Overview:
Sylar shapeshifts into Sandra, breaks Noah’s heart and manipulates him into pointing a gun at the real Sandra’s head. After Željko and Sylar then trick him into thinking he killed an innocent agent, Noah goes on the run. Meanwhile, hellbent on revenge, Matt discovers that Željko’s in a relationship with a former hooker. After Matt fails to go through with his plan to kill her, Hiro saves his ass, introduces him to Baby Matt and reminds him that life is still worth living. Which probably won’t mean much to the bullet-riddled skeletons being unearthed in Arizona, where Angela, Peter, Nathan and Claire convene in an effort to uncover the truth.
Review:
An episode in which Noah and Sandra become more awesome than ever is no small feat. Neither is an episode in which it’s plausibly revealed that an irredeemable villain is in a relationship.
But an episode in which Hiro and Ando are again saddled with a comic-relief subplot and manage to make it … funny? That’s a sign that the show has overcome a new hurdle. Not the hurdles marked “Character Assassination” and “Dead to Me,” but at least the ones marked “Tolerable” and “Entertaining.”
The fact that Ando’s largely responsible for the comedy says a lot, but when a storyline involving Hiro and Ando succeeds the way it’s supposed to, and when it offsets some intensely disturbing drama in Noah’s storyline, it’s a sign of a near-perfect episode.
We start out at Goon Squad Central with Noah inspecting Sylar’s corpse. Depending on your perspective, this is either daunting because it broaches the notion of killing the character off, or it’s exasperating because it dangles the prospect in front of us and leaves us wishing it was true.
It’s finally established in dialogue that Sylar survived the fire at Primatech on account of the glass melting. The show gets a thumbs-up for continuity. It would have been nice to hear it sooner, but better late than never.
Željko: “Funny thing. You’re on the hunt all these years, and I show up and BANG! He’s dead.”
Way to gloat, Željko! Way to gloat, Sylar! If I wanted to give that a Dumb As Award for drawing attention to a suspiciously fast capture, who would I award it to? With hindsight, we know it’s Sylar, but if we thought it was Željko at the time then shouldn’t he get the award? Damn you, show! You’re screwing up my statistics for award-winning idiocy! In any case, the highlight of the scene is Noah’s expression when Željko wonders if he ever really wanted to catch Sylar, which seems to say, “Oh, believe me, I did — Tim Kring wouldn’t let me!”
Hiro and Ando cruise through Ohio in their [PRODUCT PLACEMENT] Nissan Cube. Hiro asserts that it’s their “duty” to unite Baby Matt with his father, then prioritizes the baby’s father over the mother. Not that I have any issues with that, but it’s enough to upset even a baby who has no idea what Hiro’s talking about.
Baby Matt is not pleased. Milk! He needs milk, Masi!
Touch-and-Go Baby or not, I’m going to take that as a jab at a Nissan’s reliability on long-distance trips. Which demonstrates such tremendous balls on the show’s part that it more than makes up for every product placement ever dropped into the show.
Matt appears to have Parkman-whammied his way into a new apartment, but the show skips the specifics and focuses on both Matt’s inner turmoil and Mohinder’s urgent plea to leave Washington. Mohinder’s bags are packed and he’s ready to go. He’s not leaving on a jet plane, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be back again, but oh, baby, he hates to go. But given that this is the fourth or fifth time he said he was going to India and then either came back or never left in the first place, how seriously can we take it? Don’t toy with the hearts of Matthinder shippers, show.
Matt says farewell to Mohinder, and the past tense when Matt tells Mohinder he’s “been a really good friend” makes me wonder if there isn’t an implied finality here. Grunberg pounces on the opportunity to sell a solid performance, and Matt chokes up as he slaps his friend on the back and says goodbye. Aw.
Sandra visits Noah at Goon Squad Central.
Sandra: “Agents burst into our house, our daughter goes missing and you ignore my phone calls.”
Noah: “That’s not fair. I have returned all your calls.”
Great dialogue for the characters, because it reinforces Sandra’s directness and Noah’s inability to confront the reason his marriage is falling apart. It’s worth noting that Noah only addresses one of the issues Sandra brings up.
Sandra: “I know when I’m being handled, Noah.”
Again, to character, because as clueless as Noah might have tried to keep her over the years, Sandra is intuitive enough to see past Noah’s subterfuge and pro-active enough to fly to Washington to find out where her daughter is.
Ashley Crow delivers what I think is Sandra’s first sarcastic line since the show began, asking if she’s interrupting Noah’s busy day. It’s hilarious for the irate tone, but behind the hilarity there’s a statement about Sandra’s liberation as a character. Given that she spent most of the show’s run as the gullible spouse, stepping out of the confines of that role and demonstrating that she no longer trusts Noah’s judgment brings a certain freedom for the character.
Željko watches Noah and Sandra squabbling, and I have to praise Ivanek for a terrific performance, because that “Oh, don’t let me interrupt!” smile of delight is as amusing as it is creepy. Looking back, knowing that it’s Sylar underneath, you realize it’s also a smile of twisted pleasure from watching the person he hates suffer.
Željko visits himself in the Goon Squad Bathroom … which might be the weirdest sentence I’ll write all season, but it’s a scene that’s brilliant for its execution and hilarious for its set-up. You can immediately tell which Željko is which based on one of them having an I-mean-business glare and one of them having a twisted smile and a twinkle in the eyes. Again, subtle acting by Ivanek.
Sylar-as-Željko: “You really oughta have that mole checked. You know the one I mean.”
Funny, and gross, and intriguing, because it suggests that the shapeshifting ability enables you to replicate every scar, birthmark and physical imperfection, including the ones you don’t immediately see.
The morphing effect is as cool as it was last week, not least because we see how Sylar has developed a much more fluid transition from one physique to another. It’s impressive for the consistency, because as with Dale’s superhearing, the implication is that Sylar learns to wield abilities with more grace than the people he stole them from.
Noah gets a phone call from Angela and tells her he’s been “worried” about her. Aw.
Angela: “I had a dream. Oh, and thanks for covering for me so graciously at the church in last week’s episode.”
OK, she doesn’t say that last part. But shouldn’t she?
Angela: “Do you know what happened at the place called Coyote Sands?”
Noah: “I’ve heard whispers, rumors. For 20 years, anyone I ever asked always told me the same thing.”
Angela: “Which is…?”
Noah: “That I should never ask.”
Sets up next week’s storyline effectively enough, and the sense of ominous menace surrounding the location at least partially explains why no one ever mentioned it before.
Angela’s gradual shift from pleading “Noah, Noah, Noah” to shrieking “NOAH!” was startling.
I can’t recall the character ever raising her voice, let alone shouting with as much ferocity as that. Cristine Rose has a surprisingly powerful set of lungs. I wouldn’t want to piss her off on a bad day.
Mohinder returns to Chandra’s Crib — now much less Chandra’s and much less of a crib — and is outraged to discover that Papa Suresh’s papers have gone. Forget that, I want to know what happened to the apron. To mark the end of an era, we’re also taunted with the realization that we’ll now never know the fate of two of the apartment’s residents.
Hard to make out whether the remains of Lizard Mohinder and Usutu’s Turtle are in there. I struggle to imagine Goon Squad agents taking them under their arm and giving them a new home, but the thought of commandos killing them off is almost as awful as the rabbit slaughter, so I’m going to live in denial and assume the superintendent adopted them.
Well done to the casting department, because if that isn’t the same actor playing the superintendent as the one in the pilot, it’s an indistinguishable approximation.
Mohinder reassures the superintendent that he “checked the building before [he] came up.” I’m not sure how reassuring that is after Mohinder was recently ambushed by an agent standing less than a few feet behind him, but it placates the superintendent enough to tell Mohinder that his “crazy old man left some stuff in storage downstairs.” I choose to believe the superintendent discovered this material because the feds ordered him to recheck everything in storage, and not — as is more probably the case — that he only discovered this storage now, a year later, because it served the plot.
Hiro, Ando and Baby Matt attempt to hitchhike, and the trucker who comes to their rescue …
… earns whoever came up with this a bouquet. When he tells Hiro and Ando, “Whoa! Don’t go gettin’ all foreign on me!”, the look on Hiro and Ando’s faces …
… is priceless. Even I found that funny, and I can’t begin to describe what that feels like after reviewing a full season of belt-wrestling, spitball and sulking. This actually made me laugh.
Matt waits for Željko outside of Goon Squad Central, then Parkman-whammies him into hailing a cab.
Read that last line again.
Matt’s a hero, so it’s not like I was expecting him to whammy Željko into a reenactment of his previous encounter with a bus. But the opportunity to end Željko’s menace was right here, if not by coerced suicide then by handing over security codes. The fact that Matt ignores an opportunity to end this threat so he can pursue a sense of justice — and the fact that he can’t even go through with it when he gets the chance — reinforces how short-sighted Matt is; and, it goes without saying, how Dumb he is.
All of that said, this sequence was excellently done, both visually — with Željko’s induced confusion and disorientation hitting home the sense of paranoia he inflicted on everyone else — and thematically, with Matt reversing the characters’ roles and preying on Željko the way Željko preyed on him.
Noah meets Sandra at his apartment, and you’d be forgiven for falling for Sylar’s performance, because he does a remarkably convincing job playing Sandra, and Ashley Crow does a remarkably convincing job playing Sylar doing a remarkably convincing job playing Sandra. Which is impressive in much the same way that Ali Larter’s performance as Candice-as-Niki in “The Hard Part” was. There are nuances in the actresses’ performances that hint at them not playing themselves, but at the same time they’re playing impostors doing their best to impersonate the characters the actresses usually play. So, in effect, the actresses are playing characters doing a solid job of playing the characters the actresses usually play. Weird, but also kind of cool.
Sandra walks into Noah’s apartment, and — get this — surveys the apartment. And as observant as Sylar is, that’s not something you’d expect him to do. Most guys would give the place a glance and head for the fridge. A wife who’s interested in what a slob her husband is when he’s living away from home? That’s the look Sandra gets. Which is of course Ashley Crow’s touch, but it also conveys what an amazingly layered performance Sylar gives as Noah’s wife.
The soft piano in the background as Sandra hands over the divorce papers is deceptive. It’s emotive enough that you’re swept up by the emotion of the scene, but looking back, knowing that half of this scene was a pretense, damn you for fooling us, piano! Elegant misdirection.
Noah: “This is the real reason you came all the way to Washington, just to serve me? What does it say?”
Sandra: “That you have perpetually lied to me, brought loaded guns into the home, endangered the lives of our children.”
Vague and probably based on guesswork, but most of Sandra’s dialogue in this scene speaks to the fundamental reasons why Noah’s marriage was falling apart. Which, in a roundabout way, says a lot about Sylar’s intuition.
Noah planning to arrange counseling sessions was heartbreaking, mostly because, even if he followed through with it, you know he’d drop it the second a superpower-related assignment presented itself. His good intentions are there, but his devotion to duty eclipses his devotion to family, the obvious exception being when duty and family are the same thing.
Noah: “We owe it to Lyle and to Claire to try to hold this family together.”
Sandra: “You’re not listening. It’s too late. I don’t love you anymore.”
Props to the show for some great pacing, because the way this moment stretches out — long enough for us to take in Noah’s thunderstruck reaction — makes it as agonizing for us as it is for him.
Except, crucially, one of them’s lost for words and overwhelmed …
… while the other’s looking extremely composed for a wife who just told her husband she wanted out of a loveless marriage. What’s astounding, though, is the way Sylar captures the precise reasons behind the family’s dysfunction, to the point where you have to wonder whether the real Sandra would have said anything different. That’s what makes this scene more than a fake-out or a play on our sympathy. In spite of the false approach Sylar took to play Noah, there’s nothing inherently false about the issues Sylar drew on.
We cut back to Highway 40 and witness the Silly Face Montage. As reluctant as I am to undermine our site’s dignity with images so absurd, the review wouldn’t be complete without at least one shot of the Ando Face.
Look. Laugh. Ridicule. Mock. Marvel.
Baby Matt seems placated, or at least lulled into a state of deep contemplation. Frankly, I think James Kyson Lee needs an award for a role in which he’s required to maintain an awkward posture in a wheelbarrow one week and a facial expression that’s likely to strain every muscle in his jaw the next.
Željko leads Matt to suburban hell, and we gather that Željko’s secret life involves an idyllic environment filled with clear skies, gargantuan houses and, most importantly …
… a girlfriend.
The amazing part is Ivanek pulls it off. Between gleeful smiles, a soft tone of voice and that affectionate arm around her waist, the guy actually comes across as … tender. Which, if it were anyone besides the volume’s genocidal maniac, would elicit an aw. Given that it’s Željko, I’m inclined to replace that “a” with an “e.”
A limo pulls up next to the house, and although I’m amused by Alena’s gullibility if she thinks a school-book salesman rides around in one of these, I also find it saddening that Željko’s affinity for deception extends all the way to his girlfriend.
Matt creeps into Alena’s house, lifts his gun, and does his best to look vengeful.
As in “Eris Quod Sum,” it’s a valiant attempt to look the part, and Grunberg does his best. For several reasons, it fails to be convincing. You can believe that Matt’s angry, but not devastated to the point of shooting a stranger. That would require us to share Matt’s investment in his relationship with Daphne, and since that relationship was ill-defined, a scenario in which Daphne’s death drove him to murder was never going to be convincing.
But in this instance, the scene also depends on Grunberg’s ability to prevent art from imitating life, and as talented an actor as Grunberg is, he’s too affable to sell the part. Pasdar’s proven he can pull it off, Coleman can do it in his sleep, but Grunberg — in many ways to the actor’s credit — exudes a good-natured personality, to the point where it works against him and prevents us from believing that Matt could become a killer. Which isn’t to say the entire scene fails; only that it lacks a sense of urgency because, unlike Noah or Željko, we don’t believe for a second that Matt would pull the trigger.
That’s where the storyline starts to come undone. The parallel between Željko and Matt is there, but it’s never clear how intentional it is. You could argue that Željko has more in common with Noah: dedicated company man who keeps his sinister working life from the woman he loves for fear she’ll reject him. But when Matt hears Alena say “Jakob” loves her and replies, “You know what, the sick thing is he probably does,” I can’t help thinking there are unintentional parallels to Matt’s relationship with Daphne. As different as Matt and Željko might be, their dreams — Matt’s stable family, Željko’s dream of a boring job and a home where someone’s waiting for him — are remarkably similar.
The problem is it’s hard to reconcile this with the way Željko’s been portrayed: as a guy who derided Noah’s family life as a distraction and who got the lottery smile when the prospect of capturing a target presented itself. As intriguing as it is to discover that Željko on some level wants to escape his working life, it’s an abrupt revelation that never gets the development it needs to make it plausible.
Hiro and Ando pull into a gas station, and never realize they’re visiting the same gas station as …
Brings back memories of Hiro and Ando almost-but-not-quite bumping into Niki and Micah at the Montecito, and it brings back ideas of fate’s whimsical side when characters’ paths cross without them ever knowing it. Nicely done.
Hiro gets Mohinder on the phone and learns “the place Matt was last headed.” Which doesn’t explain how Matt’s plan to ambush Željko at Goon Squad Central led to Hiro finding him at Željko’s apartment, but it’s at least an attempt to establish that Hiro had a lead on where to go when he reached Washington.
The paperwork Mohinder officiates from Chandra’s storage files was intriguing. I couldn’t make out the entire text, but certain key phrases are in there: “experimental and theoretical research,” “ability to [illegible] at extraordinary rates,” “special abilities” and “protestations of research techniques.” There’s perhaps a too-obviously-implied dun-dun-DUN! to accompany the reveal that Young Chandra was at Coyote Sands, but it ties Chandra to the early days of The Company, and it weaves the Suresh and Petrelli backstories together without feeling too contrived.
We reach a scene that’s in many ways the emotional centerpiece of the episode. It’s also a scene that’s in many ways one of the most unsettling, both in this episode and, in all likelihood, the series. Noah pointing a gun at Sandra’s head isn’t as overtly disturbing as Brody trying to rape Claire, but it’s realized in a way that makes it viscerally — and almost unbearably — painful to watch.
Sandra walks into her apartment and finds herself held at gunpoint. To her credit, she keeps her composure until she realizes that the guy pointing the gun is her husband.
Besides the symbolism of Noah’s wedding ring on the hand that pins Sandra to the table, what makes this so disturbing is Noah’s brutal efficiency. Just as Alena gets a glimpse of the man “Jakob” really is, Sandra gets a glimpse of the personality Noah channels every day in order to do his job. Which emphasizes Sylar’s success in playing Noah, because as devious as his ploy might have been, what Sandra experiences here isn’t so much a misunderstanding as an illumination, and it goes to show how right she’d be to want a divorce.
Nicely shot, and a moment that tries to remind you that you’re looking at HRG rather than Noah. But even if you buy that the guy with the horn-rimmed glasses is a different man from the one Sandra loves, she’s looking at the flipside of the same coin. This is who Noah really is, and this is what he does for a living.
Sandra begs Noah to think of the kids, and as convincing as Sylar’s impersonation of Sandra was, I have a hard time believing even Sylar would act this well.
Lyle phones Sandra, Noah answers the phone, and the look on his face as the pieces fall into place …
… is almost as gut-wrenching as Sandra’s hysterical whimpering.
Sandra left Lyle home alone? Sandra left Mr. Muggles home alone? Sandra relied on Lyle to give Mr. Muggles his medication? If this wasn’t such an overwrought scene, Sandra would be winning a Dumb As Award. But the only thing more heartbreaking than watching Noah manhandle his wife is hearing Sandra’s sigh of relief as she describes where to find Mr. Muggles’s pills, as if the thought of something familiar reassures her enough to get a grip on the situation.
The same can’t be said for Noah, who, from the look of it, barely hangs up the phone in time to spare Lyle the sound of his dad stifling sobs.
Noah puts the phone on the table and rests his hand on his traumatized wife’s shoulder, and it’s hard to blame the guy for wondering what on earth he’s supposed to do next. To Noah’s credit, he realizes that what most guys would do in the same situation — which is to say, beg for forgiveness and insist that it was all a misunderstanding — would be meaningless.
I was going to come up with some cute comparison here, like, “Noah’s expression resembles a ninth grader’s after he got caught sneaking into the principal’s office to get a look at next week’s math test.” But, really, there’s no apt comparison for a guy who just put a gun to his wife’s head and threatened to kill her, and there are very few moments on this show that are as deeply heartbreaking as this one. If I had to compare this to any other scene on the show, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every choice would be a scene which featured Noah in some capacity.
Sandra: “Get out.”
Noah: “Sylar’s a shapeshifter…”
Sandra: “Leave.”
Noah: “Sylar came to me as you. You filed for divorce, you changed the locks…”
Sandra: “Probably a good idea.”
Cold-hearted on paper, but it’s hard to blame Sandra for her reaction, just as it’s hard to blame Noah for assuming that Sylar was still wearing his wife’s face.
The difference is that Sandra’s expression now is filled with distress, and she still makes the right decision by telling him to get out. And on a show where female characters typically turn to boyfriends, husbands or father figures when they’re in trouble, the fact that Sandra endures her distress and pushes Noah away underlines her strength of character.
The sad piano helps; the sound of Sandra locking the door adds a sad touch; but in the end, what’s amazing is the way it’s played, and as always, Coleman brings such depth to the role that it’s impossible not to feel for the guy.
The counter-argument is that, misunderstanding or not, Noah brought this upon himself, and Sylar’s words while he pretended to be Sandra are as true as ever. If Sylar had impersonated Claire or Lyle, you can believe Noah would have taken a gun to their heads too. Noah’s determination to protect his family is what made it impossible for him to hold his family together. And that, ultimately, is what makes him the most tragic character on the show.
We cut from Noah pointing a gun at Sandra to Matt pointing a gun at Alena, and as compelling as the second of these is, the quality of the preceding scene reinforces how inferior this one is. It’s equally well played, and setting the scene in broad daylight makes for an effective metaphor for the truth coming to light, but it never matches the previous scene’s raw emotion.
Željko pleads with Alena to ignore everything Matt says. Small detail, but the way Željko puts his hands together is an elegant way to emphasize how important his relationship with Alena was.
Thing is, that’s where parts of this storyline stop adding up. “You have no idea who I am,” Željko tells Matt. And that’s the problem. We know Željko cares about someone, but as this scene demonstrates, he doesn’t care about them enough to put them before his duty. We know Željko dreams of a life as a humble salesman, but why he’d dream of that when he repeatedly demonstrated perverse devotion to wiping out a part of the population is a mystery. And after this scene, we know Željko’s aware of how irredeemable his actions are, although how that affects him when he had no trouble justifying himself in the past is equally unclear. The show introduced the idea that Željko secretly wishes for a different life without ever establishing why he’s unhappy with the life he has.
Matt: “I used to be a cop. I was surrounded by basket cases just like you. Your job’s a nightmare, so you seek out anything to ease the pain. ‘Nothing’ relationships, fantasies of a normal life. Trust me, I’ve been there.”
I can’t decide whether that last part refers to Janice, Mohinder and Molly or Daphne, but one of them’s getting the shaft. But more relevantly, we’re forced to ask, “IN WHAT WAY DOES DANKO CONSIDER HIS JOB A NIGHTMARE?” This storyline is predicated on the assumption that Matt’s correct, but since this episode never addresses Željko’s unhappiness, it leaves a big part of the character arc with a question mark hanging over it.
Alena: “Why did you lie?”
Željko: “Because I knew you couldn’t possibly love someone who did these things.”
Revealing dialogue, if only because it demonstrates Željko’s awareness that what he’s doing is immoral. But then, if on some level Željko knows this, how do we reconcile that with a passionate drive to exterminate everyone with an ability? This, above all, is my issue with the storyline. The show opened a can of worms and then promptly ran away from it without looking back.
Matt realizes that Željko’s feelings for Alena are real and lifts his gun.
Željko: “Go ahead, Parkman. But if you think killing her is gonna make a difference or change how I feel about the program, forget it. Whatever you do, nothing’s ever gonna be more important to me than putting you and your friends down.”
Great dialogue, but all it does is reaffirm what we already knew: that Željko’s only real love is killing people with abilities, and that even the thought of losing the woman he cares about isn’t enough to stop him.
Grunberg acts the hell out of the scene, and here’s where the show could have pushed the character’s arc forward. As obvious as it was that Matt would never pull the trigger, it would have been great to be surprised. It would have been tragic, and it would have written the character into a corner and made the reunion with his son impossible, but it would have underscored how desperate the characters have become over the course of the volume, and it would have underscored how seriously this experience has damaged them. The way it ends up, Matt comes across as a character who’s not so much driven by despair as he is on the brink of despair. And again, call me crazy, but I think we already knew that.
Matt has an epiphany, drops his gun and gives Željko a moment to pull the trigger on his own gun.
A bullet frozen in mid-air? Again? Oh, show. It was unbelievably cool the first time. It was still incredibly cool the second time. It was even pretty nifty the third time. But the same trick four times? It’s starting to get old.
Hiro parks Matt in a swivel chair, wheels him out and restarts time. Željko runs into the hallway. He’s furious. Get back here, Matt! You disappeared before I could shoot you! Now there’s a bullet hole in my mantelpiece and it’s your fault! Come back here!
Shenkar provides restrained wailing as Alena calls Željko a “monster” and leaves.
Danko looks mildly affected, but — as this episode attempted to convey — not enough to keep him from a life of murder and deceit. Still, nicely played by Ivanek. Given that the character just pulled a trigger on an unarmed guy, the fact that the character elicits even an ounce of sympathy is an achievement.
A conspicuously HRG-less Noah returns to Goon Squad Central and pretends to be Sylar-as-Noah. It’s a superb performance, albeit an emphatically mechanical one that brings back repressed memories of Cyborg Noah in the Season Two finale. At least this time the misdirection serves a purpose. Noah hands over a file to Željko and gives a delightfully shady smile. I want to know how Željko’s warm smile can be so creepy when Noah’s corrupt smile is so endearing.
Noah pulls a gun on Željko, and the look on his face is so over-the-top that you know the actor is having a blast with the scene.
Željko trumps Noah’s expression with a look that says, “Geez, could this day get any crappier?”
Noah: “How dumb are you?”
Ooh, well, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Smart As Noah, 10 being Dumb As Mohinder/Parkman/Peter, I’d say Željko’s about a 5.
Noah demands Sylar “on a platter,” then agrees to overlook “this pathetic little cry for help.” Coleman’s delivery is so unbelievably awesome that it gets meaner — and funnier — every time I hear it. You know how Ian McDiarmid mocked Luke’s “pitiful little band”? Nerds, you know what I’m talking about. Coleman’s delivery is that good.
Sylar using the Agent Donner guise was a neat touch, although it’s also disconcerting to think that Sylar’s now acquiring even more abilities off-screen than he is on-screen.
Hiro brings Matt to a park and introduces him to his son. To Hiro’s credit, he got the job done, and he got Baby Matt to his father alive. To Matt’s credit, he endures Hiro’s insufferable garbage about “the warrior” and his “righteous battle” …
… and gets a moment with his kid that’s every bit as heartwarming as it deserves to be.
Now, dig beneath the surface for a moment and consider that Hiro and Ando to all intents and purposes kidnapped Baby Matt to get him here; that they brought him to a father who’s wanted for attempting to blow up Capitol Hill; that they brought him to a father with no experience raising a child; and that they brought him to a father who, hours before meeting his son, was ready to let himself get killed. Can we really dismiss all of that with, “Oh, just suspend your disbelief”? It’s not as if the child would have been safer in the hands of federal agents or under a microscope at Building 26, and, yes, between Hiro’s time-freezing and Matt’s mind control, Baby Matt’s about as safe as he possibly could be. But by bringing Baby Matt to his father, Hiro put the kid directly in the line of fire. Getting caught by Goon Squad agents and taken back in L.A. would have been scary, but the kid would have had fewer bullets flying over his head.
But, hey, at least this way there’s a chance the two Matts can bond.
HEROSITE RECONSTRUCTION
Working title: M&M The Adventures of Matt Parkman Big Matt/Little Matt
INT — Parkman Residence, Kitchen — Day
[Fade In]
[In an artful and elegant way, we are reintroduced to the pilot episode of the TV classic HEROES, created by Tim Kring.* Using the original show's premise, we launch the setting for a spin-off depicting Matt Parkman and his son. The internal struggle of the series focuses on Big Matt, disillusioned with life in a quiet Californian suburb and longing for the life of excitement he once knew. In turn, this creates a vibrant dynamic between Big Matt and his son, Little Matt, now 16 and curious to know about his father's mysterious past.]
[* I don't think any prophetic painters painted this, but if they did, consider them credited too.]
BIG MATT
Son, I don’t think you should be so worried about fitting in all the time. I don’t wanna see you make mistakes like I did. I wanted to be someone more interesting than I am.
LITTLE MATT
You are interesting, Dad. You read minds and control people’s thoughts — whose dad does that?
BIG MATT
But I wanted to hitchhike across Europe. Or Africa, at least. And study art. Or prophetic pictures of naked women, anyway. And fall in love with some Bart Howard-quoting Parisian belle … Not that your mom isn’t wonderful, but my point is you should know who you are and know that it’s enough. ‘Cause who you are is special. Like me.
LITTLE MATT
About that … Why do you never talk about yourself, Dad? I don’t even know what life was like for you and Mom when I was born.
BIG MATT
When you were born, son, I was off saving the world, and your mom was fooling around with a guy from work. [LITTLE MATT looks appalled.] For a while we weren’t even sure who your dad was. I didn’t know the truth until your Grandpa Maury tried to kill me with one of his mind tricks.
LITTLE MATT
Did you always know what you wanted to do with your life?
BIG MATT
Absolutely. I started out directing traffic. Then I discovered my ability, and all of a sudden I was getting thrown out of windows and shot at. But I kept my nose to the grindstone, and eventually I made detective.
LITTLE MATT
How?
BIG MATT
I cheated. Then I got fired. But it was OK because I’d stolen a bag of diamonds.
LITTLE MATT
No way! Did you spend ‘em all?
BIG MATT
I don’t know. I just kinda forgot about them. But it didn’t matter because while you were growing up with your mom, I was fooling around with a gorgeous blonde. She was hot. And fast. I loved her so much.
LITTLE MATT
More than Mom?
BIG MATT
Well, no, it was a different kind of love. One day you’ll understand, son. See, I had this crazy dream I had a baby girl with her, and I just knew it was meant to be. But it wasn’t. And there was also this other kid I adopted with another guy. She was adorable.
LITTLE MATT
What happened to her?
BIG MATT
She was having bad dreams about your Grandpa Maury. Then I put her in a coma. But she woke up. Then Mohinder sent her away.
LITTLE MATT
Then what?
BIG MATT
I guess I just kinda forgot about her.
LITTLE MATT
You do that a lot, Dad.
BIG MATT
Well, now that you mention it, there was this guy I once met who could make people forget things.
LITTLE MATT
What happened to him?
BIG MATT
I don’t know. I guess I just kinda forgot about him too.
LITTLE MATT
Well, thanks for this talk, Dad. I feel like I understand you better.
BIG MATT
You’re welcome, son. I’m always here for you.
[FADE TO BLACK]
“Agent Donner” returns to Goon Squad Central. It’s a scene that thrives on detail, with Sylar predictably throwing himself into the role and bonding with his fellow agents, and with “Agent Donner” giving a satisfied smile when he mentions Noah’s divorce. What makes the scene effective, though, is the tension it sustains. Unlike Matt pointing a gun at Alena, you know that Noah pointing a gun at one of Željko’s agents will very probably end with him pulling the trigger.
Noah’s increasingly frantic effort to prove he’s right is compelling, above all because it’s a jarring contrast with the character who’s usually so in control.
Željko fools Noah into thinking he killed an innocent agent and sends him running out of the building, knocking people down like bowling pins as he goes. Again, it’s shocking because it’s so unusual for the character.
Sylar regurgitating the bullet? Unlike freezing a bullet in mid-air, bullet regurgitation never gets old.
Željko defending his decision to let Sylar get shot instead of his agents was a nice detail. Ties in with his distress after the hillside massacre in “Trust and Blood,” and it’s evidence that even if Željko’s interest in the welfare of the general population isn’t real, his loyalty to his soldiers is.
Which probably won’t impress Alena as she packs her bags and leaves Washington. It seems like a deliberate parallel that Alena ignores Željko’s impassioned message on her answering machine at the same time as Sandra ignores Noah’s. Equally, it’s to Katherine Boecher’s credit that with only a few scenes, she captured the spirit of a likable and strong-willed character whose story in several ways mirrored Sandra’s.
We cut to a scene that leads into next week’s episode.
Superb location shooting. Impressive for its enormous scale, appropriate for its decadence and desolation.
Nathan and Claire join Angela and Peter. As a Paire shipper, I’m obliged to point out the inappropriate touching. However, I’m also dismayed by Peter’s selective unconditional love.
Angela: “This family has to come together. Whatever has happened, Nathan is still your brother.”
Peter: “I have a hard time believing that.”
Wait, what? So Peter didn’t have any problem forgiving the mom who wanted to nuke a few million people, but he can’t bring himself to forgive the brother who captured a dozen people with the aim to remove their abilities and protect mankind? What a hypocrite!
Nathan: “Claire, it’s all right. Let him vent.”
Why stop there? I say let him explode!
Angela: “You want answers? Then you’ll have to dig.”
Melodramatic, but it is accompanied by some beautiful photography and direction …
… including some macabre images of, presumably, victims of The Company’s early experimental stages.
V.O. Mohinder returns to regale us with the story of Icarus, which will probably fit in very elegantly with next week’s episode, but which seems tangential to this week’s. In any case, it provides a pleasant background noise as we watch Noah arrive at the site to help Peter and Nathan dig.
Beeman mentions on his blog that there was debate about whether Claire would have been happier to see her father. Given that we last saw Claire derailing his attempt to capture an innocent super and ratting him out to Sandra, I’d say Beeman’s call when directing this scene was right on. If Claire had smiled and fallen into Noah’s arms, it would have undermined Sandra’s reason for kicking him out of the house in the first place.
Angela’s probably thrilled to see him, though. One more person to dig.
The cryptic conclusion to the episode rounds off what was in almost every way a flawless episode. It moved effortlessly from hilarity to tragedy, it focused on characters we care about, and, as the show’s best episodes tend to, its central drama had very little to do with superpowers and much more to do with emotional turmoil.
What was remarkable was the way the episode flowed with such enormous grace, cutting from the Ando Face to Noah’s crumbling marriage without ever feeling disjointed. The fact that the characters’ storylines have also been interwoven — to a point where every character’s arc connects with another’s and where no one remains on the periphery — is a promising sign leading up to the finale.
I’m docking half a point for the Željko and Matt storylines, which, while compelling, never dared to go as far as they could have, and which never seemed sure about what they wanted to say. Otherwise, it’s as close to perfect as the show gets. Noah and Sandra’s scenes, per the rule that the characters are incapable of anything less than brilliance, made for viewing that was both affecting and devastating. For once, Hiro and Ando were funny for the right reasons. Matt’s storyline, while lacking the shock factor it needed in order to be memorable, was well acted and ultimately reaffirming. And as dismaying as it is to watch Sylar become increasingly omnipotent, watching other actors step into the character’s shoes was fun and generated some of the best drama the show has produced all season.
4.5 out of 5
Nice review Otto.
The only thing I’d go au contraire over is Matt’s storyline. Sure, it lacks shock… but I think that’s the point. It’s classic storytelling. You take your hero down a few pegs so he’s got nothing to live for, then introduce meaning. The circle of life. Matt lost Daphne, he gains a son. The scene at the end was just beautiful. And those toy cars whizzing around was Fuller-esque awesome.
As for Danko, sadly I think that’s a case of ‘hey, this guy can really act. Let’s give him something to do.’ Same as how Noah and Sylar evolved from one-note characters to the point where a few retcons had to be made.
I dunno. I’m not as hard on the Danko/Matt storylines because I totally buy Danko having a double life. And it was extremely plausible that he put the “program” ahead of the life of the woman whom he so clearly actually loves. The character’s still an irredeemable bastard, but this episode made him into an irredeemable bastard with levels of complexity that are actually believable. I wouldn’t have docked the half-point because I was compelled by the scenes even though I knew that Matt wouldn’t pull the trigger. There’s some noise on the grapevine that the show is again taking the Emmy fray seriously. I imagine that Ivanek and Grunberg will both submit this episode. Ivanek is the show’s best chance for an Emmy, at any rate, and I imagine it would be for supporting and not guest.
But damn it, the albatross of this show continues to be Sylar. It’s as if Kring is taunting us with the character, making him more and more invincible, making every one of his “deaths” harder and harder to buy. Ultimately, he’s setting himself up for failure because a certain point will come where the character really will have to become “dead for real,” and I don’t see any way at all for the show to make that moment convincing. The only thing I can see is something like Buffy taking out The Judge with a rocket launcher, but Sylar’s survived even more trauma than that. But since I’ve made that reference again, let’s consider that The Master, The Mayor, and even Glory all ended up being Dead For Real and we had no trouble buying it. They had invincibility similar to Sylar’s, but I just don’t see any way at this point that they can make us really believe it. And this is exactly what I was talking about way back when I said that Kring’s devotion to the character was going to be something that would weigh down the show far too much. Villains have to have a shelf life. They just do. And while Sylar’s shelf life should have expired…oh, let’s say when run through with a sword at Kirby. Or when Ellectrified out the window of Chandra’s Crib. Or when burned to a crisp with a shard in his head. I’m REALLY tempted to say that I wouldn’t have been too bummed had his shelf life expired when he took a plunge from the clock tower at Union Wells High School before we ever saw Quinto’s face, but I’ll refrain from going that far. The point is that this is not a good way to handle a villain. And the corners the show has painted itself into with him are becoming more and more resistent to paint thinner.
And it bums me out because I’ve loved this “Fugitives” volume so damn much. And the fact that Sylar is all I can talk about in an episode as excellent as this one just proves to myself what a weight on my enjoyment of the show this particular indomitable cockroach has become.
“In any case, the highlight of the scene is Noah’s expression when Željko wonders if he ever really wanted to catch Sylar, which seems to say, “Oh, believe me, I did — Tim Kring wouldn’t let me!””
Thank you! Spot on review.
I do have a problem with Chandra at Coyote Sands, though. If he knew about Specials early on, it could invalidate his motivation re: Shanti. Plus, why would he feel the need to prove his theories are valid so publicly, if he’d already been up to his neck in clandestine work early on? I smell another ginormous retcon. I hope I’m wrong.
Re: Claire & Noah — There’s an inherent tragedy here for the Bennets because of her immortality. Part of her may hate Noah for what he is and the pain he’s caused. But, Claire needs him to be what he is in order to glean the survival skills and strategies she’s going to need over centuries of existence. Sandra was never going to have a marriage, because the eternal mandate that is Claire means that work and family are the same forever. Plus, whatever, she doesn’t learn from Noah, Claire will learn from assorted obessive badasses who give her petnames over the centuries. Noah isn’t just Daddy; he’s a template. The intensity of his devotion will also serve as a memory to cling to, a memory in the lean times.
Like I said, I collect immortals. There’s a drill, and the drill means Sandra was screwed the day Noah brought Claire home.
At this stage, Chandra having any relation to the overall mythology is welcome for me. I’ve no doubt it’ll be a retcon of ginormous proportions, but hopefully it can redeem him after Mohinder’s instantaneous ‘I may have a cure’ nonsense from S3. Said ‘cure’ and understanding of abilities, though idiotic in execution, was a mocking of his Father’s actual research.
Good point.
The upside to tying Chandra in with The Company is that it might explain where Shanti’s ability came from, since it doesn’t look like either Mama or Papa Suresh had any abilities of their own. Given the previous volume’s reveal about synthetic abilities, one possibility is that the Shanti Virus developed from a version of The Formula gone wrong. It would involve going back to Volume Three, which probably isn’t a good idea, but it would also explain why Chandra broke away from The Company and dedicated himself to proving his theories — as a way to atone for whatever happened at Coyote Sands.
Great review, Otto. Hit every note. The scenes between Noah and Sandra were the best of the show, obviously. My favorite bit was when Sandra admitted that she believed Noah about Sylar, but that it just didn’t matter. Ouchy for Noah and completely understandable for Sandra.
I was cautiously thrilled, even somewhat stunned, to have enjoyed Hiro’s and Ando’s traveling roadshow, despite, yet again, their being saddled with the Nissan product placement. The continuing sour note there is Hiro’s endless comic-book hero dialogue. The character deserves better than that. But then again, for the first time this season, it looks like he might be progressing again. We’ll see…
I understand why Peter’s reactions vis-a-vis Angela and Nathan annoy you in their inconsistency, but remember, Peter and Angela just had a major make-up moment with some minor divine intervention, whereas whenever Nathan sees Peter lately it’s all about the mayhem, drug shunts, and backstabbing. Also, I just think that the outrageously dysfunctional Petrelli family dynamics are such that forgiveness is a much more fluid commodity than it is in your average American family.
I’m loving this volume, but, while I’m not as disappointed as KellyH, I, too, am getting tired of Sylar. He is in many ways a terrific villain, but his character development is completely circular. He goes through his cycles of introspection and self-discovery to end up….exactly where he was before: an only vaguely human monster, albeit a particularly devious and entertaining one. It’s getting a bit tired.
Anyway I’m looking forward to the last few episodes of “Fugitives,” particularly the upcoming second visit from Micah. I was very happy and vindicated to see him and his involvement in this storyline. I do hope he survives.
Take care,
K
Enjoyed reading your review and glad you enjoyed the episode. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for it.
Let’s start with the shape-shifting, it takes me right out of any emotional scene by thinking “oh, that’s probably Sylar” and it completely ruins the effect. Wasn’t there a reason they killed Candice before Sylar could take her power? Granted hers was illusion, but it’s practically the same thing. Also, they think time travel is confusing? Please, I’d much rather deal with time travel than this. I hope Sylar has another depowering in the near future of at least this power. It’s also odd, because Candice never bothered me. Maybe because, for the most part, it was more apparent that it was Candice (such as when she showed up as Simone, because you knew Simone was dead or as Claire because it was so obvious it wasn’t Claire mainly because of the uniform). Or maybe it was the fact that Candice was one of the lesser characters and not one of the main ones.
I do agree about the scene with Noah threatening Sandra. It was intense and well acted.
As for Matt’s story, eh. I just don’t care. I don’t hate Matt, it’s more the revenge angle. Part of my reaction goes back to the whole thing with Peter and any love interest he’s had. He’s an empath and yet he’s never been given the time to have any kind of meaningful closure with his lost loves.
Then there was the Hiro and Ando roadtrip yet again. It was funny in some parts, but the making faces wasn’t one of them.
A few appearances by Angela is always a plus and her “NOAH!” was a bit frightening. It almost makes me wonder if she’d had another dream about Sylar and that played into her trying to get HRG to come to Coyote Sands. If he would have listened, he may have avoided what ended up happening anyways because he couldn’t let it go. (Sorry for that convoluted sentence, I hope it makes sense).
I can’t believe you didn’t mention this one … I loved the shot of Hiro and Ando driving off as Nathan and Claire zoom by just above them. That was a pretty cool visual.
As I’ve read in comments elsewhere, it definitely is much better for the show to focus on a few characters and/or story lines per episode. The downside to that, though, is if you don’t have a vested interest in the ones that are featured, the episode drags.
Just as this one did for me.
Well, on the plus side, I should be getting my Petrelli fix next week.
Thank you for posting this. It’s always an interesting, if not fun, read.
Great review, they always are
Couldn’t agree more with where you docked half a point. Both Zeljko and Matt storylines could have led to interesting things.
Personnally, I wish Matt had more importance. I won’t talk about him and Janice during S1, or him stalking Daphne during V3 but the only time I felt he had a real impact on the main storyline was the Maury arc (even through the dumbness) and a bit at the end of S1. Except trying to save Daphne (RIP), he didn’t do anything really useful in V4 so far, and you nicely pointed out that he could easily make Zeljko kill himself or anything else that could potentially shut down the operation if he felt a bit concerned about other people… At least, if he is on the sideline from now on, he has a good reason to be.
I’d love more about Zeljko backstory, but that wasn’t what I was expecting (Angola?) and it’s to bad it didn’t really go anywhere.
Jack Coleman (as HRG/Noah/Sylar-as-Noah) and Ashley Crow (as Sandra/Sylar) are well, nothing less than awesome. Loved all of their scenes.
I know it shouldn’t, but your screencap of Noah resting his hand on Sandra’s shoulder reminded be of Sylar doing the same thing in “Our Father” (Elle post-scalp / pre-BBQ) except that for Noah, it makes sense, and has much more impact. Wait - Those two scenes have nothing in common then… I’m just seeing unexistant parallels.
“In any case, the highlight of the scene is Noah’s expression when Željko wonders if he ever really wanted to catch Sylar, which seems to say, “Oh, believe me, I did — Tim Kring wouldn’t let me!”” : Yeah, and I still wonder how the hell he passed the occasion to blow Sylar’s heads at the end of 3.10 … or at least didn’t give a shot at it. Since shooting Elle seemed like one of his hobbies, I don’t think he would minded killing her too, but well…
Somehow, I’m a bit disappointed about Hiro/Ando. If it weren’t for Ken Choi and the baby’s hilarious reactions, I would probably happily throw rocks at them. I never really liked Ando, and normally, I would have found funny the faces. But the fact that both characters have been reduced to ONLY comedy kinda kills it for me. I guess that Hiro’s speech on heroism doesn’t help either. Waiting to see where it’s going.
On a side note, I wish Hiro got his original power back, but would have been smart enough not to use it (or Ando being smart enough from stoping him from using it), but if it serves the storyline, it won’t bother me that much.
Sylar, well I’m still waiting for “I am Sylar” to see if the character is going somewhere. I didn’t really like where they took him during this volume (even if John Glover is awesome), and I still think he was too present for an arc that went nowhere during V3. But at least (and weirdly), the shapeshifting led to interesting-amazing scenes (Ivanek-as-Sylar, Crow-as Sylar) including Noah/Sandra’s big scene. Great way to use a power that probably makes him too powerful to create great scenes for him and the others.
I’ll agree with KellyH that maybe they took Sylar too far. They had plenty good reasons to kill him, and make it beleivable (Homecoming/S1 Final/other occasion) and I’m afraid of how he will die since it’s likely to happen at some point (well he could survive the whole series but that would feel odd). But since they have like infinite ways to bring dead people back to life, that shouldn’t be too hard to kill an almost-immortal character. So I’ll keep my hopes up
Great review, Otto. I agree–it was an intensely engaging episode, and Noah and Sandra’s storyline was just incredible.
I understand your issues with Matt and his inherent likability. I thought I’d be unable to believe it too, but there was something in Grunberg’s performance that sold it for me. I actually believed, for a moment, that Matt would shoot Alena.
As for Danko, I think that we did get the groundwork for why Danko would hope for a happier life with Alena. In “Into Asylum”, we could see Danko start to get shaken up by the death toll that this operation was racking up. The shaking hands, the need for a cigarette, his sloppiness, was to indicate that there was a heavy emotional price he was paying, and he needed something to alleviate it.
I’m also surprised at the success of Hiro and Ando’s storylines lately. The comedy doesn’t feel idiotic and forced, just a little silly. And Hiro is starting to convey some real heroic values. He may have used the word “duty”, but it actually sounded more like a hero. On that note, I really enjoyed his speech to Matt.
Hi, Otto, Excellent review, as always.
But in this instance, the scene also depends on Grunberg’s ability to prevent art from imitating life, and as talented an actor as Grunberg is, he’s too affable to sell the part. Pasdar’s proven he can pull it off, Coleman can do it in his sleep, but Grunberg — in many ways to the actor’s credit — exudes a good-natured personality, to the point where it works against him and prevents us from believing that Matt could become a killer.
I disagree about that, because Grunberg has shown he can be menacing and intimidating like he did in “Five Years Gone”, and he was excellent playing the desperate and kind-of-crazy Matt in “Cold Wars”, maybe was the writing who didn´t really dare to go far on the idea of Matt being vengeful. It would have being more compelling if he would have shot Alena, killing her in front of Danko, and then revealing it was all an illusion to screw around with Danko, but that´s my opinion.
About Danko, i´m not sure if at this height of the game its relevant to see his backstory, yes, it would be nice to know why he is likes killing people at the beginning of the volume, or through webisodes, but maybe all we need to know about Danko is that he is a creep, who likes to shot people and looks for any excuse for do it, like, for example, the superpowered population.
Aside from that, everything was flawless, keep up the good work, bye.
Great review, as always! I just want to drop in a theory about Danko — why would he long for a humble life yet be hellbent on wiping out the “powered” people? Because in his mind, no one can have a humble life as long as there are superpowered humans wandering around. It actually makes perfect sense. I doubt that’s his driving force, of course, seeing how merciless he’s been about it, but I think it fits rather well.
Another great review,Otto
Although you once again nailed it, I kind of disagree with the Matt/Danko scenes you docked, as I felt the same tension in
Both this and the HRG/Sandra/Sylar. And man Sylar is such an incredible b—–d, and I just LOVE to hate him. I’m so glad how much of a repair Bryan Fuller has been with the last 3 episodes. I actually consider the last episodes as good, if not better, than most S1 episodes. I just can’t wait for next week’s episode.
I find myself happy that you (and many of us) will get what we’ve been yearning since the tease and beginning of a certain volume called “Generations”: an early Company flashback. I just remember just how many times in your S2 reviews you asked for a flashback, and now 2 and a half volumes later we get one
I just can’t wait for Monday. And as long as there’s no gigantic retcon to what we already know I will be a hell of a lot happier.
So in the end, I thought this week’s episode was worthy of a 5. But 4.5 is perfect for me. Now, Otto, let’s cross fingers that next week (and then next and the finale) are 5s or 4.5s. It just that I haven’t found myself as excited for Heroes since S1 specially with such a continuous streak of quality episodes like the last 3 (well, 4. I liked Shades of Gray despite not being that big “Bryan Fuller” influenced). So practically it shows how excited I am for the last of “Fugitives”. Do until then, see you next week and as always, keep up with this amazing work.
Good review.
I agree that the Matt/Danko scenes were not as strong as the ones involving Noah, but I still enjoyed them. I knew Matt wouldn’t shoot that girl but I didn’t know that Hiro was going to save him. That surprised me a little, and I mean a fraction.
Ando’s face was funny, but I agree that I wouldn’t be depressed if Hiro were to miraculously disappear.
Noah’s scenes were awesome and it was cool to see all those actors play their portrayal of Sylar. Noah’s was the best, but I think it had something to do with spending way to much time around the guy. I don’t agree with everyone mentioning how making Sylar immortal is making him useless or pointless. After he woke up after getting shot he was none to happy about Danko letting Noah shoot him. If I recall right he says something along the lines of, “He could have killed me.” Sylar is familiar with his mortality even though its a fraction of what he originally had. He is going to be wary of guys who are a really good shot with something against him. What is even more depressing though is that it seemed like he expected Danko to protect him and prevent Noah from pulling the trigger. If that other commando hadn’t tried to stop Noah then Sylar would have been dead, permanently, and he knew it. Danko first and foremost wants to protect his men, and exterminate the “them”. Unfortunately I feel that he has signed his death warrant by ratting Sylar out. As much of a bad dude as Danko is, there are three people you do not screw with on this show: Angela, HRG and Sylar (unless you are Sylar which means that everyone is fair game).
Can’t wait for next week to see all the Petrellis together.
Otto, remember Angela hasn’t caused the death of anyone Peter knows. Nathan was responsible for Daphne’s death, and Peter’s friends with Matt.
5/5! I disagree completely about the Matt/Danko storyline. Greg Grunberg’s performance made me feel so much for him. Yeah, I wasn’t suprised that he didn’t shoot Danko’s love, but it was stil an effective scene in my opinion.
Next week looks amazing, but am i the only one who’s annoyed at the promos, for making us thinl that this episode would be Angela-centric, when it’s really next week? Oh, well.
Greeeat review Otto!
I won’t say that this episode was bad, but I was expecting something more, I don’t know, things blowing up, maybe Samson making a BIG reappearance- for the title of the ep. I kinda thought that! haha crazy thing…
The scene between Sandra and HRG was beyond awesomeness (is that a word?)
I miss Tracy, bring her back already!
And the Big Matt/Little Matt conversation killed me! I’m still laughing!
“I just kinda forget about that”!! hahahaha so funny! You got me again Otto!
Continue with your great work…
and thanks for the laughs!
Nice episode, nicer review. As we are heading towards the end of this volume, I’d like to make some comments on the supercharacters’s storylines and their progress thorough the volume.
1. Nathan: This guy sure has a big problem. He was one of the good guys, wanted to save the world by killing his dad, but suddenly he decides: “Hey, let’s give abilities to random people!”..He wakes up next morning and says “How dump was I? Let’s gather up superpeople and remove their abilities instead of giving abilities to other people?”. He has decision issues, and he really needs a psychotherapist.
2. Sylar: He survived near death and went to see his beloved dad. After a meaningless road trip with a superkid he finds his dad, who happens to be a guy with the same ability and with the inner desire to kill innocent rabbits. What did he learn from this trip? That he needs to kill people! That’s NEW! As if he didn’t know that allready. The hole shape-shifting thing makes me ill but I’d like to see how the show will continue with this.
3. Peter: He has gone back to the volume 1 peter but the intencity of the situation he faces has brought out a wilder peter. with his down-graded ability he has done nothing good so far, besides saving his mother from captivity and making things complicated (nathan leading the operation)..He’s good at that
4. Claire: She is not the Clair we used to see. She helps people and is less annoying than she was.
5. Hiro/Ando: Ando has now an ability that we haven’t seen used widely yet and he helps Hiro as always. Hiro has become a total jerk (India episode) but now with his ability back he is the bad-old-Hiro
6. Matt: The Daphne storyline doesen’t feel right to me. I can understand that he loved her, but what have they shared? Daphne surely appreciates Matt for his help but I don;t feel that she was in love with him (as we can see in the episode she dies)..He will win this volume’s Dumb As award for having SOOO many times the opportunity to kill Danko, but he hasn’t.
7. Mohinder: The only contribution to the show of his volume 4 prescence, was Sendhil’s name on the credits of each episode…Totally meaningless
It’s not Sylar’s very presence per se that bugs me so much. I understand the need for a main villain. But since S1, there have been effective “arc villains” in each volume (Adam/Kensei, Arthur, and now Danko). Sylar interacted with all of these except for Adam. The problem is that his arcs go nowhere. They always lead back to the same place, but what’s really disheartening is that this circular motion is kind of like Chevy Chase trying to get out of Picadilly Circus. Each time around, he became more and more frustrated. Here, the circular snowball is Sylar’s exponential increase in power. When is it going to stop? And would that gunshot wound really kill him? Adam survived the explosion in Japan. Claire “can never die,” per Sylar. Adam may have been pulling Peter’s leg about “there’s no coming back from that one.” It’s just impossible to know if he’s REALLY dead. Ever, no matter what. Apparently the only way for an immortal to die was an exposure to Arthur. And a huge opportunity was wasted in all the Arthur/Sylar interactions to knock Sylar’s power down a notch. Come to think of it–how do we know that ARTHUR is really dead? THAT seemed to have something to do with the Haitian. If they are ever really going to kill Sylar off, the only way I can see for it to be convincing is for the Haitian to be around. He, not Sylar, not Arthur, not Peter, was and is the most powerful of all the supers (which is what made Ando’s pwning of him so effective). He’s not returning in this volume, sadly.
The only way to be sure = bullet in the head. Knife into the brain. Load them into an incinerator. I’m pretty sure they chargrilled Arthur’s body.
I’ll agree with you with the circular snowball. Sylar was a great villain S1, and I’m eventually okay with him in S2 since he didn’t have much presence. But like you said, his arcs seem to go nowhere (being temporarly powerless in S2/pseudo-redemption in V3/daddy and mommy issues in V1-3-4). I’m eventually okay with him giving up on changing, but it would be nice to see some evolution, just at least to see that those arcs weren’t pointless. Seeing him going in circle once was okay, but three time is a bit exagerated.
That’s why I’m waiting where they go with him in “I am Sylar” and eventually the season finale. If the episodes don’t go anywhere with him. If he has no other purpose than power farming, I’ll just ignore him. I already stoped trying to figure out what he would/wouldn’t do and why, so there’s not much of a big step at it (actually I just ignored everything with Maya when I watched S2 again, and except for the shortened eps, it was quite awesome).
Anyone know where HRG shot him this time? I always thought that anywhere in the head damaging the brain would kill an instahealer (except I guess Adam badaboom). I thought that would be the reason Arthur wouldn’t regenerate (if he is dead) after the Haitian left, and not just the fact that he was there when he got shot. The “head” vs “back of the head” vs “a precise spot of the back of the head” doesn’t bother me that much but of course some are gonna scream “plothole” when it could be expplained in 10 sec so …
About a possible retcon involving Chandra…I hope they realize what a huge retcon it would actually be. If he WAS involved with supers in the ’60s, not only is much of Season 1 difficult to explain, but the very existence of Sylar himself is hard to reconcile. If he was involved before, why the euphoria when he finally discovered Gabriel Gray? Since the evolution of Gabriel into Sylar is something for which Chandra holds a lot of blame, it was always easiest to explain it as the concept of evolved humans was something he derived on his own, independent of any organization without initials. It was new to him. Hence the joy at seeing Gabriel move a glass.
If he was involved with “the company,” much of that backstory is simply shot to hell.
I hadn’t factored in the Sylar angle. Good point.
Could it be that Chandra was involved in the R&D side of The Company’s early stages but didn’t get to see a whole lot of the abilities in practice? That’s why it would still be a big “wow” moment for him when he sees Sylar TK the glass in 1.10. Otherwise, I got nothing. Belated Haitian Whammy in the late nineties, maybe?
I’m less concerned than you with Chandra switching from clandestine Company ops to let’s-go-public-and-tell-the-whole-world: that seems along the same lines as Nathan in 2.11 and Angela now. I am concerned, however, that Chandra all but copyrighted his theories in early Season One, and it’s now becoming apparent that what he billed as *his* findings are in fact the findings of a group of people with abilities whose research he’s evidently plagiarized. Now THAT’S a retcon.
That’s assuming Coyote Sands was a Company operation. I don’t believe it was. It was a secret government operation that may have lead certain people (Linderman and Charles) to creating the Company.
As for Chandra, just because he visited doesn’t mean he saw anything conclusive. Coyote Sands may have been the “Primatech Paper” portion of it and he may not have been allowed any further. It may have just inspired him to delve deeper, ending with him writing his book. Or maybe, with him being a geneticist, he was allowed to get samples from the people, but, again, never saw the abilities displayed.
I agree, Susan. Given the date, most of the Company’s founders were in their teens, so it’s unlikely to be a Company operation.
BUT … this is where I’m hopeful the show will respect its off-screen canon. Based on the Linda Tavara backstory in the GNs, there seems to have been a pre-Company organization within the government which was researching and tracking people with abilities in the early seventies. That would explain why Chandra’s Project Icarus paperwork was redacted the same way the files that Hana found in “War Buddies” were: a branch of the government was investigating people with abilities while trying to keep the whole thing under wraps.
I’ll also be very curious to see which Company founders in “1961″ have even manifested their abilities. If Angela’s 15 or 16, then presumably she’s still dreaming about becoming a teacher (per 3.21) and either only just discovering her ability or just about to discover it. Similarly, if Linderman’s still a “cocky upstart” (per the casting call) then one would guess it’ll be several years before he heals his mom, takes off and becomes the bookish introvert we’ll see when he gets to Vietnam in 1968.
Yes Otto. Us nerds do know what you’re talking about!
To be fair KellyH, in S2 we discover that The Company KNEW about the Shanti Virus. They had strains of it in 1977… when the only sufferer was Shanti. So it’s already been retconned that they had some contact with Chandra and Shanti.
Besides which, we don’t know what Charles’s ability is. Perhaps he has a way of making Chandra forget what happened. Then they cover up the notes that Chandra has. So Chandra loosely knows that people MAY exist, but is missing key parts of the data. At any rate, you could even say that Chandra is stunned with Sylar because his ability activates AFTER an initially bad meeting.
Pas - a Hunter knocks Noah’s gun down as he fires. It seems he shoots ‘Sylar’ in the upper back/lower neck. Still a killshot, but not in the head. Hence the ‘wait, he’s gonna heal.’ When he didn’t heal from a shot to the back, Noah knew he’d been tricked.
Ian, point taken on the circle-of-life premise for Matt’s arc, and on the classic storytelling angle. And, yes, the toy cars whizzing around the father and son were very cute, and very Fuller.
I think a big part of the problem for me is that when it comes to the whole “losing Daphne/gaining Matt Jr.” idea, Matt’s sense of loss lacked the foundation it needed for it to be effective. Daphne’s words to Matt at the hospital in “Cold Snap” struck me as the show’s way of conceding that a lot of the relationship was based on self-delusion. So, when it comes to a scenario where that sense of loss would drive Matt to kill a stranger, I have a hard time buying into it. I think *we* feel a sense of despair because we liked the character who was killed off, but whether we should share *Matt’s* sense of despair over losing someone he barely knew was a critical issue here, and for me, it’s why the storyline lacked the tension and poignancy it should have had.
KellyH, re: Danko:
“… it was extremely plausible that he put the “program” ahead of the life of the woman whom he so clearly actually loves. The character’s still an irredeemable bastard, but this episode made him into an irredeemable bastard with levels of complexity that are actually believable.”
Sure, and while he’s a more extreme variation of the irredeemable b*****d that HRG is, I think the parallels between their character arcs were remarkable. But from my point of view, the interesting question is what turned Danko into such an irredeemable b*****d to begin with, and that’s something that still hasn’t been addressed. I could probably believe that Danko secretly longed for a life without persecution and torture, but there needs to be some kind of rationale behind the bloodthirsty killer turning out to have a penchant for a quiet suburban family life.
“There’s some noise on the grapevine that the show is again taking the Emmy fray seriously.”
Hope you’re right!
“Ivanek is the show’s best chance for an Emmy, at any rate…”
On behalf of Coleman, Rose and Crow, ouch!
Re: Sylar, the impossible-to-kill villain: I’m digging the theory circulating on a few message boards regarding Matt Jr. and his ability to de-power people the way he de-powered the Cube. Put Matt Jr. in a room with Sylar and see what happens, I say.
“… the fact that Sylar is all I can talk about in an episode as excellent as this one just proves to myself what a weight on my enjoyment of the show this particular indomitable cockroach has become.”
Dude, I *so* hope TPTBs read that.
Kevin, thank you.
“I was cautiously thrilled, even somewhat stunned, to have enjoyed Hiro’s and Ando’s traveling roadshow”
My feeling exactly.
“Peter and Angela just had a major make-up moment with some minor divine intervention, whereas whenever Nathan sees Peter lately it’s all about the mayhem, drug shunts, and backstabbing.”
True, but then Peter also saw Angela co-running an organization which took exactly the same approach to drugging and incarcerating its captives. The difference is that The Company played God and decided which supers it thought were a threat and which could be released. And given that we’ve seen instances like Ted — when The Company clearly got it wrong and released people who were unable to control their abilities — I don’t think that makes Angela or The Company any less reprehensible than Nathan. At least Nathan’s goal was removing the abilities and going to the source of the problem instead of just trying to contain it.
Susan, I’m so sorry to hear you didn’t like the episode. I thought you made a really interesting point about the disadvantage to the fewer-story-threads approach, and I agree that if the show was willing to give Matt a storyline like this then they could have given one to Peter after he lost Simone or Caitlin. Do you think it’s too late to go back to that now? It might be cool to see an introspective scene where all of Peter’s experiences over the past year catch up with him and force him to deal.
I know what you mean about the shapeshifting ability. I’m willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt and assume they realize the problems they’ve created by reintroducing the ability, but we’ll see.
Re: Hiro, Ando and the road trip: “It was funny in some parts, but the making faces wasn’t one of them. “
You didn’t find that even a little amusing? Or even a tiny bit cute? Come on!
With Angela, Sylar and the possibility of a prophetic dream, I’m wondering if her warning to HRG was connected to whatever she whispered to Nathan in 3.18. I hope that moment will still turn out to have some significance.
“I can’t believe you didn’t mention this one … I loved the shot of Hiro and Ando driving off as Nathan and Claire zoom by just above them. That was a pretty cool visual. “
I agree, it was very nicely done. I also liked how Nathan took one look at the map, one look at the sky to get his bearings, and then off he went.
Pas, great point about Matt’s importance to the story. I wonder whether the guy’s actually got more story options available to him than anyone else on the show. Between the mind-reading, mind control, prophetic painting and now Matt Jr., I’d say his character arc’s the most open field there is. Hopefully he’ll get some bigger material to work with next season.
“I’d love more about Zeljko backstory, but that wasn’t what I was expecting (Angola?) and it’s to bad it didn’t really go anywhere.”
I definitely enjoyed the twist the show introduced here, but I think it needed to be supported with more of a rationale, and it seems like a flashback or an expo-monologue to cover the Angola backstory could have achieved that. It could still happen, but at this late stage I wonder if the show perhaps left it too long.
Daniel P, thanks. Re: Danko:
“I think that we did get the groundwork for why Danko would hope for a happier life with Alena. In “Into Asylum”, we could see Danko start to get shaken up by the death toll that this operation was racking up. The shaking hands, the need for a cigarette, his sloppiness, was to indicate that there was a heavy emotional price he was paying, and he needed something to alleviate it.”
Absolutely, but it doesn’t go to the root of *why* Danko’s so affected by the operation. You say it’s the death toll, which I agree is probably true, but I can’t help thinking that that’s a big factor which we shouldn’t need to speculate about. I don’t think we should need to speculate about a villain’s motives and weaknesses. So, as effective as that scene last week was, it still strikes me as evidence of Danko’s disintegration without an actual explanation for it.
Sergio, thank you. With Grunberg playing Evil!Matt and Vengeful!Matt, I definitely agree that he gave a solid performance in “FYG.” I really hope no one took portions of this week’s review as a dig at Grunberg, because that wasn’t the way it was intended at all. But just as some fans find Badass!Claire a tough sell, I find Vengeful!Matt a tough sell. Part of that’s because of the Daphne romance lacking the substance it needed to make Matt’s vengeance believable, but part of it’s also because I can’t look at Matt as a villain, and I think that’s largely because Grunberg has made the character into such a likable character. That’s why I thought it would be so effective if Matt really had killed Alena, because it would have been the show’s way of saying, “You think you know this character and what he’s capable of? Think again.”
“It would have being more compelling if he would have shot Alena, killing her in front of Danko, and then revealing it was all an illusion to screw around with Danko…”
^ ^ Now THERE’S a neat idea. I hadn’t thought of that. Very clever.
“About Danko … maybe all we need to know about Danko is that he is a creep, who likes to shot people and looks for any excuse for do it”
See, for me, that’s what made Arthur a wasted opportunity. The show had a terrific actor who brought enormous presence to the character and the story arc, and in the end it failed because we never got any idea what his motive was. In Danko’s case, I think we need to know what inspired his blind hatred for anyone with an ability; or, conversely, that he harbors blind hatred without any real reason because he’s a prejudiced piece of garbage. Either way, that’s something that I still feel needs to be developed.
MuceyBBDS, welcome!
“I just want to drop in a theory about Danko — why would he long for a humble life yet be hellbent on wiping out the ‘powered’ people? Because in his mind, no one can have a humble life as long as there are superpowered humans wandering around.”
I like it, very well thought out. Danko fantasizes about the life he’d have if people with abilities and Building 26 didn’t exist, and the fact that he’s been robbed of that life is what drives his hatred. Very possible.
Alfredo, word on the latest batch of episodes matching the best of Volume One. I think a lot of us are feeling the same way, which is awesome. I’m really looking forward to “1961″ too. Based on the casting calls, Young Linderman sounds like he’ll be the most fun.
LeeAnna,
“Ando’s face was funny, but I agree that I wouldn’t be depressed if Hiro were to miraculously disappear.”
I’m beginning to think we can stop kidding around about Ando carrying his own storyline. At this point, it really seems like Hiro and Ando have swapped roles, and Hiro’s basically supporting Ando. Ando’s the guy who figures stuff out and solves problems and makes stuff happen, and Hiro pretty much tags along, helps out when he can and spouts out the “destiny” stuff.
Interesting point about Sylar being so ticked off with HRG shooting him. I couldn’t decide if that was because — as you say — it was such a close call and that HRG could easily have shot the right spot in the back of the head, OR if it was simply that Sylar didn’t enjoy bleeding out and lying in a pool of blood while impersonating someone else.
“… there are three people you do not screw with on this show: Angela, HRG and Sylar…”
And Mr. Muggles.
Michael, great point, Angela’s never killed anyone close to Peter. I was going to suggest Angela poisoning Peter’s father, but I can’t recall if Peter even knows about that. And even if he did, given the shoot-out at the end of 3.12, well…
Caitlin, welcome!
“5/5! I disagree completely about the Matt/Danko storyline.”
And respect to that.
Hayley, thanks, and I’m glad you liked the Two Matts conversation. I don’t know if I was expecting more from this episode the way you were; I think, because there was so little promotion leading up to it, I kind of went into it without expecting anything, and I was very impressed.
I miss Tracy too.
“Absolutely, but it doesn’t go to the root of *why* Danko’s so affected by the operation. You say it’s the death toll, which I agree is probably true, but I can’t help thinking that that’s a big factor which we shouldn’t need to speculate about. I don’t think we should need to speculate about a villain’s motives and weaknesses. So, as effective as that scene last week was, it still strikes me as evidence of Danko’s disintegration without an actual explanation for it.”
That could also be said of Noah, too. After all, we’ve only had glimpses of his early Company life and how it affected his family and other characters within the immediate narrative (Claude, Ivan, Thompson). At no point have the writers addressed the fundamental question: Why did Noah Bennet wake up one morning thinking, “I know. Private sector Spec Ops with people who have super powers; that’s the ticket.” I mean, it’s such a specific, left field choice to make even for someone inclined to intelligence work. There’s got to be a back story there that explains the workaholism and the fact that he conflates Claire in particular with that work. Because there are other unspoken questions: If Noah Bennet is prone to obsessive imprinting generally (job), then why didn’t he conflate a Special’s needs with that job before Claire? He had opportunity and didn’t react. Otherwise Elle’s story would have been different to say nothing of other kids that came through there, and Claire would’ve been raised elsewhere. If he conflates work and family, why didn’t he imprint on Lyle as his bio-son and do the job even more zealously in the hope of keeping Lyle safe? The implication is that this isn’t ultimately just about the work or his family, but it’s somehow about Claire herself. I know that’s not what some want to read. But, it’s what the internal logic implies, and they should address it.
My guess would be HRG has an inherent drive to help people and to make a difference, but he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in people’s ability to take care of themselves. That’s what I’d say the “fragile teacups” flashback in 1.17 conveyed; that he believes in people’s capacity for good but doubts their capacity to achieve any good when they can’t cope with the truth.
With the choice of vocation, HRG strikes me as similar to Nathan, in the sense that he tried to make a difference from inside the system, but his sneaky/crafty approach was more conducive to covert ops than politics.
When it comes to his attachment to people with abilities, though, I’d say HRG started out a lot like Danko, only less homicidal: people with abilities were targets to be tracked and controlled and kept at arm’s length. That seems to have been the case until he met Claude, so my guess would be Claude and Bob turning Elle into a lab rat were the two things that awoke his sympathy for people with abilities.
As usual, great review, Otto.
So, my list as usual.
As a whole, the episode was good, but not great. Similarly, last week didn’t have a lot of action, but it had more “oomph” than this one did. This felt more like filler, and left me feeling deflated.
Positives:
Sandra & Noah’s scenes. They made the episode for me. Besides being heartbreaking and raw, they were so well performed. It’s also a testament to how well we know the characters. When Sandra told Noah she wanted a divorce and didn’t love him anymore, I knew at once it was Sylar. Emotionally, Sandra is stronger than that; she would never end her marriage so quickly, and furthermore, she doesn’t want Noah out of her life forever. But you can see why Noah would believe it’s her: he’s lied so much over the years that he figures she can’t take anymore.
Baby Matt and his two dads. I loved the “kiddie” music they played whenever he showed up and Ando’s silly face is going to be someone’s avatar soon. Just watch. And genuinely cracked up over the trucker. Talk about unexpected.
The best part was Baby Matt meeting Big Matt, with the toy cars going crazy. Adorable and sweet, without being cloying.
Danko. Not really gung ho about his gf (wow, was she bland), but he is growing on me as a character. He’s getting more layers as the show goes on. Zeljko deserves an award for nailing the Sylar-esque smirk in the men’s room. I only thought ZQ could do that, but I was wrong.
Angela nutting up on the phone. Wow, Cristine has some pipes on her!
The man-love between Mohinder & Matt. Yes, I’m a shipper.
Negatives:
Matt. This isn’t an insult to Grunberg, but the scene would have had a lot more impact if Matt had shot Elena. For one thing, we knew he wasn’t going to do it when he got to her house and basically punked out. Dragging her to Danko’s place only solidified that fact. All he did was vent about what happened to Daphne.
Noah flipping out and fleeing the city. I’m torn on this one. Coleman turned in a great performance (as usual) as a guy on the brink of crazy, but I actually laughed when he fled the premises, pushing people out of his way. It felt a little overdone, and I couldn’t take it seriously. I half expected him to rip off his clothes, talking about crazy pills and people under the stairs.
Despite him being my fave, Sylar didn’t do much for me this week. But his yakking up the bullet was gross, yet morbidly amusing. I’m just glad it didn’t get more graphic. However, I respectfully disagree about the shapeshifting. While it does have continuity that he mastered it quickly, (and the show is not known for that) I was hoping he wouldn’t because Sylar needs an ability that genuinely challenges him.
The digging scene in the end did nothing for me. It was like an afterthought. But it was funny watching Angela order them around. I wanted her to yell “Dig, b_tches, dig!” Angela’s a badass.
… and I agree that if the show was willing to give Matt a storyline like this then they could have given one to Peter after he lost Simone or Caitlin. Do you think it’s too late to go back to that now? It might be cool to see an introspective scene where all of Peter’s experiences over the past year catch up with him and force him to deal.
I’d love to see a scene like that. They could possibly work that in if they ever give Peter another love interest. Unfortunately, seeing that it would be more plausible to have him deal with Caitlin than Simone (he was given a tiny bit of time to deal with her death), I doubt it will happen since Tim Kring has pretty much said FORGET ABOUT CAITLIN.
Re: Hiro, Ando and the road trip:
You didn’t find that even a little amusing? Or even a tiny bit cute?
Not really since it was another case of Hiro’s story line being reduced to comic relief and I was already annoyed with the shape shifting part. It’s like one step forward and two steps back with the way they deal with Hiro.
Interesting point about Sylar being so ticked off with HRG shooting him. I couldn’t decide if that was because — as you say — it was such a close call and that HRG could easily have shot the right spot in the back of the head, OR if it was simply that Sylar didn’t enjoy bleeding out and lying in a pool of blood while impersonating someone else.
It has to be the first one, because you know that Sylar knows that HRG knows where the right spot is.
Lastly, Sylar posing as the leader of team 6 and the guy’s name was Donner? So would that make Team 6 the Donner Party?
I’d love to see a scene like that. They could possibly work that in if they ever give Peter another love interest. Unfortunately, seeing that it would be more plausible to have him deal with Caitlin than Simone (he was given a tiny bit of time to deal with her death), I doubt it will happen since Tim Kring has pretty much said FORGET ABOUT CAITLIN.
Well, I’m not going to get into THAT again, but I think it’s time we all realized that Peter’s true love is the forbidden one with his dear niece…
I agree with Danko getting more interesting as a character, and with the few episodes left (and 1961 being Angela-centred), I’m afraid they’re running out of time for his backstory. Unfortunately, as much as I would like him to survive, his chances to make it to the end of the V are quite low. Actually the only villain surviving is … Sylar.
I too have read some people about Matt Jr. eventually being able to depower people. And I don’t know if it’s a good sign but I would love to see what Sylar would be doing if he was powerless … again.
He probably would still be fixing clocks if Chandra didn’t show up but he seemed more or less pre-destinated to be evil somehow. He was still evil when he lost his powers during V2, was more or less okay with it during the eclipse (and I still beleive that the Hunger was his lame excuse for killing people) but well nobody thought it would last so… As for now, power is all that motivates him, so if he loses his ability, he basicly has nothing left to make him special (word of manipulation!).
Even if there is .07% chances he survives more than 10 sec if he become powerless, I’d love to see someone like HRG being a bastard enough to let him live just to watch him in his miserable. Oh well that will never happen but I can laugh just thinking about it
btw I loved Big and Little Matt’s spinoff ^^. And it’s kinda getting hilariously sadening to see how fast men in Heroes seems to forget about ex-wives/girlfriends (that sometime got killed)/kids… (could make a long list)
“I agree with Danko getting more interesting as a character … Unfortunately, as much as I would like him to survive, his chances to make it to the end of the V are quite low.”
I’d say they’re non-existent.
“I am concerned, however, that Chandra all but copyrighted his theories in early Season One, and it’s now becoming apparent that what he billed as *his* findings are in fact the findings of a group of people with abilities whose research he’s evidently plagiarized. Now THAT’S a retcon.”
Another good point.
Wow, I feel late to comment.
Very nice episode this week. Especially loved the Noah and Sandra scenes, heartbreaking as they were. I was fooled by Sylar’s first impersonation, actually I was thinking Sandra should get a Diss of The Century award. Although I must say I was dissappointed that Sylar didn’t look up Sandra’s real signature, almost Dumb As worthy. (Sylar’s wasn’t even CLOSE I might add). Minor rant aside it was a great scene. And later when HRG almost blows out Sandra’s brains? I had a hard time watching and I mean that as a high compliment.
The gas station parallel was really cool becuase it made me think of season 1 when Hiro and Nathan popped up at the same diner. Ah, the good old days. Loved your Big Matt/Little Matt thing too, it gave me a good laugh, especailly the Molly part. But in all seriousness, the Molly thing still kind of ruins Matt’s credibility for me.
Another amazing thing I marvel at is that…Hiro and Ando managed to be…not annoying. I’d even go so far as to call it humorous, which after last volume is something beyond words.
Then we get to shapeshifting again. Although the HRG/Danko thing was good it was slightly irritating that we now have characters pretending to be someone else who’s pretending to be someone else. I think they kind of overused the shapeshifting ploy to garner suspense in this episode. Sylar-as-Sandra was awesome, Sylar-as-random-agent was still okay, but HRG-pretending-to-be-Sylar-being-HRG? A little bit overkill. Along with that Sylar used to be a character I love to hate, but now I just hate him. What he did to Noah? Twisted beyond words. I just want Sylar to get defeated already.
Good review as always
“As a Paire shipper, I’m obliged to point out the inappropriate touching.”
^ Not to hurt your feelings Otto (or other Paire shippers), but I never really got the whole Paire thing. Maybe it was because when I watched season one I already knew they were related, so “romance” didn’t jump out at me during their scenes together. I have a hard time reading Paire fanfic sometimes let alone imagining it as canon…
Sorry, I guess this rant wasn’t really nessacary, but I felt the need to get it off my chest :]
i see in spoilers that hiro recover his powers,but peter not.
Wait, what? So Peter didn’t have any problem forgiving the mom who wanted to nuke a few million people, but he can’t bring himself to forgive the brother who captured a dozen people with the aim to remove their abilities and protect mankind? What a hypocrite!
Hypocrite? Because he has issues with the brother that brutally beat (remember the pipe?) AND disowned him and has been trying to lock him up since? I’d say the “rose-colored” glasses he used to see Nathan through have been effectively removed.
And, come on, Angela opening up to him last week went a long way in repairing their relationship. Plus, she is his Mom.