On last night's episode of Heroes, "Shadowboxing," all our dreams of lesbianism were lost. To replace them, we got a scene where Parkman became a bratty top. Plus tons of carnie action. Spoilers ahead!
Nov 10, 2009 03:52 PM
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On last night's episode of Heroes, "Shadowboxing," all our dreams of lesbianism were lost. To replace them, we got a scene where Parkman became a bratty top. Plus tons of carnie action. Spoilers ahead!
Last night we caught up with two lame subsubplots (Head Parkman and Rainbow Brite) as well as the greatest subsubplot that never was (Claire's Lesbian Quest).
So let's dispense with the whole Head Parkman/Head Sylar/Nobody Actually Gets Any Head deal. Reach back into your memories, and you'll recall that this whole narrative ordeal began when Parkman erased Sylar's identity from Sylar's body. He made Sylar Body think it was Nathan, but unfortunately the unintended consequence was that Parkman grew a Head Sylar who made him see things and tormented him with endless quips when Parkman was trying to have sex with his wife and stuff like that.
There was a whole long thing where Parkman thought he could banish Head Sylar by getting totally drunk, but then when he passed out Sylar took over completely. So now Parkman is actually Sylar with a Head Parkman. Which gets really confusing, especially when we keep seeing Sylar in the same suit that Parkman is wearing. In the scene above, you can see that Head Parkman is trying to put the bitchslap on Body Sylar, which I think might be the only moment in the entire show when Parkman has gotten even a tiny bit toppy. But then Body Sylar kills the dude who is trying to help them fix their car, and threatens to kill more if Parkman won't tell him how he got to be Head Sylar in the first place.
At some point during this whole mess, Body Sylar informs Head Parkman, "The world is my hostage." This is the kind of brilliant line that keeps all of us coming back week after week to laugh in this show's face.
Finally Head Parkman caves and tells Body Sylar everything while they're in the diner where Charlie used to work. But then Head Parkman manages to distract Body Sylar into writing "I have a gun and am going to kill everybody in here" on his napkin, then throwing it at the waitress before they leave the diner. Instantly, the cops arrive and shoot them after Parkman is all "Yeah I'm willing to die." OK let's think about this realistically, people. A guy is at your diner, and you see that he's written "I have a gun and will kill" AFTER HE LEAVES. So the guy is GONE. Do you call the cops, or just say "Wow what a weirdo." Also, if you do call the cops, do they really come out based on a napkin threat that some dude THREW AWAY?
Anyway, my point is that Body Parkman, Body Sylar, Head Parkman, AND Head Sylar have all been shot a whole bunch of times. Will they live????
I will leave it to you to puzzle out the answer to that one, because we need to think hard about Emma AKA Rainbow Brite and Peter. So our pal Emma's special wall-smashing rainbow music power has gone back to being just rainbowy. We learn snoringly that the reason why she left medical school is that her nephew drowned because she couldn't hear him while she was babysitting.
Meanwhile, Peter's glances across the room have inspired her to start doing emergency medical procedures on people and playing the piano all the time at work. Doesn't she have a job doing paperwork? Isn't the hospital sort of weirded out that their med school dropout administrator is sewing people up and opening up holes in their lungs or whatever? Apparently not - I guess the hospital is so short-staffed that they just figure it's better for admins to do medical procedures.
It's all OK, though, because Emma has now decided to go back to medical school. And you know, all she has to do is decide that and she's magically back in medical school! That's how med school works.
While Emma finesses her readmission to med school, Peter is using his healing power to save lives right and left. But healing powers drain his energy and give him headaches! So there's a PRICE TO PAY. If this show is going to keep reheating its old cliches, I'm just going to order the Tahitian pancakes. WTF are Tahitian pancakes anyway?
Which brings me to the one point of light in my otherwise dreary TV existence. Claire's lesbian subsubplot. Which ended in the lamest possible way this week. OK, I take that back. It could have been worse: Gretchen could have died, or Claire could have said, "I really love you but can't have sex so even though I want to be your lovemuncher I am going to pull a Twilight on your ass." Instead, we're supposed to believe that the formerly brave and intrepid Gretchen has decided to drop out of college and go home just because of one teeny attack from the invisible girl. Seriously? She's been total Scary Google Chick with Brave Lesbo Feelings up to now, but when the going gets weird she's weirded out? I call shenanigans.
Then we get even more character motivation shoehorned into this munged subsubplot when Samuel pays Claire a visit and reveals that HRG shot Becky the invisible girl's dad and that Becky is damaged as a result. She wants revenge on HRG, which is why she's killing Claire's friends, which sort of kind of makes sense if you do a brain squint. But of course he's playing a DEEP GAME, and in fact even though he pretends to be all concerned about Becky and eventually shoots her with a taser to stop her, he's actually manipulating Claire.
Also, he gives that same speech he's been giving every episode about how family accepts you for who you are and his family is the carnies and they need to stay hidden. Oh and also, just to fill in more plotholes (perhaps one of his dirt powers is the ability to fill plot holes?) it turns out that Danko killed Samuel's brother and one of the main reasons why the carnies need to move all over the place is that they are fleeing HRG. So, instant history between all our characters! Just add some disappearing lesbians, and you've got the lamest ending to the best subsubplot on Heroes this season.
Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.
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