Heroes: The Fifth Stage

This week’s title, aptly named ‘the fifth stage’ refers to the five stages of grief. The stages are as follows:

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

Peter is going through the stages having recently found out that his brother isn’t his brother so much as a murdering psycho superhuman, and his real brother has been dead for about six months now.  His mother wants him to move straight into the fifth stage and by proxy, she’s really asking all of us to do the same.

See, like Peter, I have been clinging on to a false reality. A reality where the show Heroes doesn’t hate geeks that like stories about superheroes. The first few episodes, I was in denial. I told myself that everything was going to be ok. That all other parts of what has come before aside, this was a new day. 

If you’ve read any of my previous reviews you know about when the anger stage kicked in.

So I bargained. “Look, I’ll give it 3 more episodes. And that’s it.” Despite the fact that I’d given it plenty of chances by saying that episode brought it around. If I’m honest, none of them have been incredible. Only ok. Maybe I’m being too harsh. It is a SERIES after all and these stories take time. No. Because every show that is a series actually does stuff every week. Exciting things some times –Hell, ER dropped a helicopter on a guy!– and none of them have people with special powers! This is like Soap Opera paced storytelling.

Depression:

This week we find resolution with Peter about his brother Nathan as we say goodbye to Adrian Pasdar. Peter goes to find Syla–wait a second, PETER GOES AFTER SYLAR?! OH MAN! PETER CAN TAKE SYLAR’S POWERS AND THEY’LL HAVE A BATTLE SO EPIC ITS GOING TO BE-Claire’s at the carnival, you guys! And she and her best gal pal are TOTALLY taking a look around to see what the dealio is! (Do kids even still say that?) OMG I want to belong in the world and this CARNIVAL is just the ticket! You see what I did, guys? I said, ticket! Talking about a carnival! LOL!!!1!

…Anyway…PETER IS–NOAH IS whining to his new girlfriend. You remember her don’t you? She’s the girl from the first season that wasn’t actually in the first season or the following two seasons but was there ALL ALONG. She then uses the word “Haitian” as a verb. As in “I haitian’d myself.”

…You’ve got to be…ok, if there are no more interruptions?…Ok.

Before Peter can find Sylar, SYLAR FINDS HIM! BOOSH! Epic battle in 3…2…

…”Where’s my powers?” asks a confused Sylar.

“I took the Haitian’s ability to stop powers! Now we will have an epic battle of FISTS!”

Ya…you…what? Why would…No that doesn’t make…why does anyone watching this show want a battle between Peter and Sylar WITHOUT ABILITIES?!

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN–OMG YOU GUYS! I LOVE THIS CARNIVAL! Even Samuel, whose accent is all over the place, has warmed me up to the idea of being here forever! I just want to be normal!

In the end, Peter gets closure, Sylar gets loose and Claire thinks she knows what she’s doing. The only problem is when Samuel’s master plan is revealed, we’re going to end up back at the beginning with Claire wanting to fit in, wanting to just be normal. To which I say to her:

Go Haitian yourself then, Claire.

Acceptance.

With the Fall episodes being finished, I can’t honestly say I’ll be back in January. I think it’s time to accept that this show has been dead for a while. Like Nathan, it was murdered and had its essence put inside a hollowed out shell, struggling on, awkward in its own body, convincing us that nothing has changed. But it has. OH IT HAS.