I apologize. Last week I did not watch Heroes, so I obviously didn’t put up a review of it. This was, on my part, somewhat foolish. Why? Well, last week’s episode was quite possibly the best episode of Heroes since the initial episode of the season, and it made all of that awkward melodrama and slow moving nonsense worth the wait. So, as an act of penance, I will not only review last week’s episode here, but just like Gil I will review the most recent episode in a big one two punch of a set.
So in the episode I failed to watch and review on time, we had “Brother’s Keeper,” which dealt with what exactly happened to Mohinder. This episode actually helped provide a lot of answers to many of the open ended questions we had during the previous 9. Things like who is Samuel, what is the compass, and what is the goal of the carnival are all revealed through the deus ex machina that is Mohinder’s dad, Chandra. Of course, there is just one other video tape that he made that had never before been seen, and now we are discovering it for the first time. What manages to occur, however, is the graceful pairing of the new “we hate the past” direction of Heroes with… well, the past. See, it took elements revealed in the last major arc and tried to make them make sense for the current arc. This helps to make us feel like the last season wasn’t a complete waste of time with the work of the honorable Jeph Loeb at the helm, sufficiently ruining a great portion of the show into mush. So the little “oh, of course there’s a video tape” moment is somewhat excusable in this scenario. And now we know a lot about Samuel, and the Big Bad that I’ve been complaining the show needs has finally taken his position. We don’t know HOW he is a Big Bad, but if there is any doubt in anyone’s mind that Samuel is a force of evil rather than good at this point, then you’re kidding yourself. Samuel is essentially slowly being groomed into what I am assuming is a Magneto-esque character, and all is going well through this episode. Not only that, but Nathan and Peter finally find out that Nathan is Sylar, Sylar gets put back in his body, and Matt survives (of course) and goes on the run. Oh, and how about Mohinder being saved at the last second by Hiro so that Mohinder himself can later be a Deus Ex Machina in defeating Samuel when the time comes? So this episode sets up a lot of the pieces needed to make a good finale to help redeem the show slightly. I mean, the show will obviously never be as great as it was in season 1, but it can at least become more watchable, right?
Of course, then we get into this week’s episode. I both enjoyed elements of it and hated elements of it at the same time. It was a mixed experience. In this episode, we actually see Samuel and his evil side, but then we get back to the ultimately pointless elements of the show. We’ve got more of the same stalling that I’ve been lamenting so much. Claire is home for thanksgiving, Hiro helps elaborate more on why Samuel is evil, and Sylar takes over Nathan before Nathan takes over Sylar. Alright. Fun? Not really. See, this episode continued to do all the things I had previously complained about after episode 10 had done a great job of bringing the show back to the point of me wanting to watch. The last episode pushed the plot forward tenfold and explained a lot. This episode merely set a couple of pieces in place without actually moving the plot in any real direction. The show once again returned to a form of stagnant barely watchable entertainment. The only part of it that really was entertaining was an all-to-short scene in which Sylar fully comes back and torments Peter and Angela. Zach Quinto is really a great and entertaining actor, it’s just unfortunate he’s pigeon-holed into this role at the moment. And as I said, the scene ended much too quickly, before it could get REALLY good.
Next week is the last episode of this portion of the season until January. It’s almost an exciting prospect. On the one hand, I would love for the next episode to provide some sort of cataclysmic action in which to propel our characters towards new angles, but I’m afraid that would not be the case. The show has lost a lot of it’s charm, and it’s going to take something really intense to make me want to keep watching the show in January. It’s unfortunate because the show is so incredibly wavy with it’s potential. There’s so much to not care about because, let’s face it – the characters are really dry at this point. No one ever evolves. They’re always the same character with the same problems in a new scenario. “I don’t fit in,” “I don’t know how to handle my family,” “I can’t exist in this place.” Ok. We get it. So the show brings in the character of Samuel, mixes it up a bit, and creates a rather clever story woven into the background. Knowing more about him now we could go back in time, rewatch all his scenes in the season, and see a bit of the evil that lurks inside. Could present a rather entertaining tale. But beyond that? Outside of ONE CHARACTER? No. The show is very much a lost cause at this point, and I absolutely hate to admit that.
Never the less, I do somewhat look forward to next week’s episode. I don’t know what to expect, but as a show before a break, I can only imagine what possible cliff hanger could be coming down the road. Will Heroes redeem itself in any way shape or form? Find out next week.
