, have already happened, as they are in the past, which I believe is the conception we're going with, these days, although: time travel sucks as a narrative device, for this very reason) the most effecting parts of Company Man, in my view.
CLAUDE: Sorry. I mean, I know we're serving the greater good, but the vivisection started to keep me up at night. Seeing as you're raising one of us as you're own, I was hoping for a bit more sympathy.
MR. BENNET: Claire's not one of you.
CLAUDE: Not yet. But one day maybe. And don't tell me you haven't thought about it.
MR. BENNET: If she is, then they'll take her. It's done.
And...
MR. BENNET: Who is it?
CLAUDE: And what if it was Claire? That's why you're so distant from her. You know you're going to turn her in. You're preparing for it.
MR. BENNET: You used to believe in what we do.
Uh-huh. Definitely the actions of a man who's been inspired to care and love and protect his daughter above his loyalty to the Company, because she went back in time to tell him to. Definitely.
And see, why this kills me? Why I really, really hate it? Because it didn't have to be this way. A few minutes of thought, a bit of more careful writing, excising Bennet from the apartment scene, and it would've worked 10x better. Because: I can fanwank Sandra not remembering random babysitter "Bonnie" better than I can fanwank Bennet not showing any signs of recognizing that his daughter is growing to look a lot like the Girl From the Future With a Very Important Message. Same as I can fanwank Kaito Nakamura very easily not remembering the weird, random new chef that his wife became oddly attached to. Before she died.
Actually, if I were writing this episode, it'd be a bit more Christmas Carol-ish: time jump to the roof scene, which...valuable for Claire to see. Immediately after that, time jump to a few months (or even years) later, when you could really see Bennet struggling with his connecting with and loving or not loving Claire, after a time where it made sense for that to be an issue. It'd still be best if they didn't directly interact. Because while I understand why Claire thought it was necessary to tell her dad to love her (because it's all about her, for Claire, and always will be), it was not necessary for her to be put in the situation where she had the opportunity to do so. It was not necessary to the point of it screwing with events and moments we know and love and see as subtly significant, as opposed to overblown and overdramatic and lame.
And I'm not even going to get into my issues with Sylar, and the "is-he-evil-is-he-not-is-he-just-a-wobby-that-needs-love-oh-no-now-he's-evil" stuff. Or how sick I am of him cutting into people's heads to steal their powers. Yes show, I understand, you like the little quips, and the dark humor, and ZQ seems to be having a heckuva good time hamming it up for those moments. I don't enjoy it, but then again, I haven't since season one, when Heroes was the kind of show where you were willing to put up with a storylines you didn't enjoy so much in anticipation for the ones you did, until you could get the DVDs and skip ahead to the good parts, so I'm not going to bother much with him. I'm just going to conclude this whole, gigantic rant of epicness with a bit of a random anecdote.
There's this really hilarious scene from A Might Wind, which may or may not be a movie you've seen. It's about a bunch of folk groups from, like, the 60s that come together to perform a PBS live show or some such, the plot isn't really that important. But there's this scene where the wacky PBS producer of the show is talking to the guys shooting the concert (on the day of), and he's talking about how, "Wouldn't it be cool if we got a crane shot to swoop in, like over the audience?" And the camera control guy is like, "Yeah. It would be cool. We don't have a crane." And the producer says, yet again, "But wouldn't it be cool?" And the camera control guy, placid and no-nonsense sort that he is, is just like, "Uh-huh. It would be," and goes on doing his job. I may have paraphrased. But that's the gist.
And the feeling I get with Heroes these days, is that there's a whole lot of those, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" moments going on in the writers' room. A lot of, "This would be an awesome scene! Claire and Hiro go back in time to the Roof Scene that everyone loved way back in S1, and awesome things happen with their respective families, and we make Hiro's mom a healer, to fix the 10 Year Old Hiro business, and it'll be awesome!" And the problem is, there's no one around to go, "It would be awesome. But we don't have a crane. Or the canon foundations necessary for such a scene." And so they just go off and write that scene and do some random, half-assed storylines leading up to that scene, and throw it at us, like we're supposed to be impressed by how awesome it is. Like the Sylar/Elle match up: once they were actually together, and Elle went back to being Crazy Putty, I could see the appeal of the whole Bonnie-and-Clyde thing they had going. Didn't enjoy it, but hey, I hate Sylar, I don't have to, and I'm not going to begrudge people who like him enjoying him. Much, anyway. But to get to that point? What the hell, show?
Which is why I, whiny fangirl that I am, writer of a considerable amount of fanfiction, get just a little bit pissy. Because sure. I would really freakin' love to write some things, sometimes. I would really freakin' love to forget certain storylines happened, to ignore certain aspects of people's characterizations. But I don't do that. Because the point of fanfiction (in my mind) is to use the foundations your source material provides you, and build on them to create something that satisfies your desire for...angsty man porn. Or adorable scenes of temporary bliss. Or happily ever afters that are made all the more poignant by the horrible things that have come before them. Whatever. But I do not get to ignore things about canon that I do not like without a very good reason for it (or else just slapping the label of "Crack!fic" on it, and going nuts), or else I get ranted on on fanficrants. And when I have more respect and interest in maintaining consistent characterizations and not giving in to the temptation to just write whatever the hell I want, screw the actual plot than the real writers seem to...that is not okay, guys. Not okay at all.
And how does this all come down to the aforementioned (ages ago! Ages and ages and ages ago) life philosophy of always having a choice? Because the fact is, I'm gonna keep watching this show. I've made that choice. Over and over and over. I'm going to keep watching the show that pisses me off enough to go into these kind of tirades over things, I'm going to keep watching this show that I only really enjoy about seven minutes of, on average, per episode.
Why am I going to do this, although it causes me considerable mental anguish? You all. Seriously. The people I squee with and share fanfiction with and who enable my obsession with certain characters *grumble did I mention not even a mention of him not even that much garrrr grumble* and my horrible tendency to over-analyze plot points like this was freakin' English Lit worthy. So thanks flist. You are worth it, the rage I work myself up into. Doesn't that make you feel happy?
Oh, and CE might come back. You know. Someday. So I want to be there for that. *floats off on raft...of denial*
*
So here's the deal. Some of you or may not know this, but I...am an econ major (dun-dun-dun). And while most people think that sort of thing is about money, or the way in which the world divides limited resources, or invisible hands (hee), to me, one of the best things about economics is how much choice is fundamental to it. I like to think of the world like that; it's all about choices, choices made by people weighing what they think are the costs and benefits of a situation, and for the most part, making decisions based on the best information they have available.
That's how I live my life; I make choices based on the best information I have. And sometimes, I'm as lazy as fuck (sometimes?) and don't do that much research on certain paths, to my own detriment, but for the most part, I like to think I make reasoned decisions.
And when it comes to Heroes, my dear show, the one that pulled me, kicking and screaming, into the wonderful, heartbreaking, tumultuous world of fandom (although, admittedly, it was mostly the folks over at peterandclaude that are responsible for enabling me), I like to think that I make a choice, perhaps weekly, but really, just about daily. That choice is: is it worth it?
Originally, before I had this little epiphany this morning, I thought that the choice was Should I care?. As in, should I really care about things like sloppy writing and continuity issues and the persistent lack of characters I love *grumble grumble grumble claude grumble*? It's just a tv show, after all! There's a real world out there to care about, real issues to get up in arms over! Real people dying for no reason, real women and real minorities being treated in a less than ideal manner and dismissed because they are not Petrellis! This is just entertainment! Not worth getting that upset over!
But this morning, I woke up, and had a moment of intense clarity: it doesn't matter if I should care, or not. Because I'm being a hypocrite: I always tell people, when they make arguments about whether you should do something, that that implies that there are incontrovertible rules set down by an unquestionable authority, who defines the values of should and should not. But this morning I came to realize it: it doesn't matter if I should care. The fact is, I do care.
The fact is, it upsets me: for whatever reason, for whatever components of my psyche and my education as somewhat a purveyor of literature (and who is to say television isn't literature? Plays are; films are; I think TV should definitely count, but that's the Low Artist in me), I do care about things like sloppy writing and continuity issues and the persistent absence of characters I like *grumble grumble grumble did i mention there was no claude this episode because garrr grumble*. I care enough that I genuinely do not feel much appreciation for the good things in an hour of television if they are surrounded by what I consider to be bad things.
Now, don't get me wrong: this episode had some great moments. Hiro with his mother? Touching. Wonderfully written and acted. Masi Oka and Tamlyn Tomita hit those scenes out of the park, and I loved how her power manifests: she's a gentle healer, and her kisses are what trigger it. Also love the irony of her being a healer, and not being able to heal herself, and the fact that they didn't beat us over the head with that. Thank you, writers, for that at least.
And Peter continues being the character I most care about, and most enjoy watching. He shot his dad! And yes, he struggled with it, and yes, that might be frustrating (especially after watching him randomly fire the machine gun in the last episode), but to me, both of those things make sense: it's much easier to wave a machine gun around wildly and, let's face it, mostly fire at the dirt, than it is to shoot your father at point-blank range.
Peter is the moral center of the show for me; Hiro is adorable, but in the end, his views on morality are very black and white, very comic book, and that's as it should be. I like there being those differences between the characters; it's a reminder that they're all human, they all had different upbringings, they all have different pasts. Claire is...well, the least said about Claire the better; she's a teenager, and her morality, such as it is, hinges on how things effect her. But again, she's the favorite teenaged daughter of overprotective, indulgent parents. None of that is exactly a shock.
But Peter, from his backstory, even if it's not always shown out-and-out on the show, had a father who defended mob members; a father who (we've come to learn) is a complete, utter bastard; a father he still cried for at his funeral, and a father he was still reluctant to kill. And you could call that weakness and stupidity (god knows other people have and will, and I might be one of them), but it's also a belief and an expectation that at the core, just because people do bad things, doesn't mean they are completely bad people.
And despite that belief, he can still recognize that some people are threats to all and need to be killed for the greater good; and unlike people like Angela and Arthur, he's not a hypocrite about that belief. The first person he's applied it to? Himself. Right at the end of the first season, he gave Claire the gun to shoot him if she needed to, and he made sure Noah agreed to do it if Claire couldn't.
So I'm liking Peter this season, now that the horrific hungerrrr storyline is over. I'm liking the choices he's had to make, and the way he's been written, for the most part. I'm liking that this is finally a character I'm feeling comfortable with writing, to the degree that I do, and I've been given more for my basis of why he's a decent person and worth writing about.
But these are...these are the minor things. The major things are the ones that pull me so far out of enjoying them that I begin to resent everyone and get grumbly.
Let's start backwards, because...well, because I just mentioned the Arthur shooting. Sylar showing up in the nick of time there? Hated it. That was Peter's moment. It was cheating Peter's moment. It's like...okay, here's the kind of thing that the writers were probably going for: Donna helping Ten push the button that would lead to the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii (and Herculaneum! Everyone always forgets poor Herculaneum). Two individuals, one a consummate pacifist (these days, at least), one a consummate human, with all the sappiness and sentimentality that comes with that (sorry Donna), deciding to share the burden of all those deaths with the understanding that it would save the rest of mankind. But y'know, Peter and Sylar are very much not Ten and Donna; I mean sure, one of them I tend to find kind of drippy on occasion and the other did go through a major personality reboot recently, but still. Not the same.
It's a cop-out, Sylar being the one to release the bullet (which, by the way: suspended in mid-air like that, I'm fairly sure it would've lost the force it would've needed to kill Arthur) and "really" do the deed is cheating. It's giving Peter that moment of decisiveness, without that responsibility for his actions. Killing a random stranger (which is what Arthur is to Sylar, apparently) is nothing to Sylar; he didn't do it because it was the right thing, he didn't do it to keep Peter from doing it (why would he care, really?), he did it because Arthur messed with him and, well...that's really about it.
Now, as to why he used the bullet, instead of oh, I don't know, the forehead slice and power grab? Drama!
And why, with the Haitian there, being all power supressy, he still managed to use his telekinesis? Drama!
And why, with the Haitian apparently incapacitated with exhaustion, as he must have been if Sylar could use his telekinesis, did Arthur not take advantage of the moment to use his frickin' powers to stop him? Drama!
Does this mean I'm not glad Arthur is dead? Aw, hell no! I'm doing the Dance of Joy, here! But the rest of that stuff (and that's just in this episode) is enough to put a serious damper on my enjoyment of it. Enough to do the Dance of Shame after, maybe. I'll see how I'm feeling.
The Hiro and Claire stuff? On the one hand: adorable! Their interactions with each other were brilliant and funny, and I'm a bit of a sucker for the "children go back in time and see their parents when they were younger and themselves when they were babies" trope. When it is done well, it can be aching and sweet and hilarious all at once (cf. Father's Day, and by the way, would it not have been the most awesome thing ever if, as Sandra was handing baby!Claire over to "Bonnie", Claude had burst in and yelled, "Don't touch the baby!" Yes. Yes it would've been.) When it is done badly, it can still be all of those things, while at the same time ridiculously infuriating to the point of making me hate even the good moments.
Can you guess which I thought this episode was? Good for you. Ignoring the utter lack of Eccleston, which significantly decreases the rating I will give any flashback episode, and the reasons why that scene in the greenhouse made no sense in terms of blocking and who would've heard what when, and the fact that the timelines are off, which I figured since the end of the last episode (according to this episode, the roof scene was sixteen years ago; according to the Company Man transcript, it was fourteen years ago; according to Matt Parkman, in this very episode, the events of S1 took place "last year"; something's off, and not just the age of Baby Claire) the whole thing was just so...so...convenient, simple, and, frankly, kind of flat.
Even things that were a surprise were not a surprise in that, "Ah HA!" way that Claude showing up as Bennet's partner in Company Man were. The things that were a surprise were done purely for plot purposes; the Nakamura's in the Deveaux building, apparently living with Charles? Or visiting Charles? Or there, before Charles? Or...something? Does anyone know? Do the writers know? Or was it just: oh, well, we need some touching moments between Hiro and his mom, we can't have 10 Year Old Hiro wandering the streets, so whatever, they're in the rooms attached to the roof, because no one will notice why that's the sort of thing that could be significant and interesting, if we were doing our jobs.
Same with the Bennets in Peter's apartment; first of all, Bennet's living in NYC? WTF? I mean, okay, thinking back on it: Thompson's office in Company Man was definitely not in the Primatech Odessa building we know and love, as there's a model of said building in his office in the "Brave New World" scene. So it's not impossible that Bennet worked in NYC, at the Primatch Upstate New York facility, at least in the beginning, and moved into the big-ass McMansion we definitely saw in Company Man, which happened right about when Claire was adopted, if the line "I know, I know. The baby's been keeping me up for days" is any indication. But...we don't actually get any kind of reveal in that. We don't even actually get a reveal on it being Peter's apartment; the sets are clearly the same, but the numbers aren't there (thank you englishmuffin2, for being as anal about it as I, and checking), which means we're not even sure if it's meant to be the same apartment or not.
Which, on the one hand, okay: you're on a budget. It's difficult to build an entire new apartment set. Peter's apartment hasn't been used in weeks, and probably won't be used again in a while. Throw some paint on it, bam-bam, you're done, Bennet living quarters in NYC.
But on the other hand: you know what kind of viewers you have. The kind with TiVos at the least, the kind of obsession with details to hunt down screencaps and watch online and discuss things at length at the most. You seriously think no one's going to catch that? Thousands of people caught the fact that Peter was listed as female on his passport, and that was on screen for a like a second! So if you know this about your viewers, who are already kind of pissy about how you've been treating their intelligence, why not invest a little time and creativity to at least...at least reference the fact that it is Peter's apartment? So we know for sure if it's meant to be intentional? Or if not: could you maybe do a little more work to hide that it's the same set? Shoot at angles that make it not so obvious? No? All right then.
And while I liked the whole Hiro and his mother thing, and while I was actually pretty bang-up fond of Claire and her mom and herself for a while there, the minute Bennet came back it all went to hell for me.
I mean, ignoring the facts of: wow, Bennet sure convinced Sandra that that baby he suddenly showed up with was legally adopted and wow, Sandra sure came around to her quite quickly and wow, it was so quickly that she's already out of the apartment with her and coming back, and wow, where the hell did Bennet go in the interim, and wow, Claire must have some mad skillz in figuring out where her parents are living without having followed anyone there...ignoring all of that, because I know the reason for it: because the writers went, "Wouldn't it be cool if instead of HRG right away Claire found her mom and then we could get Ashley looking young and pretty and her and Claire could bond and be womanly together and there would also be a baby, aww, who doesn't love babies?"
Ignoring all of that: Bennet, the Company Man, the one who's just had this baby foisted on him, that he didn't want, comes home to a strange blonde girl chatting with his wife and hovering around said baby and reasonably enough, freaks about it. But then, this girl randomly starts in on a vaguely Terminator-esque bit about how he's got to keep that baby safe because it will save mankind it will be turned into a catalyst, and that they'll love each other, and he'll be a great dad, and blah blah blah, and he believes her.
Just...does. Because...the Company doesn't do jacked-up shit like that to its employees to test their loyalty. Or anything. And he decides not to answer the phone, and he decides not to bring Claire in, and Claire (who when we last saw her with her dad, was phenomenally pissed off at him, but okay, she did see the tail end of a conversation where he had a baby thrust in his arms that he quite adamantly said he didn't want to take care of, so I'm sure that healed all her resentments, and that she will never again make the pouty face when he chooses to be badass Company!Bennet) gets a nice Noah side-smile out of the deal, and all is well because he didn't bring her in.
Except. Except! Here's what I'm going to call the main problem with all of this. I was bitching about them retconning Claude out of the roof scene which, you know, understandable. They couldn't get CE back, and as much as that hurts, and makes me grumpy, I get it; you work around what you can get. It's fine. What really, really gets me steamed is: they've retconned Claude's role in Bennet's life.
Because it's now Claire that made Bennet into a good daddy, by showing up and telling him he would be. It's Claire that points out he's trying so hard not to get attached because he's got to bring the baby back (which, by the way, is crap: they've had that baby for about half a day, at most, and he hasn't even been around all that long; the only thing Bennet is worried about is the crazy time traveling robot in his apartment). It's Claire that makes him think a bit beyond his Company Man persona, and to come to realize how much more important his family is.
None of which actually happened 14/16 years ago. All of which only happened after Bennet shot Claude, all of which only happened after that admittedly touching scene with young Claire and the glasses. That's the point of the freaking HRGs, isn't it? The whole point of Company Man, the best episode, probably, the show has ever done. The failure of his ability to separate his family life from his work life, and the tragic consequences of that.
But no. Lets ignore all that. All of that buildup, all of that character development. Let's make it goddamn Claire and her time-traveling hijinks that save the day.
And we do have to ignore all that. This episode nullifies (given the conception of time travel, to the past, means that these things that we watch happen, have already happened, as they are in the past, which I believe is the conception we're going with, these days, although: time travel sucks as a narrative device, for this very reason) the most effecting parts of Company Man, in my view.
CLAUDE: Sorry. I mean, I know we're serving the greater good, but the vivisection started to keep me up at night. Seeing as you're raising one of us as you're own, I was hoping for a bit more sympathy.
MR. BENNET: Claire's not one of you.
CLAUDE: Not yet. But one day maybe. And don't tell me you haven't thought about it.
MR. BENNET: If she is, then they'll take her. It's done.
And...
MR. BENNET: Who is it?
CLAUDE: And what if it was Claire? That's why you're so distant from her. You know you're going to turn her in. You're preparing for it.
MR. BENNET: You used to believe in what we do.
Uh-huh. Definitely the actions of a man who's been inspired to care and love and protect his daughter above his loyalty to the Company, because she went back in time to tell him to. Definitely.
And see, why this kills me? Why I really, really hate it? Because it didn't have to be this way. A few minutes of thought, a bit of more careful writing, excising Bennet from the apartment scene, and it would've worked 10x better. Because: I can fanwank Sandra not remembering random babysitter "Bonnie" better than I can fanwank Bennet not showing any signs of recognizing that his daughter is growing to look a lot like the Girl From the Future With a Very Important Message. Same as I can fanwank Kaito Nakamura very easily not remembering the weird, random new chef that his wife became oddly attached to. Before she died.
Actually, if I were writing this episode, it'd be a bit more Christmas Carol-ish: time jump to the roof scene, which...valuable for Claire to see. Immediately after that, time jump to a few months (or even years) later, when you could really see Bennet struggling with his connecting with and loving or not loving Claire, after a time where it made sense for that to be an issue. It'd still be best if they didn't directly interact. Because while I understand why Claire thought it was necessary to tell her dad to love her (because it's all about her, for Claire, and always will be), it was not necessary for her to be put in the situation where she had the opportunity to do so. It was not necessary to the point of it screwing with events and moments we know and love and see as subtly significant, as opposed to overblown and overdramatic and lame.
And I'm not even going to get into my issues with Sylar, and the "is-he-evil-is-he-not-is-he-just-a-wobby-that-needs-love-oh-no-now-he's-evil" stuff. Or how sick I am of him cutting into people's heads to steal their powers. Yes show, I understand, you like the little quips, and the dark humor, and ZQ seems to be having a heckuva good time hamming it up for those moments. I don't enjoy it, but then again, I haven't since season one, when Heroes was the kind of show where you were willing to put up with a storylines you didn't enjoy so much in anticipation for the ones you did, until you could get the DVDs and skip ahead to the good parts, so I'm not going to bother much with him. I'm just going to conclude this whole, gigantic rant of epicness with a bit of a random anecdote.
There's this really hilarious scene from A Might Wind, which may or may not be a movie you've seen. It's about a bunch of folk groups from, like, the 60s that come together to perform a PBS live show or some such, the plot isn't really that important. But there's this scene where the wacky PBS producer of the show is talking to the guys shooting the concert (on the day of), and he's talking about how, "Wouldn't it be cool if we got a crane shot to swoop in, like over the audience?" And the camera control guy is like, "Yeah. It would be cool. We don't have a crane." And the producer says, yet again, "But wouldn't it be cool?" And the camera control guy, placid and no-nonsense sort that he is, is just like, "Uh-huh. It would be," and goes on doing his job. I may have paraphrased. But that's the gist.
And the feeling I get with Heroes these days, is that there's a whole lot of those, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" moments going on in the writers' room. A lot of, "This would be an awesome scene! Claire and Hiro go back in time to the Roof Scene that everyone loved way back in S1, and awesome things happen with their respective families, and we make Hiro's mom a healer, to fix the 10 Year Old Hiro business, and it'll be awesome!" And the problem is, there's no one around to go, "It would be awesome. But we don't have a crane. Or the canon foundations necessary for such a scene." And so they just go off and write that scene and do some random, half-assed storylines leading up to that scene, and throw it at us, like we're supposed to be impressed by how awesome it is. Like the Sylar/Elle match up: once they were actually together, and Elle went back to being Crazy Putty, I could see the appeal of the whole Bonnie-and-Clyde thing they had going. Didn't enjoy it, but hey, I hate Sylar, I don't have to, and I'm not going to begrudge people who like him enjoying him. Much, anyway. But to get to that point? What the hell, show?
Which is why I, whiny fangirl that I am, writer of a considerable amount of fanfiction, get just a little bit pissy. Because sure. I would really freakin' love to write some things, sometimes. I would really freakin' love to forget certain storylines happened, to ignore certain aspects of people's characterizations. But I don't do that. Because the point of fanfiction (in my mind) is to use the foundations your source material provides you, and build on them to create something that satisfies your desire for...angsty man porn. Or adorable scenes of temporary bliss. Or happily ever afters that are made all the more poignant by the horrible things that have come before them. Whatever. But I do not get to ignore things about canon that I do not like without a very good reason for it (or else just slapping the label of "Crack!fic" on it, and going nuts), or else I get ranted on on fanficrants. And when I have more respect and interest in maintaining consistent characterizations and not giving in to the temptation to just write whatever the hell I want, screw the actual plot than the real writers seem to...that is not okay, guys. Not okay at all.
And how does this all come down to the aforementioned (ages ago! Ages and ages and ages ago) life philosophy of always having a choice? Because the fact is, I'm gonna keep watching this show. I've made that choice. Over and over and over. I'm going to keep watching the show that pisses me off enough to go into these kind of tirades over things, I'm going to keep watching this show that I only really enjoy about seven minutes of, on average, per episode.
Why am I going to do this, although it causes me considerable mental anguish? You all. Seriously. The people I squee with and share fanfiction with and who enable my obsession with certain characters *grumble did I mention not even a mention of him not even that much garrrr grumble* and my horrible tendency to over-analyze plot points like this was freakin' English Lit worthy. So thanks flist. You are worth it, the rage I work myself up into. Doesn't that make you feel happy?
Oh, and CE might come back. You know. Someday. So I want to be there for that. *floats off on raft...of denial*
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