How the Mighty Have Fallen

Sylar (Gabriel), Peter, Nathan, Nikki (Jessica), Claire, Horn-Rimmed-Glasses Man, why have all these people become drastically weaker than they were?

Peter has fallen the farthest, losing his powers so completely. Sylar has lost everything that made him Sylar. Nathan seems to have simply become Curious George, and is lost without his Man-in-the-Yellow-Hat political ideology. Nikki, I mean Jessica, I mean Tracy - it's hard to keep track of - used to be very interesting. Now I don't even care, since it seems that next season there's bound to be a version 4.0 of the character that will probably have the ability to become naked at will. "Save the cheerleader, save the world" was a winning mantra that polarized the first season. There were those that were for and against. This conflict has degraded to "save the cheerleader; shop at Kohls." Her angst about becoming numb to the whole world may as well affect her wardrobe and makeup. Her character has become a musky-smelling, black lipstick wearing, trenchcoat draped emo kid. If she dressed the part to match I'd respect her more, though I'd want to watch her less. As for Horn-Rimmed-Glasses; he used to be bad ass. Now he's just a vindictive western-style terrorist. I can see where he's come from now, so he's not as mysterious as he used to be. Instead of retaining my sympathy, along with Claire's, he's lost it completely and now seems consumed only by revenge against Gabriel (Sylar).

My hope for the series is at an all-time low. I thought that the second season was odd. This season has me feeling apathetic about what the next episode will bring. When an episode ended in the first season I was so excited to see the next episode that I'd take bets with my friends about what would happen. I'd call my family to see if they had any theories. I'd feel excited all through the work day, waiting for the episode to air that night.

Here's what I think should and could happen to save the waning interest: Mr. Petrelli's power needs to have a limited duration. Sure he can absorb powers. Great. He just can't keep them. Maybe the expiration depends on proximity. If someone gets too far away from him they start to regain their ability. It could be a time thing. He keeps the power for a week, then slowly loses it. Any way it goes, he needs to have a limitation.

Here's why: In any dramatic system there needs to be a balance, otherwise the conflict is over before it begins. In the first season they created the balance by having two nearly invincible players destined to battle. The battle would, in some unknown way, blast NYC to oblivion. Each player, in their own way, helped one side or the other. The dramatic action surrounded the two key players; Peter and Sylar. Now the conflict surrounds Pinehearst and "The Company" or Primatech. The problem with this is that both are bad. In the classic dramatic design there's a PROtagonist and an ANtagonist. Without some team or person for the audience to root for their support atrophies. Everyone, almost, likes Peter. His power was originally based on his feelings for others. He had the power of those he cared for. This was perfect, as his nemesis had the power of those he killed. Perfect dramatic structure. If this season is about Mr. Petrelli vs Mrs. Petrelli then it's over. It won't matter who wins because the audience doesn't care enough. Mr. Petrelli will need to either lose his power over time and need to stand back to let others move the action forward (making the story about them) or Mrs. Petrelli needs to finally die and make room for a protagonist of equal good to Mr. Petrelli's bad. If Peter doesn't get his power back then they will have to introduce a new protagonist who is also neigh-invincible. They already introduce characters too often, so that's not really the best idea at this point.

What the story needs, in summary, is a protagonist. Peter is powerless. Claire is too emo to accomplish anything but whine and fumble through simple problems. Gabriel's quest is to become Switzerland. Nathan has never really cared about anything but getting some, looking squeaky clean and having political power. The new Nikki/Jessica, Tracy, is the sidekick type. Mohinder... let's not go into what's wrong with what's happening to him. And nobody else is powerful enough for me to believe they are an equal match.

I think Peter and Gabriel should become an independent team. They now share the thirst for understanding (thereby power), which is what I believe Sylar's power to be. He needed to know how to interpret lots of factors to fix watches. He looked into Chandra Suresh's (Mohinder's Father's) research, discovered the factors and used many reference books to discover for himself how to dissect the brains of gifted people and extrapolate their ability. Once understood he could then imitate them. This was his original ability, the ability to extrapolate, interpret and then copy complex systems. He and Peter together make an unstoppable team that could be a powerful force for good and fill the role of protagonist while still retaining that gritty first-season style level of troubled truth. The two of them will always be at odds. They will always interpret things from a different perspective, and thereby will cancel eachother's effect were they to team up. It's the only way to make room for a new story. They are also both so impossibly more powerful than anyone else that they don't really belong answering to anyone but themselves anyway. Putting them on a team would isolate them from the rest of the conflict and allow for another protagonist to take the foreground and occasionally ask for their assistance. If the pair of them remain in play then the stage will never again be balanced. Their conflict ended in first season. It is time for a new story to be told. Rehashing that conflict has become tedious. It's even overshadowing the immenent danger of "the Formula" in this season. Truth be told, part of me just wishes that Sylar/Gabriel would just kill everyone, have that son and just let the entire story die in a blaze of "and they all lived happily ever after."

It's time for a real hero. My vote is currently with Hiro. While anything but invincible, he is certianly powerful. I'm dissapointed that all he's done this season is facilitate others' plots. For someone with as much potential as he has I really expect more of him.