To everyone who ever said “Oh my God, how are YOU, of all people, not watching this show?”: You were right. I was cynical at first. The initial episodes were slow and I kept waiting for a misstep, for the threads to go awry and fall apart. But the mix of unapologetic superhero trappings, strong emotional performances and generous screen time for a large cast of characters won me over.
For a long time comic nerd like me, the fun was in catching references, seeing where inspirational material peeked through and what the show’s writers did with that.
Claire’s dad Noah Bennett seems to a version of Henry Peter Gyrich, the government agent in Marvel Comics who’s always trying to keep mutants, the Avengers and various other powered types in line. I love the way they deepen the motivations of that character type. I also love the ethnic mix on the show. I haven’t watched the second season, but I hope that they continue to dodge the tokenism that plagues so much speculative fiction.Something about the universe the show creates–either the implied stakes of the action or the metaphorical significance of the characters’ powers–makes emotional moments in the show ring unexpectedly true. It could be the simple fact that we get to watch the actions and consequences play out, as opposed to reading between the lines of still images. There were a lot of moments where I was watching the show and thought, “That wouldn’t have worked on the printed page.”
I also love the way the first season played with conventions of the superhero genre: secret labs, the blessing/curse dichotomy of having powers, the way they play around with the idea of secret identities. I saw the ending of the finale coming a mile away and thought it fell a little flat. But, that doesn’t matter. The best thing about serial fiction is that, if you’re clever enough, you can continually build on a mythos to keep it fresh. The best thing about Haitians? Everybody thinks we’re spooky.
