Hiro Worship (Warning: Heroes Spoilers-ish)

As a geeky girl, most of my energy that isn’t devoted to going to a job I only tolerate because it funds my comic book/dvd/video game habits, is expended in devotion. I am a loyal fan girl. When I love a show or a franchise of any kind, I love with my whole heart. When they put out bad shows or stupid movies it literally breaks my heart.

Heroes is just one of my various and sundry fandoms but I'm hooked on it pretty hard. Though, after two seasons of heartbreak; of idiotic characters and bad plot, you’d think a girl would know enough to move on and leave an emotionally damaging relationship before it’s too late. (The show loves me, really! You just don’t understand our relationship! It doesn’t want to hurt me, it’s my fault really my expectations are too high!)

I will allow Jayne to rant at length about the show’s flaws, she's better at it than I am. I'm here to love my show, in honor of V-day (which was yesterday, shut it I'm gimmicking). That narrows down to these two.
Hiro Nakamura and Ando Masahashi. Best friends. Magnificent bastards.
I wish I had the space and the time to rave about everything that I love about Hiro Nakamura alone. My ridiculous love for him isn't as irrational as Jayne's love of Gaeta from BSG (A super immature, pure, funny, nerdy little geek boy with a hero complex that loves waffles? I'm pretty much convinced in my sad little mind that we are made for each other. Plus he's not gay OR crazypants) He had me at "YATTA!"Season one begins, a bromance en medias res. After finally accepting that Hiro has indeed developed the abilty to stop time and teleport, Ando spent most of his time dancing around behind Hiro in a sort of "I don't know about this, Tommy." role. (And if you catch that reference I will send you cookies cause not only is it vague, but it's pretty damn obscure.) That was fine. Hiro needed his buddy to support his mission, to save the cheerleader, to save the world. Ando was the voice of reason for the (adorably) excitable Hiro. Keeping him grounded on his heroes quest. Even going so far as to trying to fulfill Hiro's role in the events of Kirby Plaza when it looks like Hiro himself wouldn't go. After the ungrateful selfish blond waste of space was rescued and th equally ungrateful world saved, however, the super-Hiro/sidekick dynamic started to wear on Ando, who was obviously not used to sitting in the sidecar of their friendship. Hiro himself seems slightly oblivious to his friend's issues, but he's so damn cute so I can't bring myself to care about Ando...yet.

Season 2 separated them for a time, and I was treated to sexy samurai Hiro, but there wasn't much of a change in their bromance. Ando's feeling of being left behind and his resentment of being powerless in the face of yet another attack on the world grew a bit, but season 2 was a waste of everyones time apparently because the producers of the show seem to want us all to forget it ever happened by retconning out everything that occurred.

Screw season 2, that's where the pain is.

Season 3 starts out so well! The bromance is threatened by yet another glimpse into a horrible future where Ando is a Sith Lord who kills Hiro for a piece of the stupid formula! Tension!
What could've happened to turn the loyal Ando against Hiro?

Later, Ando of course is feeling kind of pissy cause Hiro said he didn't need him and there is an adorable scene where Ando refuses to speak to Hiro while they're both trying to break out of Level 5. But they make up cause that's what besties do. Then, Hiro is still kinda freaked out about Ando killing him in the future so there is still that hanging in the air when Hiro has to stab Ando in the chest with his sword to infiltrate a group of villains. This little incident takes place between two episodes so there was a period of time, though brief, where Hiro had crossed a character line that he couldn't come back from. Many discussions with the people I watch this show with (including Jayne) reaffirmed that despite the evidence of other people acting wildly out of character that season, Hiro would never ever kill anyone, especially Ando. Thats part of the purity of the characters and their relationship. There was absolutly no doubt that Ando was alive and that it was a trick. (And if we'd been wrong I'm sure I would have been leading a militia of people as we stormed the NBC studios with incindiary devices) Ando himelf understands having to be stabbed with a sword, cause that's what besties do. Also Hiro has the foresight to freeze time and prepare Ando with ketchup packets.
Oh then the cuteness just skyrockets!

Hiro and Ando go to Africa and suddenly, out of NOWHERE, Ando is visited by the sexy fairy.

Africa looks good on Ando. Oh my god. My cuddle lust for Hiro is suddenly threatened by my glomp lust for Ando. Tension! Or maybe that's just me...

Then there's an entire episode where Hiro thinks he's 10 and Ando takes him out for waffles and I may or may not have stopped breathing from glee at some point while that was going on.

Hee!
Anyway! Season three starts to circle the drain cause the writers lose focus and Papa-Petrelli's being a super D-Bag but no one's decisions make any sense within their character and the moral gray areas we were exploring are all starting to resemble skid marks and cool characters that everyone really likes are being picked off one by one as they outlive their one-note usefulness.

Then Ando gets super-powers, Hiro, a victim of superdickery via Papa Petrelli, loses them and the season ends. Meanwhile I'm limping emotionally and insisting to everyone that I walked into a door, honest, I did this to myself. But hope prevails.

This season the whole hero/sidekick dynamic changes for my favorite characters and I try not to flinch noticeably as the show opens its arms wide for me once again.
I will end on this adorable note, a sign that the show doesn't take itself too seriously and maybe the beatings will stop.As Jayne has stated, check out reviews on Television Without Pity for professional snarky recaps of this and many popular shows.
~Darcy