Five Years Gone

I'm wiping the tears off my keyboard as I write this...I hated this episode. There, I said it.

I can deal with a "what if" future, seeing as Marvel has a whole series of comics about it. Fine. What really bugs me about it is that the speculation is going to run wild, and almost completely wrong. How do I know? I don't, but I seriously doubt that Kring's Krew would lay out the next couple seasons' plot for us right now; this was meant to be a worst-case scenario. I'm also worried that the writers might use this as an excuse for all sorts of plotline "gotchas."

Not only that, but we really didn't get much storyline resolution here. I'm sorry, but I feel like this was the equivalent of the "two characters stuck in a meat locker" clip show that every sitcom uses to pad out its schedule when the principals aren't available to shoot. They had a 23-episode contract, and they had 22 episodes worth of story, so they wrote this to fill in the blanks. I'd have much rather seen this as an online comic.

Can you believe it? Candice is dead, and still the writers are beating that dead horse of a special ability. Seriously, guys...kill her off now and get the story back on track. Speaking of President Sylar (kind of a lateral move, if you ask me...at least there are brains involved), why is he suddenly able to hurt Claire now? Can she not still heal? A lousy thread.

I could pick apart this episode piece by piece, but doing so is just going to make me angry and depressed. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Instead, I want to wrap this up with the one thing I truly appreciated from this episode. In the words of Randy Jackson, "You da bomb, dawg!" In this case, the dawg in question is Peter. Or Sylar. Or Ted. I like how they addressed the situation, that Peter exploded but Sylar was blamed. Unfortunately, that led us to another Lazy Candice Moment. At least that one little nugget of information provides some grist to the explosion mill.

Stay tuned, sidekicks! Next week, we're back to the present, back to the story, and with backs to the wall. Keep your eyes open, your sword handy, and your hair neatly trimmed. Next one will be better...I promise.