Punch In The Face Index: S2E10

[bryant]

This is the tenth PITF Index for Season 2 of Heroes, the superhero TV show where punching people in the face will last as long as someone’s writing the screenplay.

Face-punch count: 1. It might have been more but you know, it’s not like Monica’s powers could actually help her in a fight or anything. If only she’d seen some old martial arts footage… oh wait.

PITF Index after the cut.

But first a quick recap of the rules. Being evil does not mean you need to be punched in the face. Being punched in the face is a direct result of being snarky, useless, whiny, smarmy, petulant, emo, or Mohinder. People not appearing in the episode are not eligible for being punched in the face, except in extreme circumstances like we run out of people to punch. Dead people are immune, probably, unless they appear in flashback or something. Previous performance does influence current placement.

The writers have a meta-spot at the top of the list for the nonce. They can escape this placement by a) writing better characters; b) cutting back on the women in peril while bringing back Audrey Hanson; and c) pretending the Maya plot never happened.

This week, our list looks like this.

1. Maya Maya Maya. I begin to think the writers have it in for people whose names begin with M. Forget about the attraction to Sylar, forget about the ease with which she’s manipulated. What kind of sense does it make for her to send her brother, who does not speak English, away? What did she think was going to happen? He’s an illegal alien who doesn’t speak the language and he’s thousands of miles from the Mexican border. Susan notes that they probably weren’t planning on giving him the car, either. You’re sending him away to keep him safe?
2. Sylar, for proposing such a preposterous plan in the first place. Further, the whole plan to push Maya into learning new things about her powers by risking his own life was not the brightest idea in the world.
3. Mohinder, who continues to be a pawn of the Company. What do you call a problem like Mohinder?
4. Peter, who continues to be a pawn of Adam. It’s sort of forgivable up to the point where Hiro, who has known good guy tendencies, tries to tell Peter that something is up but Peter completely blows it off.
5. Damon, for low-grade idiocy. Also, don’t lie to Micah, you were completely going to sell the comics whether or not Micah liked the idea and you were probably going to spend the money on more PPVs. Jerk.

This list was distilled from an overwhelming urge to punch everyone on the episode in the face, with brief exceptions for people in California and Japan.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.

Comments

[touchofwinter.livejournal.com]

I forgive Monica's lapse of awesome because A) it was her first time in the field and she was clearly scared to death, and B) when four guys pull guns on you at close range, all the Bruce Lee movies in the world aren't going to make you bulletproof.

Yeah, the Peter being strung along thing is getting really thin. I understand the guilt at having left that girl in the future, but c'mon. Do you need a neon sign or something?

[bryant]

It's more or less forgivable, and we do know that the character tends to shy away from conflict. But man, I wanted to see her kick some butt.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so as opposed to the previous episode which I felt was generally lacking in people who needed a PitF, I agree that this episode felt like it was overflowing with folks that needed it. I feel like Jessica really needed to be added to the list, too, for being generally spineless and Adam for being smarmy. And while I don't think he deserves a PitF, I've got to give Hiro some guff for leaving poor Ando alone AGAIN even though he was instrumental in figuring things out from Kaito's papers.

Hm. Have we tried correlating episode writers to the number of characters needing a PitF? Just thinking about the days of the X-Files where you knew that if Darren Morgan was writing the episode, you were in for something good, whereas there were other writers that had different, somewhat unorthodox spins on Mulder and Scully. Have we really looked yet at who is writing which episodes? Could there be a pattern here?

[bryant]

Yeah! What's with ditching Ando yet again? Pfft.

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

I can handle much of what's going on in the show now -- I'm at least more engaged than I've been in the past.

What's really annoying me, though, is the amount of death visited on the Older Generation without them getting a chance to bust out some powers (that they're clearly supposed to have) of their own and going down in a blaze of glory.

I mean, it's clear that Adam can take the punishment, but I would have liked to see Hiro's dad try to melt his face on the way over the edge.

Ditto for whatshername that Adam shot in the back.

Ditto for Peter's MOM, for that matter.

[bryant]

YES.

I suspect, on not a ton of evidence, that they were holding revelations about the original 12 for Heroes: Origins -- it would have made sense to use the Company as the linking mechanism for telling stories about new heroes, since the Company takes a huge interest in emerging heroes. And it's a hook for fans to watch: "hey, maybe this episode we'll find out what Hiro's dad can do!"

It makes no dramatic sense to me to hold power revelations past the point where the character dies.

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

I just wanted a...

"I never thought it would have been you!"

ZAM ZAM ZAM

TACKLE

TUMBLE

TUD

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Seriously - there have been a number of occasions now where the older folks could've shown off their powers. We've seen Kaito and Julia in combat situations where powers could have shined, and we've seen Angela in a wide variety of situations where combat and non-combat powers could have been useful. With Maury and Bob, we know that your powers don't just go away when you get old, so we know that's not the case. I mean, I suppose maybe they were injected with some prototype virus that's removed their powers, but that's not very interesting.

And was anyone else unconvinced by the actor that played young Kaito? For one thing (and this could just be camera-work) he looked too short to be young Kaito. Takei's listed on IMDB at 5'8"...I can't seem to find the name of the actor that played young Kaito, but I swear he looked a couple inches shorter. And while he got the stern tone right, I just didn't feel he looked the part.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

I was both overwhelmingly meh and annoyed as hell over this week's episode, because people continue acting so impossibly stupid, but how much do I care anymore? I could see far away that Maya and Sylar would hook up and be this horrible evil couple of doom, but hoped I was wrong. I wonder how Sylar got out of the "whoops, there's your dead brother on the floor, we can't get it on in there" situation?

Was there only a front to the house where Monica broke in? She heard them coming, why not go out a window or the back or something? Or hell, even back up the stairs and out the way she came in, once they'd gotten back in the house?

Peter needs a boot to the head, for being such a tool, but that's nothing new. Same with Mohinder, for that matter. Above and beyond the PITF, I mean.

Still, the show hasn't driven me away entirely through disinterest (unlike Lost), but we'll see what the break does to that.

[evilmagnus]

Was there only a front to the house where Monica broke in? She heard them coming, why not go out a window or the back or something? Or hell, even back up the stairs and out the way she came in, once they'd gotten back in the house?

It was worse than that - she broke in through a balcony, remember. She could easily have left the same way, invisible from the street.

Poor location work.