So, that ending. The final episode of Heroes. I finished watching it early hours of Monday morning and last couple of nights I’ve been too tired to report back.
(Oh and NEW BLOG! but that’s probably another post)
Well, there are two questions to answer about the final episode, does it avoid my so-called “Lost trap”? and is it any good?
However, before I get to those, since the main place I advertise my blog is SoF, and since many there are still watching Heroes (it just started on the BBC), I’ll do the decent thing. Only click on the ‘more’ link if you either already know, or don’t mind finding out what happened.
So. The “Lost trap”, turning a great, plot-heavy, multi-charactered, high-production values, show into a shaggy dog story such that you begin to tire of it because you realise you’re never really getting anywhere. Specifically I said kill the bad guy and start a new story. So did they?
Yes. Pretty much. It was an ending. The climax we’ve been building to – does New York get blown up? – was resolved and a face off occurred with the bad guy. Sylar died, I think. Of course last we saw there was a trail of blood and an open sewer grate where his body should’ve been. So they could bring him back. However near the end we had Molly tell Bennet, Parkman and Suresh that there’s someone worse, someone who can see her when she ‘finds’ them. Someone, crucially, who is not Sylar.
My theory is that that’s the new bad guy and that Sylar’s still in it to either prove how badass the new guy is[1] or he’s actually dead but someone’s sucking on his brain.[2]
Either way, there’s resolution and an ongoing story. I feared we might get an ending where Sylar gets away and the detonation thing was put off until next season.
So that’s good. But was the episode any good?
Hmm. Yes, not bad. I wouldn’t say it was the best of the season. And given that the threat was so huge the actual showdown could’ve been bigger. The brotherly love thing was ok – could’ve been so much soppier. And the story had become a little convoluted but not more than they’d earned. (plus I did watch the whole thing in a weekend which kind of amplifies that effect.) If I have one criticism it’s that there were too many people who’s destiny was to effect Sylar’s downfall – Hiro had to run him through, Claire had to be alive, Peter had to not blow up. There was a lot of that. It would have been “cleaner” if there was just one person, have the others help upto that point but finally it be one person who is the ‘Hero’.
And I’d thought it was going to be Hiro. Or possibly Peter Petrelli (who gets to play Neo in the five years hence episode).
But that was ok. It’s fine to have it be an ensemble victory on what is an ensemble show – but maybe they should have played down some of the only you can save mankind in various storylines.
But that really is a niggle. It was fun.
At some point I’ll do a review of the season as a whole perhaps.
[1]”Generally speaking, when scary things get scared, not good” as Xander once said.
[2] Was it brain sucking? We never really found out how Sylar transferred the abilities.