The Racialicious Roundtable for Heroes 3.12

Hosted by Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

On the eve of the end of Volume III, Heroes managed to pull a genuinely compelling episode out of its’ space-time continuum. But even in that, there were some bad spots.

To begin this week’s Roundtable, I wanted to address two instances that recalled our discussion about the series’ penchant for violence against women.

The first was the description by series producer Greg Beeman of an overhead shot he had in mind for Sylar’s farewell to Elle, which he says was inspired by reading about Hindu and Buddhist priests meditating in the midst of burning bodies. Quoting from his blog:

I remember the script read: “Sylar stands [over] her burning body. A tinge of remorse. Giving Elle far more respect than any of his previous victims.” Anyway, the shot was very dramatic and I found it very haunting, almost beautiful. But the network standards and practices people and even Tim Kring thought it was too disturbing … I don’t know, maybe America’s not ready for full-on immolation.

Hexy: Well, I certainly didn’t get even “a tinge of remorse” from the close-up shot they replaced it with. With the lead up of Sylar using his Scary Voice and quite vocally affirming his return to bad-guy-dom, I think they would have had to be a lot more blatant about presenting “remorse” and “respect” to the audience if they wanted us to pick up on such nuances. My interpretation was that the close up of Sylar watching Elle burn was a non-verbal precursor to the words he used when engaged in his next murder: “I’d forgotten how good this feels.” I saw him reveling in his return to killing.

Mahsino: The Elle shot didn’t really bother me- I was just happy to see her gone, though the victimized/weak woman is way past getting old. I’m glad to see they’re doing massive housecleaning and getting rid of unnecessary characters.

Erica: They wanted Sylar’s scene to be more powerful? Come on — he kills her while kneeling on her body as she whimpers “You’re hurting me,” then we’re treated to shots of her bloody corpse, then he burns her. I didn’t get “respect” from all of that, even in Sylar’s twisted view of reality.

Also, check out this exchange writers Aron Coleite and Joe Polaski had with a viewer over at Comic Book Resources. The viewer’s question is in bold:

“Can you please explain why virtually every romantic relationship on this show ends with either the death or disappearance of the female character? Simone, Eden, Charlie, Caitlin, Yaeko, Maya, and now Elle — in fact, the only exception I can think of off the top of my head is West/Claire.”

Wow. We were concerned when we read your question Amanda. To quote the philosopher Tommy DeCarlo, of Boston, “It kinda took us by surprise and made us realize,” Amanda.

But then we started to think: Yaeko? Caitlin? I don’t think we killed either of them. And you forgot to mention the deaths of Isaac and D.L,, as well as the long life of Angela,, Tracy, Kimiko, and Heidi. Now it’s our turn to put you on the couch – “Top of your head?” Can you explain that language, “Amanda?”

Is it me, or was that an extraordinarily flippant response on their part? Do these people even realize how they come off?

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