Episode Report Card Couch Baron: C+ | 1150 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT One Peter Down…
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2008.10.06
FP and PP walk, and FP may have upgraded to leather, but he's still swinging his arms dorkily as he goes. It's a funny side-by-side similarity, but still: Put your hands in your pockets or something if you want to show how much your coolness factor has gone up in four years, dude. FP has taken PP to show him the painting of the world, and explains that he's considered an extremist and a VILLAIN in this time. He goes on that although Nathan didn't tell the world about them, he's seen through painting that the future is still screwed because someone in PP's time invented the formula that gave abilities to everyone, and PP has to stop it. PP asks why FP can't do it, and FP grits, "Because I made terrible choices." Let's not bring your acting into this. He adds, "Stepped on too many butterflies," which would be a better line if it made any sense. I mean, no matter what he's done up to this point, I don't see how FP messing around in the past is any different, as a practical matter, than PP using knowledge from FP to change his present. FP tells PP that they have to find Sylar, and if PP takes his ability, he won't make the same mistakes he did. You guys... this show is a soap opera. I don't know if it's always been and I've just reached my own personal tipping point -- it's certainly always taken itself a little more seriously than seems warranted -- but now it seems to me to be this kind of interconnected melodrama, where sense is sacrificed at the altar of (variably) entertaining developments and plotlines don't hold up to even casual scrutiny. I don't even think that's such a terrible thing -- I might end up enjoying the show more now that I've said it -- but this is a great example: The only way FP can think of to stop the spread of the formula is for his past self to take Sylar's power? Because Sylar is a walking edition of How It Works? It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't. Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on it, but I had to speak up for the sake of my own sanity. PP barks that he wants to see Nathan, Claire and Mohinder a lot more than Sylar, but FP tells him they're not the people he used to know. He tells PP that not all of them were born with abilities -- some were made, and a line was drawn that tore them apart. As if to emphasize that, he gets taken down by a couple of bullets shot by Future Claire. PP is stunned, but when Claire advances on him, he runs for his life -- and I mean that literally, because this time, The Haitian is there as part of the attack, which means that FP will not be regenerating anytime soon. I'm not sure why that means he can't recover once he's not in The Haitian's range, but I'll let it pass because one Peter is quite enough. PP bashes The Haitian in the head with a garbage-can lid on his way, and although Claire shoots several more times in his direction, PP escapes with his life. Claire's moue sends us into the title card.