By Pentadact

I love Heroes, but most of the positive things I have to say about it are spoilers. These are spoilered-out in the proper version of this post, but just in case this has somehow turned up in your RSS reader: omg spoilers.

Mohinda: Hello, I have no interesting abilities, and quickly lose interest in my inherited quest to track down those that do, for reasons unknown. You should care about me because ERROR: REASON NOT FOUND AT LINE #93572. Mohinda and his father were the least interesting thing in the largely off-putting pilot. Here’s how interesting he is: I’m writing this now because he’s on-screen.

The Cheerleader: She’s kind of a dick, and she has some of the most cringe-worthy lines in the series (episode nine), but this is the most fun power ever. The ending of episode three just rams home how far they’re prepared to go with this stuff, and you know she’s got some even more wonderfully gruesome moments ahead of her. I liked that around the time you’re wondering what can possibly go wrong for an invincible character, she nearly gets raped. “Oh right, there is that.”

The Nurse Guy: his first scene, standing on a rooftop about to test his belief that he can fly, was a bit of a non-starter: if he can’t, this is going to be a very short and pointless plot arc. But wait! A twist! And then! Another twist in the opposite direction! And then! A third and final twist, that negates neither previous twist, but instead transforms Peter into a much more intriguing creature, one with probably the most interesting ability of them all! You know his is only going to get more interesting as the characters converge, too.

The Senator: a ruthless and amoral politician is a nice twist on the reluctant superhero stereotype, and I like that his reluctance makes perfect sense. All he can do is fly, what can you use that for? In his own words and best line so far, “What am I going to do when I get there?” And yet, the guy can freaking fly. Like most of them, his power is turned up to eleven, and a joy to watch. He’s becoming a likeable nasty piece of work, too.

The Cop: Way to fix the pilot #9: put this guy in it. He’s wonderful. The actor Greg Grunberg is an old favourite of mine from Alias, with whom Heroes also shares an exec or two, and his pragmatic nice-guy face works even better in this as a man tortured by his ability. His brittle relationship with his wife is heartbreaking to watch, as much when it’s going well as wrong. What I like about his power is his inability to conceal his reactions to the thoughts. He knows they didn’t say the things he hears, but by force of habit he instinctively starts to respond as if they had, and stops himself in the same instant. Even when he’s acclimatised to it within a conversation, he can’t concentrate because of the absurd contrast between what the other person is saying and thinking. I also love that they don’t try to make the thinker facially ‘act’ their thought in any way – the whole point is that he’s hearing the things that they would never let on in any way whatsoever, and a lesser director would ruin that to give stupid people more visual clues to what’s going on. So the wife’s smile seems genuine even as she panics that he’s onto her affair.

Hiro: I think Hiro may have been a nine year-old in the original script – it’s not just a childlike enthusiasm, he’s effectively a child. No bad thing, though, the actor (but apparently he’s not an actor) is so immensely likeable that you don’t notice it when he’s on-screen. His power, particularly in the pivotal episode three is visually extraordinary, and there’s something very refreshing about someone who embraces his quest with glee rather than heavy-handed self-importance.

The Stripper: Rubbish power. Her superpower is that she’s schizophrenic? Adding super-strength to that doesn’t make it much more interesting, and the actress isn’t capable of playing both personalities differently enough to make it remarkable to watch. That said, with the sister angle in episode ten she suddenly makes sense as a character, and I sort of dig that she just shot her husband with a sniper rifle. With one exception none of the Heroes are Superman, and this is the first of a lot of interesting ways someone with an esoteric power has to combine it with more mundane tools to achieve their goal. But the reflection teasing just doesn’t work, it’s too familiar and not used to do anything surprising here.

The Stripper’s Son: I’m sorry, his power is to repair telephones? Are we going to have a guy who can perform janitorial duties instantaneously too? How obscure are these powers going to get? Because I’ve discovered I’m always in front of the doors when a train comes to a stop at the station.

The Glasses Guy: I like that his creepiness is just creepiness, they don’t try to demonise him at every turn. In fact, almost all of his screen time is sympathetic or neutral, which makes him a lot more compelling to watch than every one of the eight billion onerous bad guy stereotypes.

The Obligatory Evil Black Guy: Actually I’m not sure he’s entirely evil yet, for the same reasons as Glasses Guy – I see the two of them as an amoral third faction between Sylar and the Peter-Hiro alliance. I love this guy’s power – to negate other powers (except for the flying dude? Wha?) – and particularly our introduction to it. The deathly, stunning silence from his brain as Cop scans the crowded bar picking up a cacophony of everyone else’s thoughts. It ought to be a relief – it’s a scene in which Cop is being tortured by his ability – but it immediately feels profoundly wrong.

Sylar: Yes! The first encounter with this guy was brilliant, and he’s one of the rare villains to get more fascinating and sinister the more we learn about him. Induced suicide as an attack is excellently creepy, and I love that Greg Grunberg shot him like fourteen times. If you’re going to have the bad guy get back up, don’t make it because the hero was too stupid to make sure he went down. The backstory in episode ten was so right: humanising but not sympathetic, setting him relative to the other heroes in both plot and theme. I love this trio of meta-heroes emerging: the sharer, the negator and now the consumer. One for each faction. We can already see the showdown between the Nurse and Sylar a mile off, in which the other heroes have to rally round Peter to give him as many powers as Mr Absorbotron here, but for me it’s with childish excitement rather than weary inevitability.

The ‘Previously, on Heroes’ Guy: Shut the fuck up. What the fuck. I understand the words of your intro spiel, but to me you seem to be saying: “Heroes, is for idiots. Here, is the sales pitch. That, is the bad guy. And now, the televisual program that you are watching will unfold as you watch, since you are watching it. Without, further ado. Now. Immediately. Right this second. That story, is about to continue. In real time.”