When Three Is Neither Company Nor A Crowd: Least Favorite Love Triangles On TV

Peter/Simone/Isaac: Heroes, Season 1

The audience meets Peter Petrelli in the pilot of this show as a starry-eyed dreamer always insisting on seeing the best in people. When we find out about his unrequited feelings for his bedridden patient’s daughter, Simone, it’s no surprise that she is seemingly unattainable. When we find out she’s dating drug addicted and sometimes-psychic artist Isaac Mendez, however, we soon realize that we’re being led down yet another triangular path.

The show attempted to convince us that Isaac and Simone’s relationship is on its way out while also trying to convince us that Peter and Simone are somehow tragically destined to be together. The first season of the show dealt a lot with the notion that people have a destiny or purpose in life beyond their control; the early elements of this triangle are presented the same way. It’s as if these three people are somehow “drawn” to each other, linked for some greater purpose. Which is pretty much bullshit. So Simone wavers back and forth between the two men, leading both of them on, never really defining her relationship with either, all the while thinking that the bigger shit they’re dealing with (like newly discovered superpowers and premonitory visions of death and destruction) are all about her.

My biggest problem with this triangle is that we’re never really told what any of these characters like about each other. Peter spouts clichéd things that middle-aged men think women want to hear, like how he knew when he first laid eyes on her that he’d love her forever, while never explaining what he liked about her as a person or why he thinks they’d be a good match. We’re supposed to believe that it’s all about fate, that her father just happened to be dying and Peter just happened to be his nurse and meet her and somehow they’re all going to save that damned cheerleader.

We’re told that Simone has some complicated and dramatic relationship keeping her coming back to a heroin addict living in a loft no artist could realistically afford, but we don’t see evidence of it. Mostly he seems pushy and moody and she seems distant. These are the people that are going to save the world? They can’t even figure out why they like each other, other than to speak in Hallmark phrases. Too much telling, not enough showing.

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