It Didn't Make Me Shake with Rage

I've spoken about my... hate-hate relationship with the NBC show "Heroes" before. Twice, even. The show is just stupid. It lacks the most basic fundamentals that any narrative arc requires: coherency and continuity.

Lately, the "heroes" (I use the term loosely because you give me a baseball bat and I could probably do a better job hero'ing my way around town than these idiots) have had their powers stripped, returned again, and are all playing some sort of power shifting, stealing, and sharing "Musical Chairs".

Monday's episode, however, wasn't a complete insult to the intelligence of a 3-year-old. I mean, it had plenty of idiotic parts (see below) but the storyline was tighter: one main story, one minor, and one... small stupid one. You can't win them all, I suppose.

Now, I consider this to be a brief oasis in an otherwise cancel-worthy season, but it reminded me of why the show used to have so much potential. The writers managed to keep the exposition to a minimum (a Heroes minimum being only 4 or 5 times an episode will a character literally narrate what he/she is doing) and the main story was actually fairly good.

But then, of course, they're still a bunch of morons. Five minutes with just ONE person's powers and I've got all their problems solved. But not them!

- Hiro can teleport through time and space, as well as stop time outright. So why does he let the bad guy steal his powers and fling him off a roof? Probably because his writers hate him.

- The speedy chick, name forgotten because I don't care, drags her friends from Iowa to NYC at super-speed? How would that not kill them? How is she strong enough to DO that? Lazy, stupid writers again.

- The bad guy, who possesses something like 4 different super-healing abilities, is killed with a bullet to the brain while his powers are being neutralized. Now, I liked that the neutralizing guy had trouble keeping him in check. But the show has already shown us, several times that the healing folks come back to life if they happen to die while being de-powered. Maybe he's just not dead. But why do the people responsible for his death figure it's all good? Especially when one of them had this exact thing already happen to him?

See, I thought it was a solid B- episode (they are usually D+ at best) and now I'm already rethinking it down to a C. But I really did like the Hiro-Momma Hiro story, and even Claire's story. Although, seeing her hold and coo at her 1-month old self (time travel, folks) was unbelievably creepy.

Of course I will watch next week's "2008 finale". I can't look away.