Ten Reasons Heroes Didn’t Suck Tonight

Tonight saw the much-anticipated return of Bryan Fuller to Heroes.  In case you don’t know, Fuller created Pushing Daisies.  More importantly (to Heroes at least), he wrote the single best episode of the show: Company Man.  He was highly involved in the first (epic) season of the show, but left to create Pushing Daisies.  Now that that show is (most unfortunately) deceased, he has returned to this show.  And for the first time in over a year, it DIDN’T SUCK.  Here are some reasons why.

1) Characters were witty.

That’s right.  The show was actually humorous.  Ando and Hiro, who were my favorite plot line in Season 1, have been too bogged down by Hiro’s power loss and Ando’s theoretical “betrayal” for far too long.  This episode saw some great character interaction between them.  I don’t want to give it away, but a baby was involved.

2) Characters were deep.

Somehow, even though Ando and Hiro stole the spotlight in terms of comic relief, they also had some of the most genuine reflection and depth I’ve seen on the show for a while.  There were some pretty good scenes with Matt and Daphne, even if you’re not a huge fan of them together.

3) There was no Nathan Petrelli

Nathan has been one of the most frustrating characters over the course of the show, at least to me.  Mainly because he never seems to make any sense.  Season One, he was pretty much a jerk with hidden niceness.  That was cool.  Then he was hurt, then he was healed, then he was shot, then he thought he was a prophet.  Then he wasn’t.  Then he saw what happened when bad people get powers, so decided that everyone needed powers, and joined his evil father.  Then he decided that instead we should just lock up everyone with powers, even though he is one of them.  Well, he wasn’t in the episode.  Barely even a mention.  Good.

4) There was no Claire

In Season One, I actually really liked Claire.  I mean, I’m a sucker for teenagers developing powers and having to hide them from their parents.  There was high school drama, and it was kind of cool to see an indestructable cheerleader.  But then over the course of the next few seasons, it’s like the writers saw her try to kill herself in the first episode, and decided that “emo” was her defining characteristic.  I’m so tired of her angsting about her daddy/daddies issues, and her need to be a big girl, and how she “just can’t feel anything inside.”  So yeah, less is more, at least for now.

5) Trimming the cast

Going along with the last two, it was really nice that rather than trying to cram 12 characters’ plot-lines into one episode, they focused on just a few.  It can back-fire if used too much, but for right now I think it was a good move.  Also, I won’t spoil anything, but two characters were killed off (sort of?), which should give the other characters some room to breathe.

6) Swoosie Kurtz

That’s right.  The bitter one-eyed drunk (no, not Col. Tigh) from Pushing Daisies was on Heroes.  She didn’t really do much, but just seeing her made me happy.

7) The Return of Familiar Faces.

Again, without spoiling anything, a couple characters from Season One make their return.  One has to do with Baby Matt Parkman, so maybe you can guess who, and the other is Rebel, who you probably guessed the true identity of from the first text message.  Both of these characters were abandoned with little to no justification, so it’s nice to see them back.

8] Angela Petrelli and Noah Bennet

Yay for morally grey characters.  I’ve been a big fan of both of these Primatech veterans since the beginning, and they both have significant screen time this episode

9) Sylar

Much like Nathan, I feel like Sylar has been handled very poorly recently.  Season One, terrifying.  Season Two, surrounded by obnoxious latinos who contributed nothing to the overall plot and are better off dead.  Season Three, tries to be good, which was both hilarious and wonderful.  Then he decided to work for his “dad.”  Then he decided to kill his girlfriend and just be evil for no real reason.  Then he picked up a really annoying fanboy with emotional problems (frankly he reminded me way too much of Pyro in the X-Men movies).  Sylar wasn’t in this episode, but it looks like he’s returning to his sadistic side from Season One.  Excellent

10) I don’t know what else to say.  Peter was only briefly  in the episode.  I love that he can only have one power at a time.  They needed to do that a long time ago.  Mohinder’s role was minimal, which is good because he is th DUMMEST DOCTOR/GENIUS ON THE PLANET.  Seriously, has he ever made a good decision?  In the history of the show?  Ugh.  Tracy Strauss redeemed herself, which was long over due.

So yeah, I’m not saying the show was perfect, but it really felt a LOT like a First Season episode.  The writing was spot on, and the plot was handled much better than normal.  Cool action shots.  So go watch.

Best Friends Forever

I want to start this by saying that I’ve never had a “best friend.”  Everyone I have ever considered my best friend was already best friends with someone else.  So it just felt unequal.  It’s only in recent years that I’ve come to be at peace with having a best group of friends.  But this isn’t about the “best” part so much as the “friends forever” part.

About this time a year ago, my friend Matt asked me this question (pardon the paraphrasing), “What would it be like if we made more life decisions based on our friends, such as where we move our families?”  Shortly thereafter  he then moved to Thailand for two years.  Just kidding.  I mean, I’m not kidding about him moving, just about the irony.  Anyway.

That question really made me think, and clearly it still does, or I wouldn’t be blogging about it.  What would life be like?  Now, obviously, I’m not talking about our friends making decisions for us, or basing our entire lives around our friends.  Think reasonably/moderately.

Example: Ian will have a degree in Financial Planning.  People have finances everywhere, therefore Ian has considerable job flexibility.  Ian would rather live in a big city than a small town.

Friend A will have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, which also comes with some job flexibility in terms of location.  Friend A would rather live close to his parents in Big City X.

Ian and Friend X both apply to work in Big City X.

Obviously, this is a simplified version of life.  In reality there are tons of factors for where you want to live, chief among them being who will actually hire you.  But assuming you have some degree of flexibility, why NOT make a conscious effort to live near your friends?

I feel like I was programmed to believe that you go through school, graduate high school, and then go to a college far away from your home.  Then you graduate from college, and go somewhere far away from both your hometown, and from your college.  My mom was just so proud that I went to Baylor, rather than going to A&M where all my friends went.  She also thinks that they have it too easy being only 1.5 hours away from home.  But quite honestly, I am tired of starting over with friend groups.  I’ve had to do it every year since I was a senior in high school.  Quite frankly, I believe it’s something I’m good at it, but a little stability would be nice.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not envisioning a cul-de-sac in the suburbs where all my favorite people live and we all raise our kids together and all that.  I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with that.  Or that there’s nothing wrong with two or more people making a conscious effort to stay involved in each others’ lives.  Not just wirelessly, but physically.  I’ll get off my soap box now.

Spring Break (Or: Ruminations From College Station)

I go to Baylor.  But in case you didn’t know this about me, I’ve wanted to go to A&M for a long time.

It started when I was a senior in high school I think.  Somewhere along the way, I lost my disdain for Texas A&M University, and began to find the whooping and the traditions and the camaraderie endearing, so I put them as my “safety school” (which is ironic, since most Aggies I know did the same thing for Baylor).  Luckily (I guess?), I found out I was accepted to Baylor by September of my senior year, so I didn’t even apply.  But by the time school started, I felt like I had made a mistake.

I became a Christian halfway through that senior year, and in the process lost most of my friends.  They felt that I had changed too much.  I felt that they would hold me back.  So I found a new group.  They were there when I found Christ.  We formed a small group.  In short, they became the closest friends I’d ever had in just six short months.  So, both as a new Christian and as a person who can have a hard time letting go of relationships, the transition to college was a rough one.  I think it wouldn’t have been as hard if everybody had gone off to different colleges.  But the fact of the matter is, most of the guys (and girls) I felt closest to were all in College Station.  So, within the first two months of Baylor, I decided to transfer.  Shortly after coming to that decision, I felt God tell me as clearly as anything He ever has, that Baylor was where I needed to be.  So, I invested myself into Baylor relationships if not Baylor itself.  This turned out to be disastrous as it was pretty much the most miserable experience of my life.

I got sucked into legalism, and fell into groupthink and hero-worship.  I cannot even begin to describe how many hours we spent talking about love, marriage, attraction, dating, or expressions of love.  We talked about who liked who and what to do about it.  It was horrible, and I am largely to blame for that.  So, between freshman and sophomore year, I told my parents that I wanted to transfer to A&M.  They didn’t like this idea, but they told me that it was up to me.  My plan was to take about a week to visit A&M during the school year, just to see what it was like on the normal days, not just on the weekends when I visited.

Then I got into a car wreck and had no car for a semester.  So there went that idea.  I could practically hear God telling me that Baylor was where I was supposed to be.  And I resented Him for it.  That early part of the semester was miserable.  I was pissed off and bitter, and my friends from the year before were barely talking to me.  I was stuck somewhere I did not want to be, with no means of escape.  And then the amazing happened – I made new friends.  Better friends.  And sophomore year was pretty much amazing all around.

Fast forward to the beginning of junior year.  All these new friends have graduated.  I just got done with 13 weeks of camp.  I am exhausted spiritually, mentally, spiritually, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  Did I mention I was exhausted spiritually?  I miss the sophomore friends, I miss the camp friends, and I’m living with people I barely know or know but don’t really like.  And my spiritual exhausted is communicated to others as apathy, disloyalty, and caused some people to question my faith completely.  Awesome.  So, what do I do?  I make new friends.  I’m not trying to replace anyone, but I can’t go through the rest of college alone.  It was ok, but not great.  Over Christmas break, I realize that I am just not happy.  This time, my mother is the one to suggest transferring.  I look into, but ultimately decide that it’s too late.  Second semester starts, and I decide that it’s not going to suck.

And it hasn’t.  Friendships are growing.  Classes are going well.  Training is exactly what I needed (self-esteem, goals, and endorphins – score!)  New church is going well.  Basically life is good.  So I figure, “OK Ian, you’re doing better emotionally, you can probably handle going to A&M without wanting to transfer.”  So, since Baylor’s spring break is a week off from everyone else’s (including my two brothers and my teacher of a mother), I decide I’ll truck down to A&M and stay with four of my best friends while they have school.

Quite frankly it’s been wonderful, but it’s also incredibly convicting.  Monday I went to a prayer meeting.  It’s not a small/community/connection/life/family group (why the EFF does Waco have so many different names for the same thing?).  It’s just a group of Christians (mostly from back home, but not exclusively) who meet together once a week to have dinner together and pray.  They pray for a different indigenous people group every week, and then exchange prayer requests with one other person who will pray for them during the week.  During dinner, a girl I have met ONCE, ever, looks me in the eye and says “So, what have you learned about God this week?”  I wanted to die.  I mean it.  I wanted to have a heart attack, just to get out of answering this question.  Because in all honesty, I haven’t learned squat about God in I-don’t-know-how-long.  Why?  Because I HAVEN’T BEEN LOOKING!  I felt like scum, made up some B.S. answer, and she moved on to the next guy.  Then we all prayed for Tunisian Arabs.  We each had a different prayer point.  After I prayed for God to raise up intercessors, I realized that that was the first time I had prayed out loud in weeks.  At least.  So yeah, it was uncomfortable.

Afterwards, I went to McDonald’s with Jordan, who is one of my absolute best friends.  He looked me in the eye (at MCDONALD’S) and said “So, what have you been reading.”  Do you know what it’s like to tell your best friend that the only thing you’ve read in the past week is Buffy: The Vampire Slayer – The Comic?  Thank God that my friends aren’t douches, because that could have been bad (see: The Beginning of Junior Year and the 5 Coffees in One Week).  He told me that his reading has really been lacking lately too, and that we both need to work on it.  This morning I woke up and read some Matthew, in case you were wondering.  Also Les Miserables.

Tonight I’ll be going to Breakaway, which is something I’ve always wanted to do.  Basically it’s a thing at A&M where Ben Stewart gives a message and there is worship (formerly Jimmy Needham, but he went to my church in Katy – Whoop!).  Thousands attend.  I’m sure I’ll have more to add after that.

So, I guess my point is that A&M is wonderful.  I think I would have been really happy here, and more than that, I would have been greatly edified and built up.  But for whatever reason, God has me at Baylor.  I still don’t get it.  Was it just so that I could meet the guys from sophomore year?  If so, that’s awesome.  Was it so I could go through all the crap of freshman year and the beginning of junior year?  If so, I guess I’m better off for it?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if I’ve said anything remotely useful in 1300 words.  I’m tired of my lack-luster and complacent faith, and I miss the accountability I enjoyed in high school and parts of college.  I don’t know why I had to say all that.

Ian

p.s. I’m not transferring to A&M.  But don’t be shocked if I go there for grad school someday.  I have to justify/legitimize  my love of the place somehow