Heroes

Yep, I'm watching Heroes live. Might as well just rip off the damn Band-Aid and get this over with.

So Matt finished bricking the wall? Like, with Peter just passed out on the ground? Cool. Sylar and Peter get out of their Brain World and Sylar somehow busts out of the brick wall.

T Bag had sent Multiplying Man after Sylar and Peter, because somehow he knew they'd be trying to make trouble for him. Because, you see, T Bag has big plans. Can't wait to finally find out what they are!!

The Carnival has set up residence in Central Park. T Bag asks Deaf Girl to play the cello to attract people to the Carnival. She doesn't want to do it, because Peter had the dream about that, so the Puppet Master forces her to. I still don't know exactly what T Bag plans to do with these people. And neither does Deaf Girl, so what's she so afraid of?

Multiplying Man is easily defeated, and when Sylar & Peter (the new Batman & Robin?) find out the Carnival is in NYC, they're on their way to save the day!

Claire and Bennet are trapped in a trailer underground. He's running out of oxygen, so they decide to give into their feelings and make love. Or not. But almost, I swear! There was crying and groping and desperation. It was hot. They're interrupted when Tracy arrives, flowing into the trailer with her watery self. And then she digs a tunnel - with her water power, I guess - and they're out.

Claire and Bennet arrive in Central Park, as do The Dynamic (Hot) Duo, Sylar & Peter. I'm assuming they couldn't afford to pay Ali Larter for 2 days' work, because Tracy's never seen again.

Claire tries to convince The Carnies that T Bag is evil and wants to kill everyone. What is killing everyone even going to accomplish? Is it just mindless fun? Claire gets up on her soapbox (like, literally) and goes on quite the tear, screaming at everyone that T Bag gets his power from them, and that T Bag killed his brother.

Hiro is reunited with Charlie - but she's 65 years older. He decides an 85-year-old girlfriend is too much for him to handle, and buggers off to Central Park (Bennet had called Ando, apparently).

Sylar distracts the Puppet Master and Deaf Girl uses her weird Rainbow Brite powers to break free.

T Bag starts in with the whole earthquake thing. And it's like the lamest fake quake ever. Until Peter flies in and tackles him. He steals his power and they begin this kind of tug-of-war with the ground beneath their feet, bitching at each other as the earth shakes.

Hiro arrives and Claire asks him to teleport The Carnies out of there. Without The Carnies, T Bag loses his power. Well, good thing Hiro A) got control of his power and B) didn't want to bang that 85-year-old bitch.

And that's where Volume 5 ends. With T Bag ranting.

Volume Six. Well, now, that's being optimistic, isn't it? T Bag is carted off by the cops, The Carnies are safe wherever Hiro took them, and Sylar's good. And Claire pulls the bonehead move of letting news cameras follow her as she jumps from the top of the ferris wheel.

Well, OK, so now we're getting somewhere. I'd actually like to watch a show where people knew that these mutants existed. Too bad I might not have the chance, and they didn't pull this 2 years ago. Too bad it took them until the last 45 seconds of this episode.

Heroes: Just When You Thought Things Couldn't Get Any More Pointless

It's Friday night and I'm seriously just now watching Heroes. What can I say, I prefer catching up on Mad Men.

We pick up where we left off (I think), with Peter stuck inside his brain, or Sylar's brain, or something, wandering around the streets alone. Sylar's still bricked-up in Parkman's basement, and trapped inside his brain as well. Or something. Look - it's just an excuse for Sylar to walk around in a black coat and black jeans and black boots and all is right with the world. Slick.

Peter and Sylar meet up in the Lonesome Brain Street and start chasing each other around the city. If they're the only ones there, they should really just start doing it. Peter wants to help Sylar find a way out so he can save Deaf Girl and Her Deadly Cello. I still don't understand where they're trapped exactly - their own minds I guess, but together somehow - so how the hell can they get out?

T Bag has Bennet tied up in the House of Mirrors, where that dreadlocked guy can project his memories onto the mirrors. He brings Claire in so that she can watch the show. OK so it's the 80s and he's selling cars, married to a black chick. Huh whut!? OK. Claire doesn't care either. But we're all subjected to more memories, as we see that Bennet's pregnant wife was killed by a Special who busted into their house to rob them. Mmm kay.

Back to the Land of the Painful Backdrop. Worst. Painting of Buildings. Ever. Our two boys are hanging out on rooftops. I'm sorry, but I've seen more realistic backdrops at Disney Hollywood Studios. They should have filmed there on the "San Francisco" street - more realistic.

We go back to Pointless Black & White Memories far too many times for my taste. Though we do get to see Eric Roberts again, which is awesome. What's not so awesome is that we find out it was Eric Roberts who essentially ordered Bennet to marry Sandra, a waitress where they were eating. Like really - that's how pointless this got. I really don't care about how they met, but you certainly never got the impression it was an arranged marriage. Why bother telling us this now? Ugh.

As if it's a metaphor for me banging my head against the wall that is this show (does that work?), Peter is constantly banging a sledgehammer against a brick wall in their Brain World, trying to break out. Oh good lord just get out already. They say they've been trapped there together for years. Yep, it feels like it's been years for me too, not 44 minutes. Christ. Eventually, they break out. Somehow. I don't know. What was I supposed to do? Pay attention?

Back at the Carnival, T Bag talks about taking the Carnival to Central Park. Then he sinks the trailer Bennet and Claire are in into the ground.

The good news? There's only one of these bastards left. And I might watch it Monday instead of 24 just to get it goddamn over with.

Heroes

Peter tries to call Deaf Girl. Peter needs to learn what "deaf" means. He has his dream about her again, with the cello-playing and the people dying, and he thinks Sylar is trying to help. Naturally, he wants to track Sylar down.

I actually like Gretchen now because, while Claire wants to go off and save everyone at the Carnival, Gretchen's all, "I thought you wanted to be normal. Then go to class." BEST LINE EVER! Claire doesn't listen and takes off, in order to protect T Bag and the Carnival from her father.

She convinces T Bag to turn himself in so that everyone in the Carnival can be left alone and no one gets hurt. As he's starting to surrender, shooting breaks out, but it's not Bennet. It's a massacre! And it's kind of awesome. R.I.P. Tattoo Girl - now take your Sprint phone daughter with you.

Mike gets kudos for figuring it out (thereby putting him on the same intellectual level as a Heroes writer - congrats). Samuel had Multiple Man do the shooting to make it look like Bennet did the shooting so that the Carnival would want to kill Bennet, hate the outside world, and rally around Samuel.

Deaf Girl shows up just in time to administer some first aid. Bennet's girlfriend calls Tracy (I was wondering where she'd been) because she somehow thinks Tracy can help this whole situation.

Matt's wife has welcomed Sylar into the house for lunch. Sylar eats up the damn scenery, as always. Love him. Would love him even more if he had his own sitcom.

Sylar asks Matt to go in and repress Sylar's memories so he doesn't know he has powers. Um, that stuff never works. Why do they think it would work now? Good lord, does no one learn stuff on this show? Matt somehow has the ability to bury Sylar's powers - wow, his powers just keep changing, don't they? He also traps Sylar inside his own nightmare of loneliness and starts to brick him up in his basement - Cask of Amontillado-style. Look, that whole thing made no sense, but I like the idea of him being bricked into Matt's wall - in a house he shares with his damn family. Dumbest idea ever.

It lasts all of a minute though, until Peter shows up. He "goes inside" Sylar's head and gets trapped in his own lonely nightmare, on the streets of NYC alone. Okaaaay.

Heroes: The Most Pointless Thing I've Seen All Year

Claire walks into a room at school for a study group and there's Sylar - he's written "Why Claire Bennet" half a million times on the chalkboard. Claire's all, "You killed my father!" Sylar just wants a friend. And he wants to take this whole school setting all the way - by brainstorming on the chalkboard about how much they have in common. She's all, "You're a psychopath." Sylar forces a kiss on her so he can... I don't know, pull out information like the Tattoo Lady. He teases her about her inability to tell Gretchen how she feels. Claire stabs him in the eye with a pencil, which is enough to get rid of his invisible-grip on her.

She grabs Gretchen and they hide in a closet. Get it? In the closet. But it wasn't Gretchen - it was Sylar disguised as Gretchen. El Oh El! Except... then he just walks away - so while I appreciate the deception, did he get the answer he needed? Has he just had enough of harassing Claire for the day?

Mohinder leaves for India, leaving Bennet, Ando, and Hiro to be the Three Musketeers. But Hiro passes out, and dreams/hallucinates/whatever a trial. World v. Hiro Nakamura. The Judge? His dad. The courtroom? The Burnt Toast Diner. (Wow, they really have no budget for sets, huh?) The prosecutor? Adam Monroe. The entire thing? Pointless and ridiculous.

Hiro wakes up from this pointless hour of television with his brain tumor gone. Well, damn, I guess he's going to live now....

I'm reminded how pissed off I am that Robert Knepper's on this show. It doesn't deserve him, dammit. My poor T Bag, forced to order a milkshake and creepily blather on and on to an old chick seemingly without a point. On the plus side, I solved a work issue in my head while he was showing her the cottage he built for her. At least I could use some of my brain tonight....

We end with a pissed-off Samuel, after being rejected for the 500th time, causing an earthquake and leveling the whole town. And Sylar shows up to Matt's house looking for him. OK.

Heroes

Bennet and his girlfriend are digging up info on T Bag when they come across the woman he's obsessed with - and she's a Cylon. Vanessa's parents owned the estate Samuel grew up in - so has he been obsessed with her for like 40 years? And why, of all the people they've investigated from Samuel's past, did they decide to focus on her? They must have read a script.

Bennet drops by Matt's house, where Matt is now Mr. Mom. A comparison is made between T Bag and Osama Bin Laden. Really. They track down Vanessa and Matt uses his mind to convince her to talk to them.

She says they were engaged, but he wanted her to join a Carnival and for Christ's sake, she's too hot of a cougar for a Carnival. He's still obsessed with her and calls her all the time. Drunk dialer.

Samuel shows up, steals Vanessa away to the Carnival, and is generally creepy with her. Matt and Bennet try to track them, but they're unsuccessful because the Carnival moves/is invisible/whatever. I wonder why Matt doesn't just use his power to convince Bennet to STFU and leave him alone. It would be easier. Maybe he did (though they didn't make it obvious, like they normally do) because Bennet leaves him and goes to Claire's dorm room. He says all kinds of gay stuff about wanting to repair the burned bridge of their relationship. But I'm distracted because Claire's hair looks a darker shade of blonde, and I like it.

Matt, meanwhile, gets all self-loathing, whining to his wife that he should have done something to stop Sylar and save people.

Tattoo Lady says the Carnival will need a new leader - and it's Peter. She thinks really hard about him and - across the country - the compass tattoo reappears on his arm and moves. Well, that's a new power. I do so love these people's ability to manifest powers based on what's convenient.

Hiro and Ando are in Florida, where Ando has blindly listened to Hiro's ramblings, and committed him to a random mental hospital, not knowing Hiro's intent. His intent, of course, is to free Mohinder, whom he had trapped there during his time travels. Ando still has his electrical power, so he breaks in and sees that the "Dr. Watson" Hiro keeps blathering on about is Mohinder.

Ando switches out the drugs on the unsupervised drug cart, so that Mohinder won't be drugged anymore and can return to his super-strength self. Health care in Florida must really suck if you can 1) have someone committed so easily 2) have your pick from the drug cart.

Though he's been in a straight jacket on the floor for 6 months, 1 missed dose means Mohinder is up and aware and stronger than ever. They break out of the hospital no problem. As they're on the run, Mohinder decides it's a good idea for Ando to use his lightning power to unscramble Hiro's brain so he can teleport them. Well that was easy. And also THE DUMBEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN ON THIS SHOW. And that's saying a lot. There's no way that move could have backfired, nope not at all.

In Deaf Girl news, she plays the cello and summons Peter. He sees Samuel's compass on her cello and takes some giant leaps to determine Samuel's evil. Mama Petrelli freaks out when she sees Peter with Deaf Girl - she had a dream about her, and she's going to kill thousands of people. Peter wants to know more, so he takes Mommy's power so he can figure it out for himself. Oy.

Peter has the same dream - Deaf Girl is playing the cello, I assume summoning special people to slaughter. It's kind of clear she's being forced or crazy or something, and Sylar is nearby. So Peter does the sensible thing - goes over to Deaf Girl's apartment and smashes her damn cello! YAY! NO MORE CELLO!!! Thanks, Peter!

In the end, Bennet and his girlfriend are making out when Mohinder, Ando, and Hiro pop in. Cock blockers.

Heroes Part 2

So we're at Nathan's funeral (no sign of his ex-wife or his sons, naturally) and there's that fabulously over-done, cliched shot of the 21-gun salute accompanied by someone being startled by it and a tear rolling from her eye. In this case, Claire. I'm really over that damn shot.

We flashback to a couple days ago when Bennet shows Nathan's body to Peter - his head has been cut off and sewn back on. So that's weird. Was it the only way they could show us 100% that he was dead? That seemed weird.

Everyone's all bitchy at Nathan's wake - Claire's bitchy with Bennet for making Fake!Nathan, Peter's pissed at Mommy for a host of reasons. Claire and Peter are in the kitchen bitching with each other when Claire cuts her finger accidentally. She feels pain - and it doesn't heal - because Peter has the Haitian's power. Right, that inconsistent power that I thought he needed to activate, but apparently he doesn't, thereby not-covering-up the holes from earlier.

Later, Peter goes back to listening to the police scanner and heads out to save a chick who has been shot by a disgruntled co-worker. Claire follows him and attends to the wounded woman while Peter fancies himself a hostage negotiator. He saves the day, but not without being shot first, and Claire not-so-quickly passes on her healing power.

Sylar swings by the Carnival to bitch at T Bag. He's here to feast on powers. Well T Bag shows him - by starting up a dirt storm that rips half of Sylar's face off! Again, that was cool. DO MORE COOL STUFF!

Naturally, Sylar reassembles himself and T Bag sends Tattoo Girl to bang Sylar and figure out what's up. So as they're making out, Tattoo Girl uses her power to determine... that Sylar is lonely and doesn't want to die alone. Haven't we been through that whole lonely thing before with him?

T Bag wants Sylar to join up with the Carnival so he can have a family, and they decide to let the tattoo decide. It's like a Magic 8 ball, only it allows Sylar the chance to be shirtless. The tattoo shows Claire, so Sylar's off to college.

Our old friend Edgar the Fast Mover is back for Bennet, but Bennet is somehow faster and tases his ass. Bennet brings Edgar to a restaurant's walk-in refrigerator (no really, he rented out the whole restaurant for that), because the cold slows him down and makes him easy to control/interrogate/torture. Edgar pretends to ally with Bennet to take down T Bag (CULT RAID!) but it's a trick and he gets away, with the raid plans. OK. So why did Bennet have to ruin that restaurant's business for the night?

I also like the fact that Claire went back to school (in Virginia, right?) and still had the woman's blood on her hands. In the age of swine flu, we really should be washing our hands more, Claire.

Heroes Part 1

Somehow I'm getting sick again. WTH? So there's no way I can endure 2 hours of Heroes, not when I need to be in bed by 9:00. The second episode will wait until tomorrow.

Claire's working at the Carnival now - picking up trash and bringing T-Bag his pancakes. The Multiplier Guy is creeping her out. OK, we get it, he stares at her funny. Enough! She's being all nosy, trying to get into T Bag's trailer, where he's poking through a Primatech Paper box. The Puppet Master catches her and pulls her out of there, asking what she's doing, and throwing her against the trailer. Oh. I thought they were new BFFs. Nice way to treat your friends.

Through some superb deductive powers that would put Sherlock Holmes to shame, Claire figures out who Joseph is and that T Bag killed him. And now she knows that he's evil and needs to be stopped! The dialogue between them makes me want to throw up. They really just shoehorn all of this crap in. I guess that's what happens when you write yourself into a million corners.

Hiro pops into Japan and talks a bunch of nonsense about Star Wars, Highlander, Battlestar Galactica, and Don Quixote. What did he become? Irrelevant Pop Culture Reference Man?

Luckily, Hiro still has his business card on him, and so the police contact Ando. He explains it easily enough - Hiro has a brain tumor. Ando figures out that Hiro is kind of speaking in code, and when he talks about rescuing Dr. Watson from a castle, he means going after Mohinder in a psychiatric hospital in Florida. OK.

We get a random black and white flashback to Young T Bag, pining after a girl named Vanessa.

Deaf Girl is back, and she's been rejected from medical school. How sad. I don't care. T Bag shows up at her apartment all, "I'm the one who sent you the cello." Oh - the wall-cracking cello? Thanks. Take it back. T Bag asks for Deaf Girl's help in finding a dude who can grow flowers and plants - I'll call him Mr. Green Thumbs. It seems she can summon people with the power of her cello - by thinking about them and playing in the park. OK. Weird.

T Bag wants Mr. Green Thumbs to - I'm guessing here - make the land near the Carnival inhabitable. Dude, plant some sod and have patience like the rest of us. Or for Christ's sake - plenty of people live in a desert, just live there. Instead, Mr. Green Thumbs offers up grass and flowers on the desert soil. So, um, all your problems are solved then? Huh? Claire is impressed by the greenery, but still decides to go home. Right - school's starting back up.

Nathan's death is being reported on the news as part of a single-passenger plane crash. Claire finally checks her emails with all these messages from her dad and Peter. The funeral begins. Oh finally the show gets interesting. And now I'm off to bed. To be continued....

Heroes: Last One of 2009

New Carnie Character Alert! We've got a new guy, wearing T Bag's favorite eyeliner, who can replicate himself. You know what that means - awkward special effects time!

Bennet asks the question we'd all like to know the answer to: "How does the compass work?" Unfortunately, he doesn't give us an answer, as his little girlfriend comes to pick him up for a date. Unfortunately, the date doesn't happen, as he realizes Claire has stolen said compass and they set to work looking for her.

Claire and Gretchen show up at the Carnival and T Bag gives them popcorn in a creepy manner, telling them to wander around until they finish the box. Which they take quite literally, and T Bag is right there when they're finished. Creepy times two. He takes them to the back, where Claire gets to bond with the Carnie Kids by telling them a boring story.

A disgruntled customer comes in and starts beating the crap out of T Bag for stealing his money. He then quite hilariously decides to beat up a 19-year-old girl too. WTF? He slices Claire in the face, and runs away when she heals. Lamest. Fight. Ever. Claire decides to stay at the Carnival for the weekend, because she likes to make dumb, random decisions.

Can I just say how simultaneously happy and angry I am that Robert Knepper is a part of this show? I love him, but he deserves better. It's not his damn fault.

Let's get to the good(er) stuff....

Peter has plans to take down Sylar, and they involve absorbing The Haitian's power-blocking power. Good idea, Peter! Way to use that brain! They have a nice epic fight - all with regular, human strength - ending when Peter crucifies Sylar to plyboard with a nail gun. That's some stuff from The Wire right there! This show just got awesome.

But then Peter makes a dumb deal with Sylar - I'll heal you if you give me back Nathan. Sylar doesn't fall for that crap, so Peter tries using The Haitian's other power to wipe out Sylar's memory. He does, and Sylar turns back into Nathan. Nathan is all emo with his brother/boyfriend, saying he's not sure he can maintain and he's not really Nathan, he's an illusion. This show just got less awesome.

Nathan tries to jump off of a building - which actually would be the smart thing to do - kill yourself and kill Sylar at the same time, right? But no - when Peter finally lets go of Nathan and he falls, quite hilariously, he falls onto a car (out of camera range to save money, mind you) and Sylar gets right back up again. I guess The Haitian's power ceased working by the time Nathan/Sylar hit the street. R.I.P. Nathan.

Any emotional impact caused by Nathan's death is completely negated when the very next thing shown is one of those damn Sprint "Slow Burn" product placement ads. Goddamn show. See you after the holidays. Thank God for Christmas!

A Very Heroes Thanksgiving

I'd make some kind of Heroes/Thanksgiving/turkey joke if I were clever. I'm not.

T Bag watches Dr. Suresh's stag film and finds out that he has some kind of limitless potential. Hot Tattoo Lady wants to know WTF is up with Hiro not going back in time to save T Bag's brother Joseph, so she has Hiro transport them back 8 weeks so she can see for herself what happened to Joseph. What happened to Hiro getting tumors from excessive time travel?

While back in time, they see T Bag kill Joseph with a rock to the throat, all over that damn film. They come back to the present, where the carnies celebrate Thanksgiving. T Bag's speech to the family includes an accusation that Edgar killed Joseph. Hiro doesn't speak up because he doesn't want to endanger Charlie, wherever she may be. He freezes time and tells Edgar to leave and get his revenge later.

Bennet decides to cook Thanksgiving dinner for himself, Claire, his ex, and his ex's boyfriend. Poor Lyle, left out as always. That actor must not have aged well. But anyway, what happened to going out for Chinese? While Bennet's at Whole Foods, he runs into that chick who was given the seemingly-pointless flashback a few episodes back. Hey, not as pointless any more, is it?

Lauren - the near-cheater in question - is invited to dinner too. Sandra's boyfriend is a fellow show dog person. So Sandra's a beard, then? And why on earth would they all do Thanksgiving at the bachelor pad? It makes for an awkward dinner, made even better when Claire says she wants to drop out of school.

Peter confronts Mama Petrelli on the whole Nathan situation. She's all, "Happy Thanksgiving, let's talk about it while we eat mashed potatoes." And I thought my family holiday dinners were awkward. So it's around the Thanksgiving table that Nathan and Peter learn the truth. Who wants pie? Well, they never get the chance to have that pie, because suddenly, Nathan is consumed by some kind of blue lightning. And then he's Sylar. And he wants pie.

The return of Sylar makes this show enjoyable again. He keeps Peter and Angela at the table, and kisses Angela on the mouth. OK, that made me LOL. As he begins to kill Angela, Nathan reappears, fighting back. WAIT! The show just got good again! Come back, Sylar!!

Heroes: More Headaches

Let's start with the time travel. T Bag tells Hiro to go back to when he killed Mohinder. But not to save Mohinder's life - to save a film from the 60s that Mohinder has. Must be one good porno.

Nine weeks ago, Mohinder is back to teaching in India, back with his ex-girlfriend, and apparently not a fly anymore. No mention of that business at all. But he's still all sneaky about his father's research. Good thing he happens to have a projector to play an old film on. Huh?

The film has some secret formula on it that his father discovered -- because of course the most efficient way of preserving a scientific breakthrough is by filming it. Not writing it down, or even a photograph. A 20mm film. But it gets even better - it wasn't a scientific formula - it was instructions for making a compass, like the one T Bag has. And Mohinder says that if the man who has the compass gets enough specials around him then watch out, bub! Oh good lord. Somehow he knows that Samuel is destined to become an evil genius.

Mohinder follows the compass all the way from India to the carnival -- OH. GOOD. LORD. REALLY? -- and meets up with T Bag's brother. He knows about T Bag's potential too - and he tells Mohinder to burn the film and leave. T Bag overhears this, which is why he wants the film. He wants him some great power.

Mohinder must have stopped off along the way for lighter fluid and matches, because he sets out to burn the film back at his hotel. But Hiro shows up just as he starts, and switches out the reels. He also puts a bulletproof vest on Mohinder so that when T Bag shows up and shoots Mohinder with stone bullets, he survives. Hiro hides Mohinder away in an insane asylum (in Florida) for 8 weeks so that he doesn't disrupt the timeline and he can still save Charlie. That Hiro sure does think fast on his feet, no? No.

Now we'll cover the Sylar's Body v. Sylar's Mind mess. Nathan's back at work, being a Senator and stuff. Pretty cool that no one noticed he was gone for a week. That Governor from South Carolina went to bang his Argentinian girlfriend for a weekend and the world noticed. Well, it turns out Mama Petrelli covered for him and said he was on vacation. Way to close that hole, writers.

The Haitian sends Peter to check out a storage facility so he can know the truth - and he and Nathan find Nathan's corpse in a casket. PROBLEM! They burned Nathan's body last season. I haven't forgotten that. They all stood around and burned Nathan-as-Sylar... but I guess they can say Matt made it look like they were burning him when they really weren't. OK, I might let that hole slide.

Nathan and Peter set off to find Matt, because Nathan has a memory of him yelling or something and thinks it's important. When they find out Matt's in a hospital -- because as you'll recall he got shot roughly 53 times in the chest -- Peter's all, "Cool, I can heal him." And he does. How Matt had even survived to make it to the hospital -- don't ask.

Matt tells The Petrelli Brothers all about how Sylar killed Nathan and all that jazz. It's all nice and confusing as Head Sylar tries to get Not Nathan to touch him so he can transfer himself back into his body. I've gone cross-eyed.

They touch, but then Nathan flies himself and Peter out into The Majestic Green Screen Mountains. Nathan is really accepting of this whole he's-really-Sylar idea, but I suppose he's seen weirder.

We'll close out with some hot lesbian action. Could Claire wear shorter shorts when doing laundry at her dad's apartment? I don't think so. Jesus. She's there when Tracy shows up, freaking out because her power's gone wonky and she's inadvertently freezing things. Then it's Tracy's turn to strip down into her underwear and get into a hot bath. But she starts to freeze the water, and eventually turns Claire to ice and breaks off her foot. Later, they wear men's shirts and share some tea and power-speculation on the couch. It's weird for these two chicks who haven't really interacted before to be sudden BFF's, no? In the midst of their hot lesbian action, Tracy decides that she needs to join the carnival.

The show closes with T Bag, who has evidently discovered how to make himself all-powerful, sweet talking Tracy and trying to persuade her to do whatever it is he needs her to do.

Heroes

So we're back at that sorority prank, where the 2 random girls have caught Claire regenerating. But she solved that problem by saying she was hallucinating something too and they must have been drugged. Most gullible. Girls. Ever.

Meanwhile, it doesn't matter anyway because The Haitian is hanging out in sorority houses now, trying to get some young tail. Claire called Daddy and it's all taken care of. Now The Haitian (Claire actually called him by a name - Rene. Yay for names!) is her bodyguard. Gretchen's freaked out by the Invisible Girl trying to kill her, so she drops out of school and flies back home.

T Bag shows up to Claire's dorm room looking for Invisible Girl (I thought he was back in time with Hiro, but what do I know) and lays it all out there - we're both special and I have stuff to tell you. Turns out, Invisible Girl has gone off the rails and is really after Bennet, because he killed her father back when she was a kid. Oops.

Peter's using his new healing ability to, well, heal people. And it's draining him. In a particularly hilarious bit, Deaf Girl and Peter find this little girl passed out. I'm pretty sure she was just in a closet or something. Like, why was this girl just laying there and why was no one with her? Ugh. Whatever the reason, Deaf Girl used her medical school skills to save her so that Peter wouldn't be any more drained. And then I LOL'd when Peter asked Deaf Girl, "Are you gonna go back to school? Go be a doctor?" Oh Lord. "Be a doctor?" Who talks like that?

Sylar's using Matt's body, but then Matt's still somehow in control too. Like, Sylar went to the airport, but Matt packed a gun into their bag without him knowing so that the TSA stops them. How? What? Who? He somehow talks his way out of airport jail and then kills a dude who pulls over to help him change a flat tire. That's Sylar's way of making sure Matt doesn't mess with him anymore.

They end up at the Burnt Toast Diner, because there are no other towns in Middle America but Midland, Texas and no other diners but the Burnt Toast Diner. And also, the set was already built, so it's cheap. Matt doodles "I have a gun and I'm going to kill everyone" on a napkin for the waitress to find and then commits suicide by cop when the cops show up. Matt/Sylar is gunned down with 100 bullets to the chest, and looks dead, but he's still in the ambulance when we leave him so who knows. I'm not R.I.P.-ing Matt yet. But a girl can hope.

The Other Sylar (Physical!Sylar?) is at the carnival, and he has changed back into Nathan in his sleep. He shows up at Peter's apartment. The end.

Sure enough, in the preview, we see Peter healing Matt. Great. Not dead yet.

Heroes: A Headache If Ever There Was One

Time travel. Headaches. Actions that make zero sense. Seemingly pointless subplots. That's what we got tonight.

Hiro travels back to 3 years ago. An innocent time -- when the show kicked ass and owned my life. He actually bores a kid with the story of his attempts to save Charlie from Sylar. The kid doesn't care. The kid should go tell his parents that a strange dude is talking to him about loving someone named Charlie.

OK, so why doesn't Hiro just kill Sylar when he first sees him at the diner, right? Kill him and it's all taken care of. But that would make too much sense, yes?

Bennet's at the diner too, which I don't remember from 3 years ago, and he's with a partner we've never seen before... a partner who wants to bang him. He's married, bitch. Wait 3 years.

Hiro freezes time as Sylar's about to kill Charlie and wheels Sylar out in a hand truck, putting him into a bus luggage compartment. Instead of killing him. He then convinces his past self to still go back in time and... I have a headache. There was a lot of time travel talk and that never ends well.

But then of course Charlie is still dying of a brain tumor, which Hiro knew, yes? So he goes back and gets Sylar out of the bus so he can fix Charlie. Cuz Sylar's the cooperative type. Hiro makes a deal with Sylar -- save Charlie and I'll tell you everything about the future. Right. So shouldn't Sylar just take Hiro's power and figure that out for himself? But no, Sylar actually removes the brain tumor and then Hiro tells him that he kills a lot of people and dies alone. Cool, thanks for the info. And then Hiro lets Sylar go off to try to kill Claire, et al.

Charlie's not as grateful as one might think, considering Hiro saved her life. She calls him selfish, and says it was wrong of him to let Sylar go and kill all those other people. And then a few minutes later she changes her mind, as most characters on this show do. She says she loves Hiro and they're going to have a happy ending, right? Wrong. Because T Bag shows up to tell Hiro that he's transported Charlie back to the present-day carnival. Goddammit my head!

So T Bag is hiding Charlie somewhere, in an effort to get Hiro to help him out. WHY DOES NONE OF THIS MAKE SENSE!? It hurts. OK, so T Bag tells Hiro he made a mistake 8 weeks ago and needs to have it corrected. (T Bag has that dying time traveler dude - he could get him 3 years into the past but he couldn't get him 8 weeks back? I don't know.)

Anyway, the mistake T Bag made appears to be shooting and killing Mohinder. Remember Mohinder? Yeah, he used to be on this show. When it was good.

And I don't have the slightest idea what the point of the new past between Bennet at that partner was. At all.

My head hurts, my neck hurts, my brain hurts, the end.

TV Is Really Pissing Me Off

I started my day with the "great" news that the SyFy (really?) Channel is going to make an American version of Being Human. NO! Being Human is amazing. And British. And does not deserve to be gutted and crapped on by America. Please watch the original version, people. It's amazing.

Then I finished my day with the rumor that Fringe might not make it through the season. That makes sense. Take the best new show of last season and put it on Thursdays opposite a bunch of established stuff so that it ends up in the ratings basement and then cancel it. NO! Fox will feel my wrath!!!

But that second article has a bit of good news - the writers for Heroes are being told to prepare themselves for the series finale this May, giving them a chance to wrap up all their storylines before then.

And then earlier Entertainment Weekly reported that Chuck's order is being upped to 19 episodes. So thank god for small miracles. It's not all bad.

BUT IF FRINGE IS CANCELED, I WILL END IT!

Heroes

Sylar bangs Matt's wife using Matt's body. That's awesome. Matt decides it's not safe for his wife and kid anymore, and tells her what's going on (more or less) and then she's all, That's cool, I'll leave, no biggie. Wow, she's understanding. Matt starts drinking, and discovers that as he gets drunk, Sylar loses control. Matt drinks until Sylar disappears, which of course is when his wife and his partner show up. (Hey, I thought she was going out of town for a while.) Once Matt sobers up (in a record 10 minutes), Sylar is there waiting for him - now he's the one in the driver's seat. I guess.

Bennet is with Jeremy (the healer/killer kid), who is being held by the cops for his parents' death. Bennet calls Tracy in to help because... she's good with teenaged boys? She talks to him, sharing that she accidentally killed someone once too. Aw, they have something in common. Also, Jeremy totally had snot coming out of his nose when he was crying. On the one hand, gross; on the other hand, yay for realism.

T Bag shows up to try to get Tracy to bring her new younger boyfriend to the carnival. Then, quite hilariously, the whole town seems to show up to protest when Jeremy's being released from police custody. Jeremy freaks out, kills a dude by accident, and runs back into the police station, because he'd rather be locked up than hurt anyone. BUT IT DOESN'T END THERE! One of the cops takes the kid out back for some vigilante-style justice, chaining him to the back of a truck and dragging him off. Tracy and Bennet find him dead in the road. Um, that's really gross. I might be offended by this. Suddenly, the Happy Carnival seems like a great idea to Tracy.

T Bag knows about the asshole cops and brings the police station to the ground. I could make a Prison Break joke here.

In even lamer news, Claire and Gretchen are "kidnapped" by their sorority and hazed. Over the course of the hazing, it's discovered that the Invisible Sorority Girl is an invisible sorority girl, and that she was trying to kill Gretchen.

But guess what -- next week we get Hiro going back in time to save Charlie. Which means we get to relive a time when the show was good - Season 1. I'm getting all nostalgic just thinking about it. It better be good.

Heroes

When we last left Hiro, he had appeared in Peter's apartment. Peter took him to the hospital and they discuss Hiro's brain tumor. Peter teleports over to Bennet's house and asks to borrow a Healer. Claire offers her healing blood, but that won't work -- because a tumor is living tissue or something. OK, fine, then they should just cut out the tumor and then have Claire heal him. That would work, no?

No, that would be too easy. Instead, Bennet and Peter go after a kid Bennet once bagged and tagged. The kid's supposed to be a healer, but everything in his yard is dead, along with his pets and parents. It seems his power has gone a bit wonky and on occasion does the polar opposite of healing. The kid's freaking out and shoots Peter, but of course there's not much drama there, as the kid also heals him. I have to say, I did like Peter's reaction to being brought back to life. Part orgasm, part euphoric laughter - it seemed authentic to me.

We also got T-Bag and Sylar, together at last. T-Bag wants Sylar to remember his true, evil self, and so he has a Dreadlocked Dude take him to the House of Mirrors. You know, cuz it looks cool. Sylar is tortured by the memories of his various murders. Luckily, T-Bag's there with the "It's OK we're all family here and we accept you for who you are" shtick.

T-Bag baptizes Sylar. Literally. I didn't realize the carnival was its own freaking religion. First you get baptized then you get to bang the hot tattooed chick. Sign me up.

We were also "treated" to even more Deaf Girl color-sound power that makes no more sense than last week. Poor Emma was left at the hospital with Hiro, trying to make sense of his Japanese lips. Hiro teaches her how awesome powers are and yet... sorry, sweetie, yours isn't all that awesome. In the end, Hiro transports to 3 years ago to save Charlie the Memory Girl.

I have to say, I am intrigued by one thing from the preview for next week - Parkman's banging his wife out really good but it's really Sylar in his head? That sounds like fun times.

Heroes: God Intervenes

So here's what happened this week. I was watching the show tape-delayed on Monday night so I wouldn't have to sit through commercials. But after the first break, my DVR goes on the fritz. Now if this had been a year or 2 ago, I would have cried and freaked out. But, seeing as how this show isn't what it used to be, I just went, "Oopsie. Good thing there's Hulu." Mike prefers to blame "user error" (me being the user), but I think it was Divine Intervention. God was trying to smack me out of watching this show. Well, I'm defying him, sorry. I'm pot-committed. Mike watches Smallville after 8 years, I'll watch this show (if it lasts) 8 years. I might not like it, but I'll enjoy making fun of it!

Fun story. Anyway, on to the show.

So Emma, our deaf girl, was going to be a doctor, but now she's a file clerk because some guy named Christopher died. She's still seeing sounds as colors, which is possibly the most pointless power ever. And when Peter saves her from being hit by a bus, now he can join in the pointless fun.

Peter fills her in on how there are people with powers and they're awesome. Yeah, but hers sucks, Peter. They make cute with each other zzzzz.... I lost minutes of my life while they played the piano and made colors appear. It was retarded. OK, but then at the end when Emma is playing a cello again, the sound/color things bust a hole in the wall. So now her power does something, at least. I guess.

Gretchen is freaking Claire out with stalkery behavior, only it's not stalkery. Well, it kind of is. Gretchen has a crush on Claire. Which leads to our ratings-stunt, purposeless kiss. Well, maybe it won't be purposeless. Maybe Claire will come out as a lesbian, like Willow on Buffy. But this is Heroes, so I doubt it.

Zombie!Nathan rises from the grave and looks like Sylar. Sylar with a weird emo/Flock of Seagulls haircut. Seriously, what the hell was with the long bang in the front? He's picked up by the Baltimore P.D. (I was hoping for a crossover with The Wire at this point) and they bring in a psychologist to try to figure out if he's insane. He doesn't know who he is, he's bloody and dirty... yeah, sounds insane to me. Aaaand Sylar has amnesia for the 50th time on this show. He's more fun when he's crazy and murderous and knows what he's doing.

Blah blah Sylar's crazy blah blah Sylar doesn't know who he is blah blah he escapes.

In the end, we find out Samuel has planted an Invisible Girl in Claire's life to try to isolate her. Hiro shows up in Peter's apartment. And Sylar ends up at the Carnival (which disappears when the police show up).

At least Ernie Hudson was in it. Ernie Hudson is cool.

Heroes

Hiro, who you may remember has decided to go ahead and change things in the past (after changing his mind on that 100 times), sets out to change the most pointless, retarded thing ever - he stops a co-worker from photocopying his butt and therefore getting fired and therefore being suicidal. This is not a lie. Just when I thought the Hiro plotline couldn't get worse, THIS IS THE LAMEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN!!! Meanwhile, the dude photocopies his butt at a different time, and still kills himself. Once again, Hiro discovers you can't change the future. For the 500th time. But it doesn't stop him from trying again. And again. And again. FORTY-SEVEN TIMES! I thought time travel was killing Hiro. Then why is he doing this?

Angela brings Nathan a bunch of crap to remind him of his childhood. It's a backfire when he remembers a previously-Haitian'ed memory - witnessing the death of his girlfriend in a pool. Nathan's also developing new powers every day.

Governor Bruce Boxleitner is back, and that makes me happy. Not that he has much to contribute, but he reminds me of MY childhood. The only thing that happens with him is Tracy takes a job with him, and then promptly quits it. Meh.

In amazing, astounding, exciting plot twist news, Claire and Bennet eat cereal and talk about stuff. And he starts getting back into the hero hunting business.

Finally, Nathan is kidnapped, "murdered" at the order of his dead girlfriend's mother, and buried. But of course, Nathan can't die, can he? And when he busts through the grave, he looks like Sylar.

Heroes

T Bag has a bloody eye and it's distracting. Like, one of those random things where the white in one eye is bloody and OMG it's so gross. I can't pay much attention to him. And he's the most interesting thing here.

Sylar's pretty interesting too, in the scenery chewing way that always made T Bag fun to watch. He taunts Matt from inside his mind, "helping" him solve crimes when really he just uses Matt's power against him, making him see things that aren't there. Matt ends up beating the crap out of a suspect for no reason, and now his life will be ruined. Wait - cops beat up people all the time and no one really cares. But Matt uses his powers to solve his problem - convincing his partner that he did the right thing. And that's how Sylar got Matt to use his powers.

T Bag tracks down Peter, but I didn't follow what happened, other than vague innuendos about power and family and crap like that. And then there was some new deaf chick who can see sounds. But I really don't know what the point of this was. So what - you see color emanating from a cello and you pick it up and start playing and then Peter follows the sound and smiles at you. Whoopdee doo. The point, please?

Line of the Night: "Your mother told me about your roommate Annie committing suicide." Nice opening line to your daughter. Oh holy crap, this show.

Heroes

YES! We start out with T Bag and now I remember why I'm looking forward to this once-beloved show once again. T Bag with eyeliner and black fingernails. THANK YOU!

Claire's in college... and stupid I guess. At least they let her keep her real hair, and she's still adorable with her dad. Lucky for Claire, her roommate kills herself. I always heard that when your roommate commits suicide you get an automatic 4.0. Claire re-enacts the suicide and gets caught regenerating by her new friend. Yep.

Hiro and Ando are running some kind of hero help line. You'll never guess who their first client is - a little girl with a cat stuck on top of a building. Crazy, right? I know! *eyeroll*

Peter's a paramedic. He has big arms and I'd swear his partner has a same-sex crush on him. This is the most exciting plot point of the episode.

Tracy Strauss is out killing people. I miss Niki.

Nathan is really Sylar and really tanned.

Hiro is dying. Of what? Dunno. He goes back in time 14 years and sees himself at a carnival. T Bag wants him to change the past for some reason. Hiro makes a small change that ends in Ando and Hiro's sister hooking up in the present. Now he suddenly thinks it's OK to go back in time and fix different things. Even though he started out the episode saying he shouldn't. Whatever, but I'm all for Ando getting some.

Sylar's still cracking me up at least. He's appearing in Matt's head (because he wants to know where his body is) and he's playing with him and hamming it up and it makes me laugh.

Heroes Casting News

OH HELL YES!

This is one way to make sure I watch the next season of Heroes. T-BAG!

Robert Knepper, best known for portraying the colorful villain T-Bag on Fox’s Prison Break, has joined the cast of NBC’s Heroes. The actor will once again play a baddie on the series’ upcoming fourth season.

In at least six episodes of the season, Knepper will play Samuel, a Jim Jones type — charismatic but evil, with a twisted sense of humor — who will veer into the lives of all heroes. The character had been referred to as “Carnival Barker” in the series breakdown released last month.