I’m going to discuss tonight’s episode of Heroes, so avert your eyes if you still give a damn about what happens on that show.

In one of my first rants against Heroes, I pointed out a glaring flaw in the writing of the show: Angela Petrelli is introduced as a distraught widow stealing socks just to feel alive, and yet this year it was revealed that she had coldly assassinated her husband. It was one of the most scathing and unassailable criticisms of the show I had. Well tonight they retconned the hell out of that. Apparently, she stole (or bought, I really was barely paying attention) socks when she needed to see a small action make a big difference or some bullshit (again, barely paying attention). Well, I call shenanigans.

In general, I’m OK with retcons in comics. Not necessarily when Spider-man #220 retcons Spider-man #108, though and here’s why. The stories are far enough apart to know for certain that it wasn’t a planned reveal. Ten issues apart, I’d accept it. But that far apart, it’s just breaking continuity because you’re lazy. The instances I approve of retcons are when a new story is being told from the beginning. So the origin story of Iron Man in Incredible Iron Man can be different, even drastically so, than the one in Iron Man because they’re two separate instances of that character with new stories being told. To allow yourself to tell new stories and explore new ideas, sometimes the details of a character’s past must be adjusted. But in any other instance, I don’t like retcons.

The worst part about this is that I sympathize with the writers in this instance. Bryan Fuller came back to a plodding mess with a bunch of inconsistent continuity hacked together, and he had to at least attempt to reconcile it all. So he had Matt Parkman find out about his child and according to spoilers I’ve read, he’ll get back together with the wife he left for no reason at all but plot expediency. And now he’s tried to change Angela Petrelli’s origin to have a connection to this event at Coyote Hills. Of course, there’s still no reason for everybody going back.

She said it was crucial to fix their current problems to go to Coyote Hills and face the past. But what did it really accomplish? We got that one salient point out of it. Which, I’m still not sure makes any sense. We didn’t really get much else from the episode. Sure there was a bit of backstory filled in; we learned Charles Deveaux actually had a power, though how it connects to his post-mortem conversation with Peter is still unclear; we got a little bit more of Nathan and Peter’s brotherly bickering; we were also told that Claire is actually really awesome and brave, despite her continued idiocy and short-sightednesss. And when it all came down to it, none of those revelations led to their fractured relationships being healed. At least not in any rational way. Instead, it was Sylar posing as Nathan Petrelli that seemed to push them together and let them forget their troubled past.

What I’m trying to say here is, it didn’t work for me. It all seems hamfisted. Admittedly, it almost has to be hamfisted because of what came before it, but that doesn’t make the experience any less distasteful.

There’s been a lot of Heroes hate ever since the season one finale disappointed everyone. I fell out of love with the show a few episodes earlier than that but because I’m a TV junkie I kept watching. And watching. And watching.

Most recently the hate has been pushed onto Hiro, and here’s why. The show sucks. It has nothing to do with Hiro, or his current journey. At least not in particular. What’s wrong with Hiro, is what’s wrong with Heroes.

Abuse of Awesomeness

During season one, one of the recurring characters was played by Richard Roundtree. AKA Motherfucking Shaft. So obviously he was playing a badass with awesome powers. Wait, what?

Shit. Well, he’s in a coma but he can wake up and reveal his awesome superpowers and kick all sorts of ass. Wait, what?

Fuck. Well, he’s dead — and it appears the only thing his death accomplished was to get Peter laid — but Hiro is all about the time travel, so Shaft can still show up in the past and be even more awesome because we didn’t see it coming!! Wait, what?

Oh, come on! You bring the guy back so that he can tell Peter that Love Is The Answer?! And what was his power anyways? Talking to the future? That’s a retarded power, and I don’t even think it was him doing it so it’s especially crappy.

And then, following their atrocious treatment of Shaft — not to mention the purposeless character Charles Deveaux’s very existence — they pump up the awesomeness by casting Bruce Boxleitner for a recurring role during season three. Except that he’s in two fucking scenes in total and they were pretty close to useless in the long run. My point is they’ve got a huge problem with follow-through. And not just with their stunt casting. Everybody remembers that most unheinous moment early on in season one of Heroes where time stops for Peter Petrelli and Ninja Hiro From The Future shows up to deliver him a message.

Future Hiro was fucking sweet! He spoke English without the accent; he carried around a katana; and the slimming lines on that leather trench coat really worked for him. He came from five years in the future but now three years later — possibly four given the sporadic time jumps the show does — he’s still a dweeb who talks in broken English and wears the office clothes for the job he hasn’t been to in years at this point. When Lost showed Jack depressed, addicted, and bearded up three years in the future, they followed the fuck through.

Discontinuity

Retcons are a staple of the comic-book world from which Heroes steals its ideas draws inspiration, but in the comic world, retcons typically come about because of universe altering events or because the story is being reimagined for a new generation. But changing the dynamics of the foundations of your characters doesn’t make a lot of sense.

In the series premiere, Angela Petrelli is arrested for shoplifting socks because she “wants to feel alive.” Presumably because the six months she’s lived without the love of her life, Arthur Petrelli, have left her feeling alone and empty; without her better half. No wait, she poisoned him and was planning on killing him even further just to make sure he was dead before her son walked in mid-homicide. It’s these emotional discontinuities that really kill Heroes.

Does Peter ever think about Simone Deveaux? Or the Irish chick he erased from existence? Does Hiro think about Charlie? Do any of these characters think about the consequences of their actions, or the pains in their past? I don’t see any of that in the performances or in the writing.

The characters perform as the plot requires. Their emotions exist to serve the plot. Their powers shift to drive the plot. Everything about the show is hollow and meaningless. You can change the pronouns of the last four sentences to refer to Hiro and the statements would stand, but the show, and how it treats its characters is the real problem.