Heroes: So what went wrong?

You're probably asking, "How does the above video have anything to do with Heroes?" Well, in my opinion, it perfectly sums up the problem with season two. Trust me, I'm going someplace with this....

Much like that particular installment of The Itchy & Scratchy Show, much of the second season of Heroes was spent leading up to something climatic and exciting (and, in the case of everybody's favorite cartoon cat and mouse program, explosive), only for them completely miss the boat due to some more-or-less unrelated variable to introducing itself.

Take, for example, the Claire and Elle story arc. These two were both written rather spectacularly, with a wonderful "mirror" theme between them. Practically the entire season -- particularly the latter half -- was spent building up to these two going to battle in some super sexy, ultra intense rumble. They were kept at a distance for just the right amount of time, and their stories intertwined at the perfect moment.

Instead, HRG gets shot in an extremely emotional and powerful scene (which was immediately negated when we found out minutes later that he didn't actually die) and Elle decides to defend The Company when it is attacked by Sylar. And what became of the Claire/Elle throw down? Well, Claire punched a car window and made a few nonsensical threats (really, how would going to the press avenge her father's death?) the second to last episode of the season. That's it. Most definitely not the climatic battle we were all hoping for.

This isn't the only case of the show failing to follow through on what they had promised, whether explicitly or through their writing. The whole HRG/Mohinder taking down The Company arc was terribly mishandled, ultimately making Mohinder exceptionally unlikeable, and bringing HRG back to square one in a twist that made little to no sense. Along with that, we found out very, very little regarding the previous generation of heroes, in a volume titled "Generations."

Of course, I cannot ignore the fact that the strike probably hurt Heroes more than any other series. Nevertheless, I think my comparison stands. In the end, nobody really cared about Poochie. Everybody was just asking "When are they going to go to the fireworks factory?"