Heroes - "Dying of the Light"

I almost didn't bother with this post.  As you can see, it's a week overdue, and it's going to be really short.  Heroes, unfortunately, is continuing to disappoint me, and I've found myself with less and less interest in watching it.  Last week, for the very first time, it actually bored me, and I worked on other things while it was on.  I didn't feel the burning need I usually have to discuss the episode afterwards, and certainly didn't really feel like posting a recap. But, I opened this can of worms way back at the beginning of the show, so I feel like I ought to keep on with it, a week later or not.  I'm afraid I'll be watching tonight's episode more out of a sense of obligation than any strong interest.  But since Anaconda 3: The Offspring won't be here for a couple more days, I'll settle in. One spoiler to discuss, let's get it over with.... Okay, the only parts of this episode that caught my interest at all dealt with Arthur Petrelli.  Everyone seems to think he's dead, but it turns out he's still hanging on even if a machine is breathing for him.  We were led to believe that his power is some form of mind control, but when Adam was brought before him, we saw his real power at work.  He grabbed Adam's arm and turned him to dust!  I didn't realize exactly what had happened at first, but it was soon made abundantly clear that Arthur's primary power is the ability to steal powers from other people.  The only reason Adam was still alive was the continuous regeneration granted by his healing power.  Take that away, and his body rapidly aged to the dust he should have already become.  It looks like he may be finally dead-dead for certain; that's certainly going to be difficult to come back from. Arthur, of course, immediately healed and removed his ventilator, ready to take on the world once again.  And he showed the full extent of his power when his son Peter arrived to demand answers for Angela's coma.  One touch, and he had stolen every one of Peter's powers.  Now, we all know something's going to happen to reverse that somewhere along the line.  I imagine his empathy will return to him, allowing him to reclaim his abilities by the end of the season (or within a couple of episodes, as fast as they're racing through plot points).  Now Arthur is the most powerful creature on earth; we'll have to see what he's up to with his god-like abilities.  He's been causing enough trouble just running Pinehearst from his sickbed; it might be interesting to see whose side he's on now that he's up and about. Or the writers could just have him spend a couple of episodes kicking puppies and stealing candy from babies just to prove how evil he is before Sylar redeems himself by taking him down.  That is about the level of writing effort they're putting forth these days. The rest of the episode consisted of reminding us that Parkman must be functionally retarded, Hiro has reverted fully to the bumbling naïveté (which is now more teeth-grinding than endearing), Claire and family are all dumber than a bag of hammers, and Mohinder is still the Brundlefly.  In other words, more of the same, and I fear that's also what we'll get later tonight. We'll see how it goes.