So tonight was the final episode of the only show on TV that I've been fanatical about watching. Although the series as a whole has been outstanding, and provided excellent entertainment week after week, I can't help but feel that the season finale wasn't as crisp and stunning as it could have been. I'm not going to attempt to tell the writers what they should or should not have done, but I will bring up a few points as a viewer:
> Nikki / Jessica was never fully explained. Was the "evil" side just a split personality? Was it actually a real person who passed away and somehow "melded" with her sister? The development arc for this particular character just never seemed to click for me. I actually enjoyed her side stories earlier in the season, but as time went on I never got the feeling that it was ever making complete sense. To be perfectly honest, I kept waiting for a scene where we'd see the evil sister (or her spirit, or something) coming out of the good sister, or some sort of explanation in relation to mirrors.
One more quick note on her, it seemed a pretty simple thing to me that she should have pretended to go along with Linderman when she and her husband were at gunpoint in the penthouse. Instead of letting her husband take a bullet, she could have easily acted like she was turning on him and then taken Linderman out with her super strength. Duh!
> Why didn't Hiro ever use his powers to go back just a few minutes and correct quick mistakes? Although the series made a big deal about his lack of self-confidence being the reason that he couldn't control his powers, he got it together at the end– but for some reason, he still didn't seem to really use his powers to their full potential. For example, as he's training with his father, Ando leaves (on his way to being probably killed) and instead of simply jumping back in time 10 minutes before he left to stop him, Hiro seems to sort of chase him down as Sylar's choking him, etc.. etc.. It might have been more dramatic, but not very logical.
Going further, the point where Hiro stabs Sylar was highly anticlimactic and improbable. They've showed Sylar several times as quite capable of defending himself, yet Hiro can just run up to him (without stopping time) and just stab him? Huh?
> Why were the writers so hell-bent to have Peter "killed" as a way of avoiding the explosion? He made it seem so permanent and grim, yet with his regeneration powers he could have easily taken a bullet to the head and recovered from it afterwards. The wife pointed out that since he had already absorbed flight powers, he could have flown away from New York and exploded at a safe distance from the city, thus negating the need for Nathan's (presumed) death.
> Why did the mind-reading guy all of a sudden seem to lose every lick of sense in his head and think that he could take out Sylar with a simple gun? He's seen with these people can do, and he should have realized that it was complete suicide to try such a dumb stunt… for someone so concerned about his pregnant wife, that seemed a little bit out of character and stupid.
These are just a few quick things off the top of my head that bugged me as a fan, and let me be clear — I'm not saying this to knock the show at all. In fact, I have a lot of respect for what the writers and actors have pulled off. I don't think for a moment that it's easy to create the kind of serialized programming that they've done, especially at the level of quality that the show has been at. In complete seriousness, this has been my favorite TV show in a long, long time… but just because I like it doesn't mean that the nitpicky critical side of me goes away. ; )
Anybody else a fan of the show and have some thoughts on the finale or the series as a whole?
Transformers fan. MOTU stan. Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQIA. Anti-fascist.
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It wouldn’t have that true comicbook vibe without the whole “Why doesn’t superman just do this to beat that villian?”
You just have to accept questions like that will popup when you give people godlike powers in a real world setting.
Loved Claire’s escape tactic though!