Heroes #13:Duels/Dec.2008

Duels

Writers:Jeph Loeb

Stars: Dania Ramirez (Maya Herrera)
Jack Coleman (HRG/Noah Bennet)
Cristine Rose (Angela Petrelli)
James Kyson Lee (Ando Masahashi)
Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman)
Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura)
Sendhil Ramamurthy (Dr. Mohinder Suresh)
Ali Larter (Tracy Strauss)
Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet)
Zachary Quinto (Sylar/Gabriel Gray)
Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli)
Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli)

Recurring Role:Ntare Mwine (Usutu)
Robert Forster (Arthur Petrelli)
George Takei (Kaito Nakamura)
Brea Grant (Daphne Millbrook)
Jessalyn Gilsig (Meredith Gordon)
Jamie Hector (Benjamin 'Knox' Washington)
Blake Shields (Flint)

Guest Star: David H. Lawrence XVII (Eric Doyle)
Chad Faust (Scott)

I recognize all but the last name on the list. Do we know that character, Scott, from before? Or is that someone entirely new?

Also, no Ma Bennet or Lyle..

Ah well, we shall be seeing how this volume's show-down closes out.

Although, admitedly, I already know a couple spoilers from volume 4, so I have a vague idea of a couple things. But, not the exact particulars, so anyway should be fun to see ...

Appearantly Scott is the super soldier guy.

Is this on tonight? I thought last weeks episode was the last new one for awhile...

Phoenix8008 said:

Is this on tonight? I thought last weeks episode was the last new one for awhile...

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's on tonight. Tonight is the last episode of the volume.

After tonight, the next new episodes (and the start of volume 4: Fugitives) starts Feb 2

Phoenix8008 said:

Is this on tonight? I thought last weeks episode was the last new one for awhile...

Click to expand...

Nope. They only hyped last week's episode because they knew people were losing interest.

Real time commentary

[sblock]

9:00: Finally the pain will end

9:01: Mohinder's not narating. Off to a good start.

9:02: So the circumstances around Arthur got retconned. Not a good start.

9:03: And now for the magical Sylar. I can't wait for this to end.

9:05: Comercials and a thought. So far this episode does not seem to track with last episode. I hope I can make all 55 minutes.

9:08: Shooting doesn't work. Come on people.

9:10: Lets see how they mess with Hiro now.

9:11: If only Mohinder will die. They have reconned the super soldier as I predicted.

9:12: Just shoot hm and be done with it. Blue flame guy will do as well.

9 Scott was easy.

9:14: Cool, Ando the Ettin. If only.

9:15: So Hiro waits a long tiime to crawl back. Why?

9:16: Maybe past Hiro hasn't pissed off the writers.

9:17: Ooooo, Kinky Claire.

9:18: Boring. I don't care about Claire v. Sylar. And another fakeout.

9:19: Comercials and a thought. For a finale this has nothing to do with the last few episodes. This could almost be a Bobby Ewing is dead season.

9:23: Oh Great, Feed Sylar more powers.

9:23: That still makes Peter better than Mohinder.

9:24: Ando and the super passing out power. This at least holds what little promise there is.

9:25: Red Lightning, how surprising. Not! Doesn't Ando paw attention anymore?

9:26: Because Sylar needs manipulation Powers.

9:27: At least they have fewer powered to worry about.

9:28: When this is all over Claire and everyone else will be cheering.

9:30: Commercials and a thought. All Hiro has to do is fix the past and this can all go away. There is major cleanup required after this episode. If only I trusted the writers to actually make major changes. But no, the only speculation is how they will write a dues ex machina reset.

9:32: Nobody backs Peter. And boy is Nathan stupid.

9:33: At least one more pointless hero is dead.

9:34: So Ando's power is strange. Wow something new.

9:35: Fakeout proved. Ma Patrelli is one of the untouchables.

9:37: Bullet proof, but not flesh proof. That was stupid.

9:38: Comercials and a thought. Only 2 more acts to go. I hate to say it but this needs more time to play out properly. I am dreading the last minute fix coming.

9:42: This is eminately deniable. Come on Nathan. Plus fly supersonic and alibi given.

9:44: Ando and daphne. This could be interesting.

9:45: Masi Oka realy pissed off the writers.

9:46: Thats right give Hiro a chance to screw up again.

9:48: Peter hanging out with Mohinder sure does pick up his super-stupidity.

9:48: Huh?

9:49: Commercials and a thought. So what is the point of this episode? Only 10 minutes till the pain ends.

9:52: No Peter killed Arthur.

9:53: Please stop thiis pointlessness. If only they would kill Sylar.

9:55: At least Sylar isn't another Patrelli.

9:55: Yea, Claire.

9:56: What. Why is the building coming down? Why won't mom leave?

9:57: What a surprise. Not.

9:57: Why is Mohinder narrating again. Why do the writers love him and not Hiro.

9:58: The preview isn't bad at least.

[/sblock]

For finally ending I give it a 7/10. For the episode itself I give it a 3/10.

Edit: Edited in real time.

Retconned in the first five minutes!?!? My lord...

Overall I thought it was pretty good... I don't particularly have any complaints. Three stories, plenty of time for each one.

First off, the totally nitpicky thing out of the way first, so people can slam me on it. The bottom of a vacutainer (the tubes the formula was in) is blunt and pretty resistant to breakage. I know this because I was a med tech for a while, and had daily contact with them. I almost died laughing when Ando "stabbed" himself with one.

Daphne, Matt, and Ando are comedy gold. They have great chemistry together, and definitely need to be in more scenes with each other. Most of all I liked the actual thought put into the scene... Daphne's WTF as to time travel and Matt's sciency explanation.

Ando's power is neat, and it looks like wolff96 got his/her wish. However, god help them if they ever put Ando and Peter together. My hope is that Ando's power doesn't work on Peter, because it requires Peter to know the person.

I know in the beginning the producers said they weren't good at horror. I disagree, and point to the Sylar storyline here. Excellent acting by Coleman, Rose, and Gilsig. Christine Rose in particular deserves a lot of credit for a job well done.

Claire, on the other hand, sucked. Part of the problem IMO is that Hayden simply can not act badass enough for the stuff they're giving her. I think she's an okay actress, but the writers really need to write to her strengths. That said, I liked how she got revenge on Sylar in the end. She caught him monologuing. So Sylar is disabled but not dead... presumably he survived the fire and explosion.

Also, it's entirely possible Meredith and Flint (may as well throw him in here too) are both still alive. They can't be burned, and they may have survived building collapse. I'm not sure why HRG didn't knock her unconscious though - that presumably would have stopped her power in the same way it stopped Ted. That bugged me a bit.

Peter, again, way too trusting... but that's his character. He is the quintessential Lawful Good character on the show. I said to my friend after he injected the formula, "I hope we get a scene about how hypocritical that was." Did not disappoint.

I like Evil Nathan. I wish we had gotten more of a path from them being close to Nathan pulling a total 180. I mean, I see all the road signs, but they could have been linked together better. Specifically, I wanted to see a scene where Nathan is jealous Peter is still a hero even without his powers, let alone with the most powerful of abilities.

I knew as soon as Mohinder was doused in the formula he was cured.

I liked how they killed off a bunch of minor characters. I'm a little sad to see Knox go, as I thought he was the coolest of the actual villains, but it was a cool scene.

They acknowledged Micah! Always makes me happy. My guess as to the two hands we saw were Micah and Monica.

They do know how to make a promo, that's for sure. These last two episodes were, IMO, a good way back towards what I believe to be a good show. Hopefully they can keep it up.