Everybody Get A Buddy!: The Racialicious review of Heroes 3.3
by Arturo R. García, also published at The Instant Callback
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
Team-ups and ties that bind dominated “One Of Us, One Of Them,” as the episode stirred the pot with enough questions answered before heading toward the next set of plot points.
Stirring things up the most was, as ever, Mrs. Petrelli, as she uses “motherly” persuasion to maneuver Sylar into being Mr. Bennet’s new Company partner, citing a need for “structure” so he can rehab and kick that pesky dome-slicing habit. His first day at school, er, work, is a mixed bag: young Gabriel gets a nice new suit and saves Noah from fear-fueled Knox, flame-throwing Flint and sonic-powered Jesse (freshly separated from Peter), but – naughty, naughty! — Gabe can’t help but help himself to Jesse’s power, landing him back in his room at Level 5. For now.
In California, Claire’s biological mother, pyrokinetic Meredith uses harsher methods to get her point across. While “training” Claire: Hot Mom uses her powers to choke Claire into admitting she wants to be a heroine mostly to get revenge on Sylar for upending her nerve endings during last week’s premiere. Possibly out of shame, Claire subsequently runs away with a stack of Company files. Will she ask Daddy Noah or Actual Daddy Nathan to be her senpai?
In New Orleans, Tracy “What the hell is a Niki Sanders?” Strauss ditches working with Nathan to meet up with Micah, who confirms that Niki is a dead ringer for Tracy – literally; Niki is, quite creepily, still in a coffin in the living room. After being incredibly okay with this doppelganger of his mom showing up, Micah uses his ability to suss out that Niki and Tracy share a birthday, a birthplace and a delivering doctor, Dr. Zimmerman (Ronald Guttman) who, even more creepily, tells Tracy he “created” her. Yeah, because Clones help every story.
Speaking of dissolving partnerships, Ando and Hiro continue to bicker. This time their disagreements, prodded along by Daphne the speedster costing them their half of Nakamura-sama’s formula and landing them in the Company’s clutches after a run-in with her benefactor, the Haitian. We learn the Haitian has been acting as a courier for Mama P, while Daphne, who seems more amused than intimidated by her Japanese “nemeses,” is acting as a freelancer. Will Hiro’s lecture about using her powers responsibly force her to choose a side?
Parkman’s “spirit walk” seems to steer him toward being proactive, as he discovers he’s been the subject of a series of paintings by Usutu. After non-descript musings about The Future Not Being Set and all that, Parkman loses himself in a hypnotic trance similar to Isaac Mendez’s after Usutu … let’s him listen to his Discman. Is he listening to Mohinder’s voice-overs? Heavy, man! Overall, not a bad set of character moments, as the chess pieces start moving around the board, and other gaming metaphors.
Next Week:
* Evil Sexy ClaireBear returns!
* Peter & Peter: which one’s the bullet-eater?
* Suresh screws everything up – again!
* Sylar … cooking?
Previously:
The Racialicious Scorecard:
Knox: The defacto leader of the Level 5 escapees goes all Dog Day Afternoon specifically to kill Mr. Bennet for locking him up. Timely interference by present-day Peter Petrelli (trapped in Jesse’s body) and Sylar stops him, but the murder of Jesse and his own re-capture give the erstwhile Ben Washington more than enough impetus for another shot at HRG.
Hiro & Ando: Like a pro-wrestling tag-team, miscommunication and continued losses are putting the strain on their partnership, and each of them is at fault this week. Ando gets sweet-talked by Daphne, but Hiro can’t leave things alone after Ando’s ad-lib briefly wins them the formula. Their combined wussiness lands them on Level 5 – and near Sylar and the Villains. Uh oh.
D.L: Still dead.
Micah: How plot-convenient, uh, nice is this kid? A stranger identical to his dead mom – who’s in a casket in the house — shows up and he not only doesn’t freak out, he points her at the doctor who delivered or “created” both of them. And then he hugs her. No sign of Monica, which is annoying, given that she was, y’know, a semi-major character just last season.
Maya & Mohinder: Spider-Dope and La Llorona weren’t featured this week, aside from Mohinder’s weekly voice-overs. But don’t worry: next week we get to see how Suresh screwed the pooch with his super-serum. If “Kill Mohinder, Save The World” is this season’s clarion call, count me in.
Usutu: Even for a Mystical African character, Usutu makes the Haitian look like a motor-mouth. We learn he’s been doing a This Is Your Life portrait series on Parkman, but not why. We get another glimpse of his precognitive powers, but no explanation for them (or why he couldn’t use them to, say, move to a city) other than the hint that they’re triggered by what he’s listening to on his Discman.
Bridget Bailey: Such a nothing character there’s not even an actress listed for her on imdb, but she is a woman of color, so we’ll show her some respect. Bridget is a product of the show’s online supplements. But all we need to know is: her power is to read the psychic “history” of an object … until she gets literally fed to Sylar by Mrs. Petrelli. Nice knowing ya, Bridg.
The Haitian: Picks up the latest Doomsday Formula from Daphne on behalf of the Company and rebounds from a sucker-punch by Ando to (presumably) pimp-slap them into custody. Nice buddy moment between himself and Mr. Bennet to close the episode: “Am I being replaced?,” the Haitian asks. “Only for the moment,” HRG answers, eyeing Sylar like a shark would a tourist. Awww, Noah …
- – -
[Latoya's Note - Now that we are all caught up with Heroes, I have an announcement to make. I actually wanted to switch the format of the recaps to a round table kind of panel. My original vision was that a couple different people would watch each episode, and then respond with their different ideas on each situation. However, Elton and David (our excellent recappers from season 2) are not available this time around. So now, I open the floor to you readers. If anyone would like to be a part of the Heroes virtual round table, please email team@racialicious.com]
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Eric Grant wrote:
Most of your links seem to be broken (they start with a racialicious URL, followed by the intended target URL–which produces a 404).
Other than that, cool recap!
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 8:31 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@Eric – Should be fixed.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 8:50 am ¶
tj wrote:
I got so excited when Bridget Bailey was introduced, then the writers proceeded to rain on my parade.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 9:03 am ¶
jen* wrote:
me = still pissed that sonic boom-Jesse was only around for reflections. and then he was Sylar-food.
But the moments with Micah and Nikki weirded me out. a lot.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 9:38 am ¶
heyhey wrote:
@Jen: re: Jesse:Yah, that was short lived, literally. Now where the hell is Monica, Tim?
Cloned Tracissiki. Eh. So what, we’ve got three ways to prepetuate the Heroes lineage: the good ol fashioned way, cloning, and Suresh’s new shot? Just trying to keep track.
And there’s three ways to re-enact the old “He’s not good Kirk, I am!” face off, right? Morphers/projectors, clones, and now forcing people into other people. That switchero throws any future visions into question– villan Ando could be a morpher, or someone in his body, yadda. Convenient, writers!
Anyone channel surf when Parkman and Usutu show up? Parkman seems only as good as the chemistry b/t him and his partner (same for Suresh), and Usutu is more a device than a character, so for both their sakes I hope they flesh Usutu out more.
Also, Claire’s biological mom torturing her. Uncomfortable. The waterboard mention didn’t help.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 12:23 pm ¶
Clara wrote:
I’m so disappointed by the way Bridget was treated. In her few moments of screen time, she seemed like a potentially kickass character. The actress made some very expressive faces and she seemed to have a clever/evil glint in her eyes. I thought Bridget was going to be Sylar’s partner. But then one second later we hear her screaming. The character is played by an Indian-British actress so I was really excited to see another South Asian character (so Mohinder didn’t have to be the token one anymore) but alas.
I hope Usutu’s powers aren’t limited to seeing only Parkman’s future. That would be such a boring power.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 1:21 pm ¶
LTP wrote:
This has nothing to do with anything intelligent.. but I was really disappointed that Jesse’s OMGPOWER was talking loud. With the way they built up to it, I was expecting something horrifying and terrifying. Knox’ power was way scarier than Jesse’s. That was disappointing.
I really felt like they missed a big opportunity for character depth there by making Jesse’s power as interesting/dangerous as they were implying and showing Peter accidentally setting it off and seriously injuring/killing someone. I know that’s morbid, but that’s what I was looking for as far as a good development.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 1:52 pm ¶
Andrea R. wrote:
I miss DL. I wish there was a way to bring him back.
I didn’t think the encounter with Nikki and Micah was odd at all. Micah always knew when Jessica was around, so to me it was obvious that he’d know Tracey was not Nikki. He’s such a grown up little kid that I think that reaction fits the character. I think many of us are impatient with the story line. I too am waiting for Monica, but that I have faith that that story will develop when we get more of Micah.
I am actually really bored with Hiro and Ando. Instead of them being a cool super team, Hiro just seems like a character of his former bad ass self. It seems that the show has grown and matured, but Hiro is still played as a silly boy who loves comic books. I wish they’d write him a bit more maturely too.
I just hope the Parkman story line doesn’t fall flat.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 1:54 pm ¶
Arturo wrote:
If it turns out that Tracy is a clone of Niki, or vice versa, I’m calling my shot now: somebody in this series will literally make a deal with the devil in Year Four.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 2:30 pm ¶
Ken Arromdee wrote:
I’m probably further to the right than most people here, and I’m very reluctant to point to signs of a Magical Negro or similar stereotypes since you’d expect a certain number of them to appear by chance and forcing all writers to go through a checklist to make sure their minorities don’t happen to match anything on the list is a bad idea.
But, in this case, I agree that Heroes has gone too far and the stereotype is too obvious.
And an example that’s bugged me a bit. Asian people have limited roles in Western series. Martial arts masters/samurai, businessmen, geeks, comic relief, and character put in because Westerners feel guilty about some event involving Asians.
Hiro fits *all* of those (including the last; it’s been stated he was named after Hiroshima). He also started out unable to speak English, which is another one.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 2:34 pm ¶
Yvette wrote:
Slightly off-topic: I’d love reading posts from anyone writing adoption-focused blogs about the adoption-related aspects of the series. Particularly now with the revelation that Sylar had been adopted.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 3:23 pm ¶
Reiter wrote:
Ya, all of the above reasons are why I have a love/hate thing with Hiro (and by extension, Ando). Like Suresh, you’d think Hiro would have learned a thing or two after all that’s happened to him. As to the comment about Hiro being Bruce Wayne. Not quite. Hiro’s got a long ways before he becomes the supposed time-traveling, sword-wielding badass with the goatee we’ve seen glimpses of in past episodes. The thing is, I don’t see how he ends up that way if the writers keep holding Hiro back as the naive, uber geek he’s always been so far.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 4:21 pm ¶
Philip Arthur Moore wrote:
@LTP: I agree. I think it was a cop out on the part of the writers. When HRG was scanning through the Level 5 villians and Jesse’s name came up, he looked so serious, as if Jesse was so terrible. His power was about as compelling as Maya’s black eyes. You see it once and it’s enough.
@Andrea R.: I agree with you re: Hiro, but at the same time the scene with him, Ando, and Daphne in the theater was hilarious. The vintage music in the background had me in stitches. That said, remember when Hiro came from the future and looked like a a complete badass? I thought that was supposed to happen after his father passed away and he grew up a bit. Hopefully his personality will develop, and maybe it will take his split with Ando to make it happen.
@Ken: I think Asian stereotypes in the show are far more noticeable than “Magical Negro” stereotypes. Hiro is a geeky, funny, utterly boyish superhero. There’s nothing about him that goes against the typical Japanese schtick. I do like him though, for better or worse.
@Reiter: Agreed. As I mentioned above, it will take his break with Ando to make him grow up. Ando is as bad for Hiro as Hiro is bad for Ando. They pull each other back in terms of character development because they are in a sense dependent on each other to make a scene work (as it stands now). Hiro had an opportunity to grow up when he was alone with Adam, but the show was so young that the chance was lost. I’m hoping that his break with Ando this time around makes him mature – also because I really like Ando and want him to come into his own.
Final point: The show has really impressed me thus far during Season 3. When a show frustrates me, makes me laugh, angry, and excited at the same time I know it’s good. Right now there is comedy, action, drama, and none of the pre-teen angst that dragged down Season 2.
Posted 01 Oct 2008 at 8:27 pm ¶
al wrote:
the haitian wasn’t picking up the formula from daphne, daphne was intercepting it from the woman who was keeping it safe for mrs. petrelli. the nakamura half was already given to whoever daphne works for, and she was retrieving the second half for him, presumably to end the world somehow (i thought the formula was for creating heroes, but now with the mohinder storyline that would be super awful).
what really bothered me about these first 3 episodes was that jesse was played by milo ventimiglia. there is no reason jesse couldn’t have been played by Francis Capra while peter was hiding inside him. the whole quantum leap we see jesse in the mirror but peter in real life business was so freaking irritating. milo was all over these episodes anyway, and i really don’t think it would be confusing for the audience. and who doesn’t want to see more francis capra?
so now we have 2 characters of color out of what 4 heroes all together who died last season? with the two white characters sort of coming back, plus, the introduction of a new character of color, jesse, being played by a white actor.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 12:20 am ¶
al wrote:
ha, i just read the other post about heroes and apparently francis capra is also white, which means what i said there was not true. it still irritated me that they had ventimiglia playing the role, but now it’s a technical issue and not one of racism.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 12:26 am ¶
Lauren wrote:
On the “magical negro” theme- I think that for a certain extent we have to control for the tendency of the Heroes writers to make absolutely everyone seem really mystical. It was brought up in a previous Heroes thread that the specific powers and specific plot functions track with this theme (knows things he “shouldn’t”, is disabled/creates disability, shows up at incredibly convenient moments/whenever someone puts windchimes out) and those still stand, but I think we should disregard factors like “says cryptic things.”
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 1:35 am ¶
hexy wrote:
Did Usutu get named on screen? If so, I missed it.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 1:51 am ¶
morose wrote:
well written. love the language.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 1:54 am ¶
Ken Arromdee wrote:
The reason I think the complaints about magical negroes make some sense is that we’ve seen more than one. The new guy in Africa, the Haitian, and Charles Deveaux.
As for Hiro, I like hum too. It just seems strange that he has all those traits. People complain about Samurai Girl, but she isn’t also a corporate executive, a geek, named after Nagasaki, and started out unable to speak English.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 8:54 am ¶
Yvette wrote:
Not to belabor the “magical negro” issue: It is important to note how many of the other (non-Black) characters are connected to somebody, instead of existing in a vaccum. Through biology, adoption, and best-friend-ness–many of the other characters are meaningfully linked to others and seem to have real histories.
So far the major Black characters seem to have been plopped into the story, as plot devices for the other characters. They appear largely disconnected to family or friends, and seem not to have any background life before coming on the scene. Of course this is the case with The Haitian and Usutu (again, so far). DL seems to be gone forever, Micah is (apparently) now an orphan, we’ve yet to see Monica again, and I have seen no word about their grandmother. (In fact, unless I missed it, I did not see any mention of Nichelle Nichols in the Star Trek segment of the preview.)
So again, it is not the “magical” or “mystical” aspect of the characters that makes the MN problematic for some, but how the characters are used in the broader story.
Hopefully as the season progresses this will change for at least a couple of the Black characters.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 8:57 am ¶
Arturo wrote:
I do have some hope for Usutu; in the premiere, he complained about a lack of cell phone coverage, saying, “I should have gotten Sprint.” Neat little product-placement joke, I thought. But, we should get more explanations from him as Parkman’s arc develops. Hopefully.
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 11:23 am ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
lol @ Sylar cooking next week. Other than that, I have nothing constructive to add…carry on!
Posted 02 Oct 2008 at 5:19 pm ¶
Roxie wrote:
Nikki is in a casket in the house b/c it is in the tradition of the wake. Where fam & friends come to see the dead before the actual funeral.
Although I have no idea who would be coming to see her…but that’s why.
Posted 03 Oct 2008 at 10:02 pm ¶
Lisa Harney wrote:
Bridget’s few seconds before she died was really really irritating to me. I would’ve been much happier if a white man had been the sacrificial lamb.
Posted 05 Oct 2008 at 4:37 am ¶
Arturo wrote:
Roxie,
See, I’ve never seen/heard of that being practiced in someone’s home. In the two wakes we’ve held in my family, the body was at the funeral home for visitation. Thanks for the illumination
Posted 05 Oct 2008 at 5:54 pm ¶
Erica wrote:
Anybody bothered by the idea of a cloned superhuman just happening to be a cloned white blonde? If Ricardo Montalban (Khan) shows up, I’ll scream. Bad enough that one of my least favorite characters is “back” (although I had a good laugh at them trying to make super-sexy Ali Larter try to look ultra-conservative).
I think I am most disappointed that Nichelle Nichols has not developed into a significant character. When Sulu is introduced, he’s a founder of the company and a badass swordfighter and a CEO. (Gotta love George Takei.) But so far the most interesting thing Uhura has done is fall asleep reading a book while her grandsons steal cable.
I’m still holding out hope that she can somehow become more involved when Monica returns to the plot. (I am confident that’s “when”, not “if”, because the “St. Joan” issue of Ninth Wonders showed her wielding a kris, which she hasn’t done yet. I’m annoyed it’s taking this long to touch her storyline, though.)
Posted 06 Oct 2008 at 1:31 pm ¶
hexy wrote:
Lisa:
While I agree with you on principle, I do think the selection of a young and pretty woman fits in with Ma Petrelli’s character. She’s shown a LOT of contempt for various young and attractive women who aren’t directly blood related to her… a problematic depiction in itself, but at least it’s consistent.
Posted 07 Oct 2008 at 12:53 am ¶
heyhey wrote:
@Erica: Well, the thing about “Heroes” is that people can always reappear in flashbacks, so hopefully when we learn more about the lineage of the “Heroes” Nichelle can make another cameo. Whether or not I’ll still be watching the show if she does remains to be seen, although your info about Monica’s eminent return might make me stick around.
Posted 07 Oct 2008 at 6:33 pm ¶
Jeremy Pierce wrote:
They left a door open to bring Monica back, but I don’t think the writers thought her story was working out. But she’s definitely no longer part of the cast, so if she appears it will be as a guest star.
Future Hiro was a product of the future that’s now been changed. There’s no guarantee that he will become that Hiro. Ando had to die for that Hiro to be who he was, and Ando survived.
As for Jesse’s power, Wikipedia reports that it was originally going to be earthquake-stomp, which is quite a bit more imposing a threat than the sonic scream. Perhaps Noah’s eerie look when he talked about Jesse’s power was written before they made that change.
Micah’s grandmother’s fate is told in the online comics. Apparently she had a power too. His great-aunt (Nichelle Nichols’ character) was only ever a guest star like Bruce Boxleitner, and there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see her again given that Monica was written out of season 3. She did film a few scenes early in the season, but those scenes were cut. The writers have decided not to pursue her story for now, having concluded that the criticism of season 2 was largely because of aspects of the show that they have now discontinued, including her story.
Posted 27 Oct 2008 at 11:52 pm ¶