Peter discovers that breaking out of Sylar’s mind is more difficult than he thought. Time moves a lot slower in Sylar’s head than in the real world, so it takes several years in an empty city before Peter accepts that Sylar’s a changed man, at which point the two of them work together to knock down the wall trapping them inside Sylar’s head.
INT — HEROES WRITERS’ ROOM — DAY
[ENTER NBC EXECUTIVE. He looks ANGRY.]
NBC EXECUTIVE
All right, people, listen up. I’ve had it with this Sylar bulls**t. You’ve gone back and forth with this all season. This latest script makes it sound like Peter forgives him. Didn’t he kill Peter’s brother? Isn’t he a really bad guy? What’s your plan here?
WRITER 1
Well, we’re exploring Sylar’s fear of spending eternity alone and his conflicting attempt to come to terms with his murderous tenden-
NBC EXECUTIVE
Yes, yes, that’s all very interesting, but how does that lead to Peter forgiving him?
WRITER 2
Boss, we totally get what you’re saying, but this part of the episode is, like, TOTALLY awesome. Peter and Sylar shout at each other, and then Sylar tells Peter he’s sorry for killing Na-
NBC EXECUTIVE
Yes, fine, but what does the shouting lead to?
WRITER 3
Guys, tell him about the part where Peter cuts Sylar open and eats his brains.
[WRITERS 1 and 2 look ASHAMED]
WRITER 3
Oh, come on. You said you were on board with it.
WRITER 1
That was before we came up with the wall concept.
WRITER 2
Plus, you know, I don’t know if a whole lot of blood and guts and gore from Peter cracking open Sylar’s head is really the best way to go…
Look, I’m not against all of this ambiguous fluff you writers like to play around with. I’m just saying it isn’t what pulls in viewers. This whole concept with the empty city will never appeal to the mass market. It needs something to draw people in, something like… Ooh, I’ve got it!
WRITER 3
No. No! No more babies! No kittens! No ponies!
NBC EXECUTIVE
Touching! We need lots of touching!
[WRITERS 1, 2 and 3 look CONFUSED]
Um, guys? Can I say something here?
No! Look, there’s no way I’m going to let you kill Sylar off! I want to get the most out of the chemistry between you. I want to see lots of scenes where Peter and Sylar exchange meaningful looks and… touch.
WRITER 1
Wait, you’re saying you want us to… We already did that earlier this season with Claire and Gr-
NBC EXECUTIVE
No, no, not that. I want to watch these scenes and see more than an empty city with two guys. I want to see two guys looking into each other’s eyes, knowing they have no one but each other. Here’s a thought: maybe you should ditch the whole downtown L.A. concept and set the whole thing in Venice. Show them taking long trips on gondolas, having deep conversations in empty restaurants and watching sunsets together. I don’t think we can afford to shoot the whole thing on location. Perhaps you can green-screen it.
WRITER 1
But boss, our whole idea here was to develop Peter’s underlying hatred towards Sylar — and his willingness to overcome that hatred for the sake of the greater g-
NBC EXECUTIVE
Yes, yes, fine. I’m not saying you have to get rid of that garbage, but if you want to put these characters together, I want to see two lonely guys opening their hearts to each other.
WRITER 3
Can we cut their hearts open and have them drink blood?
NBC EXECUTIVE
What? Of course not! How do you come up with stuff like this?
WRITER 2
Boss, this is, like, the most amazing idea ever, but I mean, how can Peter and Sylar ride in gondolas in Venice when they hate each other?
NBC EXECUTIVE
Oh, for heaven’s sake, I pay YOU to make it make sense. Just find a way to make it happen. And make it make sense. But if it doesn’t, that’s OK. Do it anyway.
We start out with a shot of Matt’s basement, establishing that Matt finished the brick wall around Sylar, propped Peter up against it and went out for groceries. Thanks, Matt.
The zoom through the wall was beautifully shot, and an early indication of one of the show’s most brilliant directors restoring his vision to the story.
The questions the scenario raises range from the critical to the obscene: are all of the books complete texts, or is it just Pillars of the Earth? If there’s no television or radio, has Sylar lined his apartment with books and returned to repairing watches to stave off insanity? Do the watches break themselves once Sylar repairs them, or is there a self-replenishing supply of broken watches? And most importantly, is there self-replenishing beer in that fridge?
Gorgeously shot, and the kind of moment that makes Sylar’s redemption plausible without trying all that hard. There’s no sweeping soundtrack or tearful lament to tell us how lonely Sylar is, but the visuals convey a guy who spent years trying to regain the identity he had before he became a psychokiller, and that he had to make a life for himself in a sprawling city with no one for company until now.
Peter shows up, and –
Zach Quinto deserves praise for a performance that encapsulates everything the character has gone through over the course of several years. It’s part of the episode’s weakness that so much of Sylar’s redemption is left to the imagination, but Quinto’s performance hints at how unhinged the character has become. We get a glimpse of Sylar’s suspicion and his paranoia, and, when Peter shows up, his disbelief at seeing the guy who probably plagued his thoughts that entire time.
The tinned food is intriguing, but the key part is the bloody handprint. On the one hand, it’s just a neat throwback to the time Sylar killed Emo-Trevor. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for how intricate Matt’s whammy must have been to come up with details like this. Assuming Sylar has tried and failed to scrub the blood out, it’s like a permanent reminder of his atrocities. The fact that it’s imprinted on the inside of his apartment door reinforces that no matter how civilized Sylar might feel when he surrounds himself with books and watches, there’s a part of his past he can’t ever escape.
Peter: “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Sylar: “I remember wanting my life to change. Thinking I was gonna spend all of eternity alone.”
As hard a sell as Sylar’s redemption might be, there’s something to be said for the character’s sincerity. His motivation is as selfish as ever because, ultimately, it’s still based inwards: Sylar wants to change for his own sake. He’s afraid of what an eternity alone will be like for him. But at the very least, after years of isolation, we can credit Sylar’s honesty. He’s got no reason to lie to a guy he thinks is an apparition. Even if Peter doubts Sylar’s ability to change, and even if Sylar’s actions over the past four years makes his redemption a near-impossibility in our eyes, it’s hard to deny that there’s a visible difference in Sylar throughout this episode. The character’s motives remain inherently selfish, but the context of the story, coupled with Quinto’s performance, mean his penance rings true.
Peter: “I need you to save her. My friend, Emma. In the dream, you save her before she kills thousands of people.”
Sylar: “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not the savior kind. You should know that better than anybody.”
Peter: “It’s gonna happen. And you’re gonna save her.”
It’s dialogue worth noting. None of it reveals anything we didn’t already know, but it reaffirms Peter’s fixation with saving one person before thinking about everyone else — à la Caitlin at the end of Volume Two — and it suggests that while Sylar knows he’s been trapped in order to pay for his crimes, he doesn’t really believe he can atone for them with good deeds.
We cut to the carnival, where Samuel basks in sympathetic nods and reverential gazes and unanimous support from his community. Claire batters the inside of the door to Samuel’s trailer. We can assume she tried throughout the night to smash the windows and break her way out using the trailer’s contents, but the real reason to buy Claire’s captivity inside this ramshackle trailer is because there’s no obvious escape route for her to –
Oh, wait a moment…
*PING!* That’s one Dumb As Hiro Award for Claire.
Samuel endures Claire’s Look of Indignation long enough to point out that Noah came to the carnival planning to gun down the community. Samuel’s ability to distort the truth remains as effortless as ever, but this scene captures exactly why Samuel has made for such a formidable villain: his perception of fundamental truths, and his capacity to tap into the insecurities of the people around him. As much as he twists facts to suit his agenda, there’s usually a grain of truth in his words.
Samuel escorts Claire to the hall of mirrors and explains that Damien has the ability to reveal memories and induce infuriating bouts of nerdspeak from characters who were already so annoying that they inspired idiocy-based awards. And OK, I might have added that last part, but looking back, the logic behind Damien’s whammy on Hiro still makes absolutely no sense.
The pretext to Noah’s flashbacks feels derivative, at least insofar as we’ve already seen someone extracting memories from Noah’s head against his will, but the difference is in the context. It’s another case of Noah’s past actions coming to light and vilifying him, but in this instance, instead of someone scavenging through Noah’s head for information, Damien’s whammy informs and, more importantly, hurts the family member who sees it.
Also, it’s a chance for everyone to laugh at Young Noah’s hair and nerdy glasses and jacket. And to ridicule the whole “penniless-playwright-struggling-to-realize-his-dreams-while-trying-to-feed-his-family” cliché.
Beyond all of this, however, I have to issue enormous praise to Jack Coleman for undertaking what’s surely the greatest challenge of his career: attempting to pass himself off as a character in his mid-twenties.
Don’t make me do the math and prove it with screencaps, folks. We saw Noah’s driver’s license in “Distractions.” He was born in 1962. And hence, we know a flashback to 1985 involves a Noah who’s 23 years old. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Coleman is more than twice that age.
In all fairness, it’s preferable to putting a younger actor in a role that no one besides Coleman will ever be able to play. It also speaks to Coleman’s success that we can suspend our disbelief as easily as we do. Coleman’s boyish charm bolsters the material and allows him to credibly sell the part of the youthful romantic.
Much of it’s the smiling and laughing, which is such a freak occurrence for the character that I recall pointing out how odd it seemed earlier in the season.
Sherri Saum does a solid job playing opposite Coleman, and although the focus throughout is more on Noah’s reaction to Kate’s death than either Kate herself or Noah’s relationship with her, the actress plays the character with likeable cheer and vivacity. If nothing else, I’ll ship the Koah long before I go anywhere near the Troah or the Lauroah.
Part of the success of this flashback is also the way Noah seems like he doesn’t have a care in the world, even though you know he’s worried about paying the rent and wondering if he’s going to be selling used cars for the rest of his life. Coleman plays Young Noah as carefree, at least to the extent that, for once, he’s not carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and frantically trying to save Claire from the latest apocalypse.
But I think the real reason we’re willing to suspend our disbelief is because these flashbacks hint at the person Noah could have been if it weren’t for the superpowered drama; that there was a time when Noah didn’t actively choose to spend his life hunting supers. Ultimately, the twist works because it suggests that Noah’s life was on a different trajectory. As with Sylar in his dreamscape, there’s a different side to the character in these scenes. There’s a sense of hope and idealism that convey the exact opposite of what Noah represents in the present. There’s something so appealing about the premise that it trumps a guy in his 50s playing a 23-year-old who’s speechless when he learns he’s about to become a father. As ridiculous as parts of this flashback might be, the spin it puts on the character is fascinating to consider, and the way Coleman plays the part is such that I found it almost easy to suspend my disbelief.
The cut back to the hall of mirrors in the present shows Noah looking like he doesn’t know how to articulate what he’s feeling — only that he realizes the magnitude of the secret that’s come to light. Claire looks shocked, sad and hurt, but never angry, which is a testament to Hayden’s success in capturing precisely the right emotions, and to the distance the character has come, because you just know that this time last year she would have been storming off.
Noah implores Samuel to let Claire go, Samuel zeroes in on Noah’s fear of what’s about to be revealed, and Samuel’s expression…
… is one of a guy who’s getting perverse satisfaction out of watching another man suffer. It could be that he wants to punish the guy who was willing to shoot supers, it could be that he’s intent on winning Claire’s loyalty by making Noah look like a monster, or it could just be that he enjoys destabilizing emotional bonds.
We get a flashback in which Noah and Kate are assaulted by a super posing as a delivery man, and I have to say right now that among all the details I found to complain about in these flashbacks — Noah looking much older than 23, another super-map that leaves Chandra looking dumber than ever, Noah’s relationship to Sandra being undermined — the idea of a TK-powered thief is by far the most ludicrous.
Kate gets TK-flung onto a coffee table and impaled, the mugger flees, and Noah is left to mourn the death of Wife #1.
On a creative level, it’s a scene that’s heartbreaking to watch, even when we’ve barely had a chance to grasp a part of Noah’s history we never knew about, and even when we barely knew the individual Noah’s mourning.
On a visual level, it’s also astounding to see how much Arkush captures in one shot. You enjoy it for what it is — exceptional directing — but it’s the kind of shot that makes you wonder whether NBC realizes what it sacrificed when it dissolved Arkush’s permanent role on the show. Frame by frame, everything about this episode was cinematic, and more importantly, everything about it supported the characters and the narrative. The only downside is this episode makes many directorial efforts this season look workmanlike at best and amateurish at worst.
The amazing part is the deeper you dig, the more brilliance you find.
The set looks a lot like a redressed version of the rooftop Sylathan threw himself off, and even if it’s not an intentional detail within the narrative, there’s something significant about the choice of location. The way it’s blocked out, with Sylar casually perched and Peter balancing on the ledge, it conveys the dynamic between them; Sylar as the guy who’s been forced to accept his fate and become comfortable with his solitude, Peter as the one who’s ready to flip out.
Peter: “You need to stop messing around and focus.”
Sylar: “Oh. Focus. Right. ‘Cause we gotta get outta here so we can go rescue… what’s her name, again?”
It would be funny on its own for the way it showed Sylar antagonizing Peter for kicks. When you see the reaction it gets, though…
One interesting detail is that Sylar reacts to pain, which raises the question of whether Sylar has any of his abilities inside his dreamscape. You’d think Matt would have been smart enough to remove all of them when he trapped Sylar in here, but if Sylar can’t regenerate, is there really anything stopping him from hurling himself over a ledge and ending his misery?
Sylar: “Maybe I deserve all this aloneness. This nothing. Maybe I earned it.”
What’s remarkable about these dreamscape scenes is the way they’re edited. Besides the rapid cuts that reinforce how meaningless time is here, there’s a minimalist quality to them, particularly when it comes to the sets, the costumes and the music, the last of which amounts to an eerie sound effect. The advantage becomes clear when we get a moment like this, when Sylar gets a chance to express his sadness without interference from emotive strings and piano keys. For once, he has nothing to gain from feigned sadness. There’s no one for him to trick into offering sympathy besides Peter, and there’s no reason for him to want Peter’s forgiveness other than to earn forgiveness for its own sake.
Which is why, against all odds and after a season of irredeemable atrocities, Sylar finds himself in a position to earn our sympathy.
It goes without saying that Quinto’s performance is affecting, but that’s only half of what makes this twist effective. The other half is the way the character is written. As unhinged as Sylar is, he’s free of the contrived trappings he was saddled with in the show’s “actual” reality. He’s under no obligation to go in search of a long-lost family member or uncover some obscure buried truth or concoct a convoluted reason for revenge. He’s been robbed of a reason to exist, and bizarrely, that’s exactly how his existence on the show justifies itself. Instead of an adversary whose villainy had long since been exhausted, we get a glimpse of a human being with a monstrous past, who’s spent years in solitude without anything except literature to distract him, and who’s been forced to reflect on what he’s done and to realize the extent of the horror he’s been responsible for. When he says he doesn’t think he deserves to escape this mental hell, we can believe he means it. It doesn’t earn him forgiveness — from either Peter or the audience — but it provides him with a legitimate way to earn our sympathy. The fact that he doesn’t think he deserves to be freed is ultimately what earns him his redemption. His self-awareness makes us believe that he really might deserve it.
All of which might — and probably will — be undone the next time Sylar has another parental issue or identity crisis. But after half a volume spent retreading the same ground the character covered at one point or another over several seasons, it’s surprising and delightful to witness a step forward for him: a step that in no way attempts to sidestep Sylar’s villainy, but instead provides a plausible scenario in which he can acknowledge his villainy and try to atone for it.
On the other hand, if oblique symbolism is a requisite part of Sylar’s attempt to overcome the barriers to redemption…
… this probably isn’t the subtlest way to visualize it. It is a suitably imposing version of Matt’s basement hobby, however, and when it segues into an aerial shot over the empty city…
… you’re again left in awe of the vision Arkush brought to this episode. When the homemade basement wall becomes a monolithic entity that stretches across town, the symbolism takes on its own symbolism. It’s a sign that the show has rediscovered the epic scale of storytelling it achieved in the first and fourth volumes.
Lauren wanders into the carnival looking for medical aid. It’s possible that everyone at the carnival recognizes her and pretends not to recognize her so she can maintain her cover and relay what she knows to Sa-
Ah, forget it. This nixes my Lauren’s-a-carnival-spy theory, doesn’t it? Damn you, show.
Emma wearing her hair down? Again, such a minute detail that you might only notice it on a subconscious level, but it says something about the way the character believes she’s found her true calling.
One curious detail about this scene is it’s shot with conventional camera angles instead of the hallmark tilted angle that’s been used for carnival scenes throughout the volume. It could be that Lauren’s role as an outsider breaks the illusion, or that the carnival is in such a state of flux that at this point the outside world is bleeding into the carnival. Whichever interpretation you choose, it’s evidence of direction and photography supporting the story.
Claire realizes that Kate’s death drove Noah to become The Company’s golden boy, and although it’s intriguing to learn the circumstances leading up to it, I got to the end of the episode wondering how much more could still be said: about Noah’s unwillingness to adopt Claire, about his reluctance to grow attached to her, and above all about Noah’s fear that his adopted daughter would one day telekinetically impale his second wife on the stand to a broken coffee table. As with Sylar’s prolonged period of isolation, it’s sad that we don’t get to see more of it on-screen, but it’s also wonderful that the show is once again crafting a story that’s as thought-provoking as this.
The HRG map… which makes HRG look like a genius and Chandra more superfluous than ever. It was bad enough when we found out that Chandra was cribbing his own research without realizing it, but the implication here is you don’t even need those fancy medical qualifications and human-genome-tracking algorithms and years of advanced expertise. Apparently, if you’re shrewd enough and keep a close enough eye on weird occurrences in newspapers, you can track supers every bit as effectively and without ever having to suffer mass ridicule from your peers.
Not trying to devalue Noah’s ingenuity here. Just saying, poor Papa Suresh.
The neat part about the performance is Coleman channels the cold, calculating aspect of the character he plays in the present. You don’t ever doubt the transformation from romantic idealist to heartless vigilante, but there’s something tragic to the subtext; the idea that Noah was effectively pulled into the world of superpowered crises through suffering.
Neat moment, if only because it shows us the Adventures of Young Evil Trenchcoat Guy.
I’m sorry to go back to this, people, but come on — look at that map. When you think back on the way Noah flew to India to analyze Chandra’s map, you have to wonder why he didn’t point at it and laugh, like, “Geez, what a joke! I was doing this 15 years ago!”
Noah tracks down and shoots some random schlub with an ability to produce seismic bursts. It’s never made clear whether this guy even knew Kate’s killer, let alone whether he was involved in the incident. What’s emphasized with clarity and grace, however, is the effect this encounter has on Noah.
Coleman plays the moment for all it’s worth: we get a sense of Noah’s shock and disbelief, but it’s over what he’s seen as much as over what he’s done, and judging from the previews to the volume finale, it’s a hint at what will follow if the superpowered population makes itself known to the rest of the world. We see Noah shooting a random super in self-defense, but that’s after Noah holds him at gunpoint, tells him he isn’t normal and associates him to Kate’s killer without any evidence. If Samuel does make the carnival’s existence known to the world, there’ll be lots of incidents under the same circumstances: a misunderstanding, a few frayed nerves and a light trigger. And although not everyone will track supers with a vendetta, chances are they’ll approach every super with a similar perspective as Noah — an instinctive distrust and a “you’re-all-the-same” preconception. Which, in the end, is likely to lead to the kind of mass persecution we saw in “Five Years Gone.”
Which takes the volume’s already bleak outlook and adds an even darker shade of pessimism. The tragic part is if this were to happen, this is probably how it would happen.
Welcome back, Eric Roberts!
It’s telling that no one in Make-Up seems too concerned with making him look 23. Perhaps Thompson’s just too cool for that, just as he’s too cool to buy a car from Badass-Salesman Noah. There is something faintly reassuring about that, however, because the impression this scene was creating until Thompson showed up was that watching your wife die and shooting an innocent guy in revenge turns you into a favorably hard-nosed businessman.
What’s also interesting is that The Company recruits Noah based on his ruthlessness. It could be that this anonymous repairman was using his ability to smash windows and threaten old ladies, but there’s something tragic about this situation when you put it in its broader context. When you recall how, in “1961,” Young Angela described a company that would “protect people like us,” it’s sad to see how they resorted to recruiting agents based on a talent for hunting and killing supers. It’s also ironic that Thompson manipulates Noah’s anger and hostility in the same way that Samuel’s now manipulating the collective anger and hostility within the carnival.
Thompson: “Seventeen cases. Three deaths. All attributed to you.”
Dialogue worth noting, because it suggests that Lauren’s criticism in “Let It Bleed” — that Noah was allowing himself to become emotional while interrogating Edgar — was part of an ongoing issue: that Noah constantly had to assert his calculating and level-headed personality in order to rein in his belligerent and trigger-happy streak.
Until he met Wife #2, whose purpose, it turns out, was To Make HRG A Better Agent.
The problem with this is it’s hard to pinpoint the problem. Part of it’s the idea that, as Claire points out, The Company effectively “arranged” Noah and Sandra’s marriage. The show’s reason for why we’re meant to be outraged struck me as only part of the reason, though. The other part is it devalues Sandra. It makes her look like a gullible fool who fell in love with a man and never realized that his motive for hooking up with her was, “Well, the boss told me it would make me better at my job.”
Between the dog obsession and the years that went by before she had any inkling of Noah’s real job, it’s not as if Sandra has ever been portrayed as especially astute. But even when she and Noah adopted Claire, the implication was Sandra knew Noah was hiding something and kept quiet because, despite the secrecy, they were in love.
This twist in the story undermines that. “I chose your mother because I loved her,” insists Noah. It rings false because we’ve just seen how Claire’s mother was chosen for him. The choosing part is the half of the issue that’s acknowledged by Claire, but it’s the never even realizing she was chosen part that grated with me. It suggests that Noah’s relationship with Sandra was built on lies from the start, and it shatters our perception of a married couple who, in spite of the secrets that drove them apart, had fallen in love without needing secrets to bring them together in the first place.
Claire rightfully gives Noah the Look of Indignation, although it’s telling that, the way it’s shot, she’s issuing that look to the glasses rather than to the man.
The reveal that Noah likes to sit in girls’ dorm rooms with the light turned off is something that doesn’t particularly surprise me. At this point, given Noah’s track record of watching couples have sex and skulking around sorority girls’ bedrooms, I’m not sure anything could make him more creepy.
And to think he had the nerve to berate Claude for doing stuff like this while invisible.
Gretchen is as disturbed as we are, albeit for different reasons. It seems this is the reason for the spontaneous moral stance Gretchen took last week. I hope it’s not the only reason, because it helped to define Gretchen as more than a walking plot device.
Gretchen: “I want her to be happy.”
Noah: “She is happy. With you, here, in college, living a normal life.”
Gretchen: “But that’s not enough for her.”
Great dialogue, because it underlines everything that Claire’s arc over the course of the volume has illustrated. The heartbreaking part is the way Madeline Zima delivers the last line with such simplicity; you can hear her accepting that a normal life isn’t enough for Claire, but also that, on some level, Gretchen’s not enough for Claire.
We return to Sylar’s dreamscape, where Sylar has delegated sledgehammer duty to Peter and presumably returned to the mountain of literature stacked around his apartment.
Do Peter and Sylar win Dumb As Hiro Awards for sledgehammering a wall that shows no sign of eroding? You’d think they would have realized it was futile and tried a different approach; finding some rope and making a grappling hook, for example, or climbing out of the window of an adjacent building, or perhaps just getting a ladder. But then, if the attempt to climb over only ended with them finding themselves standing in front of it the moment they tried, perhaps we’re supposed to assume they did try and discovered that sledgehammering an impenetrable wall was as effective a method as any.
Sylar: “I know that look. You have it all the time.”
Peter: “What look?”
Sylar: “Like when Howie Kaplan beat you in the 50 yard dash and you and I ran to school every morning and kept training and kept it up, right?”
Sylar: “Look, Peter, I know that I’ve said it before, but… I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I killed him. I’m sorry that I took him from you, I’m…”
Looking at it objectively, it’s laughable. When you consider the horror that Sylar’s responsible for, the notion of him apologizing and giving it even a shred of meaning would be remote. And that’s even if Quinto were delivering his finest performance of the series…
… which, this week, he probably does.
This actually works.
You could point to a number of factors, from Quinto’s performance to the script to the minimalist set-up, but in the end the success lies in the premise: the idea that somewhere inside Sylar is a piece of Nathan, that being stuck with Peter tapped into his remorse, and that several years was enough to rekindle something resembling Sylar’s humanity.
Peter doesn’t fall for it for a second, and it’s not as if we’re meant to either. But to the show’s credit, this episode succeeds in making the prospect of Sylar’s attempt at redemption plausible.
This worked for me, and that’s saying a lot considering I hated the ending to last season’s finale, that I’ve never found Sylar particularly sympathetic and that I firmly believe his character arc ran out of steam sometime in the previous season. This episode achieves the seemingly impossible. It asks us to buy into the idea that the bulk of Sylar’s suffering takes place off-screen, but the way the character’s remorse is written and portrayed, it’s a request I’m more inclined to grant than I would have been at any other point in the show’s run. The writing — coupled with Quinto’s performance — is enough to make the character’s transformation believable. It’s crafted in such careful, progressive stages that, instead of just seeming like another layer of muddled ambiguity, it feels like a genuine attempt to move Sylar’s storyline forward.
We cut to Lauren chiding Samuel. It’s a scene that becomes unintentionally humorous when Lauren tells Samuel that, despite his lofty goal to “take what’s rightfully [theirs],” he doesn’t have the right to “take” anything. As amusing as this is after Lauren “took” medical supplies from the carnival’s dispensary, there’s also something saddening about the way Lauren finds herself tasked with representing both The Company and the non-superpowered population. In an episode that explores Noah’s initial motives for joining The Company, it’s saddening that we have no idea what’s driving Lauren. We don’t know if she was the kind of agent who always wanted to find a peaceful solution, or the kind who thought every super should be captured, vivisected and locked in a cell, or if she joined The Company just to collect the paychecks and fawn over Noah.
Samuel: “We deserve admiration. Respect.”
If it weren’t for Samuel’s madman delivery, it probably wouldn’t seem like such a deranged request. But the way Knepper delivers the line, it comes with a hint of totalitarianism; of a world where the community that was granted evolutionary advantages has the right to quash the less genetically blessed.
Samuel: “What would you have me do? Continue with this life? Live in a carnival?”
Again, the brilliance is in the delivery as much as the dialogue. When Knepper gets to the end of that snippet, he delivers “carnival” with such distaste that you wonder how long he’s hated his home, and how hard it’s been for him to force a smile and pretend he wasn’t longing for something more.
Lauren: “Why not? You’ve lived here happily for years.”
Samuel: “Wasted years. Unfulfilled years. I could’ve been so much more.”
Out of context, it’s evidence of a guy who just wants to be the best he can be. In context, it’s the dialogue of a lunatic with an insatiable hunger for power, and it’s delivered with such quiet, terrifying menace…
… and such a civilized and rational demeanor.
Samuel deftly moves from menacing Lauren to spurring on Eli to apologizing to Claire. It’s a credit to Knepper that he moves between these facets of the character with such grace that it still seems like the same character, but it’s also remarkable that Claire now deflects the focus off herself and Noah and back onto Samuel, forcing him to explain why he’s so desperate to prove that Noah is a villain.
Samuel: “Maybe he didn’t pull the trigger last night, but does that negate all the times that he has? Your father to this day lies to you, deceives even you — his darling daughter — because he can’t trust any of us.”
Great dialogue, because as always there’s a grain of truth behind Samuel’s warped logic. It’s hard to argue with the misanthropy, but perhaps more importantly, it’s hard not to see how Noah looks from Samuel’s perspective: a guy who joined an organization that took it upon itself to hunt and capture people with abilities, to arbitrarily police the superpowered population and to decide which ones were dangerous, which ones needed to be eliminated and which ones didn’t have the right to exist without fear of persecution.
Ironically, these are the same decisions Samuel’s now making on behalf of the carnival.
Samuel describes what a joy it was for him to witness Lauren’s terror as he laid out his Nefarious Masterplan, and although the plan to move the carnival to Central Park in an awe-inspiring spectacle is villainous, what’s remarkable about the moment is the way Samuel revels in the thought of inspiring terror. It removes the final traces of moral ambiguity and cements Samuel as one of the show’s most spectacular villains.
Samuel’s motive for wanting Claire to be part of the carnival finally comes to light:
Samuel: “Claire, you will inherit this new world. It’s your legacy. And you will remind them what I’ve done long after I’ve gone.”
It’s a defining moment for the character, and one that adds to his lunacy, because you realize he was trying to immortalize himself through Claire. It’s hard to imagine Claire rallying a community around her with quite the same panache, but in principle it’s as effective a way as any for Samuel to ensure that his ideology survives as long as Claire does.
The one thing dragging this scene down? The disappearing blood.
There’s at least one continuity supervisor who did not earn their wage this week.
We return one last time to Sylar’s dreamscape, where Peter brings Sylar a gift. And as despicable as the villain has been for the majority of the show’s run, and as unforgivable as he’s been since killing Nathan, and as disgusting as his advances towards Claire have been…
… I defy anyone not to say “aw” when we see that look of surprise.
Peter: “I appreciate you being patient with me. Keeping me sane.”
Nicely delivered by Milo, if only because, the way he struggles to get the words out…
… it’s as if he’s trying to thank the guy who murdered his brother for being a good friend to him. Which, when you think about it, is pretty much what he is saying, and which is about as screwed up as it’s possible to be.
Should the show be praised for that? It deserves praise for not screwing up its attempt to create the most screwed-up situation it could possibly devise, but does that deserve praise? In a roundabout way, I believe it does.
Sylar thanks Peter and looks like he’s about to start bawling. What would usually be nausea-inducing is somehow discomfortingly… moving. Within the context of the story, you can believe it’s a sincere thank you, and that it’s a human, gut reaction from a guy who never believed anyone would thank him for anything again.
Sylar: “We’ve been here for I don’t know how many years. Together. I’ve changed. I’ve repented. I’m never gonna hurt anyone ever again.”
They’re empty words insofar as they’re based on a repentance that took place off-screen. They’re also meaningless until Sylar finds himself in a situation where there’s a temptation to go back to becoming Mr. Scalp-Slicing Psychokiller. But the way Quinto sells this dialogue when he tells Peter he’s “not that guy anymore”…
… it’s a very, very believable sell. And the way Peter looks back at Sylar when he agrees he’s not…
… it’s hard to doubt that even if we don’t believe Sylar’s a changed man, Peter definitely does. And for once, that doesn’t make him dumb or gullible or naively trusting so much as willing to concede what this episode achieved — turning a mass-murderer, Nathan’s murderer and Claire’s would-be rapist into a guy who’s dangerously close to earning his forgiveness.
Re-reading that last line, I realize how absurd it is. Which is a testament to how astonishing a leap this episode took, and how much credit the show deserves for making it even remotely plausible.
Peter discovers that the wall is willing to let itself be broken through, he and Sylar see the light…
… and apparently the Petlar transcends the Matt-whammied dreamscape and survives into the real world. Let the fanfic begin!
Was this intended to represent a threat to the Petlar? Surely all Peter needs to do is Parkman-whammy the clones into taking the day off, and failing that, all Sylar needs to do is Ellectrocute the lot of them.
Perhaps this will be Sylar’s first challenge in the real world: resisting the temptation to Ellectrocute the Eli clones.
The episode concludes with Claire and Noah buried in a trailer 40 feet below ground. The episode itself, on the other hand, elevates the season to new heights. It’s evidence of the show achieving a last-minute surge in creativity, infusing its characters with new material and propelling their arcs forward with developments that are compelling, surprising and intensely thought-provoking.
It’s a pleasure to see Arkush back on the show, and although one can only imagine what it must have been like to direct an episode after a year away, the episode is by far the most visually stunning all season, showcasing how effectively the images of an episode can tell a story of their own and how much the actors can achieve under the right director.
The extent of Samuel’s villainy finally comes to light, and Knepper portrays it with more flair and charisma than he’s demonstrated throughout the season. Coleman gives a winning performance as the guy who was dragged into a life he never wanted, making the character both more admirable and more pitiable than ever. And Quinto delivers what’s perhaps his finest performance of the show’s run, achieving the impossible by turning the show’s irredeemable villain into a character whose appeal for forgiveness is both believable and affecting.
If this turns out to be the show’s penultimate episode, it seems fitting that it’s one of the strongest.
5 out of 5
First! Had to do it!:) Haven’t read the review yet- lol -but 5/5 in my opinion regardless!
Wow Otto,
You and I have been on the exact same wavelength with these last two episodes! It seems my prediction is indeed coming to light - This episode was the emotional centerpiece of what seems to be a 3 part finale. “The Wall” broke every mold Heroes has ever made for dramatic storytelling. And I’ll go so far as to say the Sylar/Peter moments were more ingenious than the entirety of “Company Man.” If “Brave New World” sets a new standard for Heroes finales like I hope and pray it will, then this volume will easily go down as the best Heroes has ever had to offer. I know some out there will villify me for such comments, but this episode tied almost the whole season up so perfectly, it seems better realized than season 1 where some storylines seem more superfluous the more I watch them. That’s just my opinion, and I’ll delve into this episode a little deeper tomorrow. For now, I’ll just say keep up the fantastic work!
Great review.
I have to admit I’m still incredibly surprised at how well this episode made me buy the idea that Sylar might actually want redemption. I hadn’t thought that could ever be possible, but Quinto really does sell the concept for all he’s worth. He’s still got that hint of unbalance lurking beneath his (apparently sincere) wish to change. As it is, the tiny flash of him saying he’s a hero in the preview for next week’s episode actually didn’t make me roll my eyes, thanks to this episode.
While Coleman did a decent job pretending to be 23, I couldn’t help giggling anyway, mostly because I remember when he WAS 23–on Dynasty. On my part an unavoidable role association that undid some of the impact those sequences otherwise would have had, but that’s mostly my fault for being old enough to know him in that role. XD
And Samuel–oh, Samuel, you manipulative bastard. Kudos to Claire for standing by Noah, though, even with everything she was shown (especially about Sandra). Given the love-hate-merry-go-round she’s had with Noah over the years, it’s nice to see that when it comes right down to it, she’ll stick with her dad no matter what. Her sarcastic comments to Samuel were just perfect, as was his visible annoyance that he wasn’t getting his way. (And once again he threw a temper tantrum, because I can’t view his burying the trailer as anything else. It might be smaller and more subtle than his leveling the town, but when you get right down to it, it’s the same principle.) Also, as someone with severe claustrophobia, even watching the bits with the sunken trailer made me twitch. Though it’s not a terribly tiny space to be stuck in, they did a great job conveying just how trapped Claire and Noah are.
To my mind, the people who get the Dumb As Hiro Award is the entire carnival. They know damn well Samuel sank that town, yet they still trust him. Even with Noah to blame for the shooting spree, you’d think that would just give them someone else to mistrust, rather than restoring their faith in Samuel. (Then again, some of them still look afraid of him anyway, and you have to wonder how many won’t go because they’re scared to leave, or because they’ve been with the carnival so long they wouldn’t know how to function in the outside world.)
I really hope Sylar scalps the Eli’s (or at least the main one, however that actually works). I actually had a dream the other night that he did, which cracks me up because it means I must really, really hate that guy. If Sylar’s too set on redemption to hack his head open, I hope Peter does something to the bastard. Something epically nasty. The guy who plays him does far too good of a job creating a character you absolutely loathe.
I really hope this next episode isn’t the series’ last. I’ve largely really enjoyed this season, and I’d hate to have the show curtailed when it was finally finding its legs again. Either way, I hope this next episode lives up to the last two.
I’m also glad that Claire stood by Noah, and it really was refreshing to see her overcome that merry-go-round she’s been on with their relationship. All I could say was “bravo, girl!” for not turning against her father. And don’t worry, the underground trailer scene freaked me out too! Noah saying that they could be 40 or 50 feet underground…. oh my… I think I hyperventilated at that!
Word to the Dumb As Award for the whole carnival. I think I said this last week - all they do is ooh and ahh at Samuel, and with the exception of Lydia none of them have once questioned his authority. It really is like some crazy cult mentality, but you have to wonder if these people were complete idiots in their pre-carnival lives. Hopefully Edgar won’t fall into Samuel’s trap. Maybe he’ll be the only carnival member to stand up to Sammy and survive.
Given how long the carnival’s been going, I have to wonder how many of the core people actually grew up there. They’ve been recruiting new people left and right, but anybody who’s lived there all their lives might somewhat understandably not know how to properly question it. Obviously something’s really off, but they don’t have a real-world baseline with which to compare it. (That doesn’t excuse the more recent additions, though. They ought to know better.) Dumb As Awards all around on that one.
What I really want to know too is what Tracy is going to do about the whole thing, what she’ll come up with in response to Lauren’s call. Hopefully something as big and awesome as this carnival performance promises it will be.
Agreed, which is why I said that not mentioning Tracy this week left something to be desired. This episode didn’t move as fast as it should’ve or set up the finale as well as it should’ve. A lot is gonna have to happen in one hour to bring this season to a conclusion (but hopefully not the series!).
BTW, I don’t even think my post about this episode is visible yet. It says its “awaiting moderation.” Hmm…
Anathema,
“To my mind, the people who get the Dumb As Hiro Award is the entire carnival. They know damn well Samuel sank that town, yet they still trust him.”
Could it be that it’s about something other than trust? Judging from the previews, one of the reasons they stand by Samuel is sheer gratitude: for giving them a home, for rescuing them from the gutter and for providing them with a sense of family. I guess the counter-argument is that it wasn’t always Samuel who was behind that, but with Joseph gone, the carnival looks to Samuel as their voice and decision-maker.
Perhaps their loyalty to him can be attributed to their lack of options as much as their weak-mindedness. There’s not really an alternative leader they can turn to instead of Samuel, and as you say, it’s possible many of these supers have spent their lives depending on a pseudo-father figure to make decisions for them.
I’d say it’s about more than trust: it’s about gratitude, dependence on a leader to make decisions, and fear of what will happen if that leader forces the community to make decisions for itself. I think this is where the “cult” angle becomes more apparent than ever.
Another wonderful review for a wonderful episode, Otto
I actually called it since last weeks post (which sadly you didn’t reply
but no worries :)). I knew that the season would be elevated with the return of Arkush. And you called it. The scope he brought to his episode is breathtaking, and fitting for the penultimate episode of the season. Visually, it was everything I expected coming from him, being a fan of all his previous work on the show (already listed it in last week’s post; not doing it again here). And the cherry on top? Some of the best performances I’ve seen on the series. Coupled that with a great script that gave me a Noah flashback that actually REVEALED something new (discounting the undermining of Sandra, but everything else overshadowed it), and a tale of years of isolation that made the redemption of Sylar and Peter’s forgiveness plausible and not far fetched, it’s hard for me to not say this was the strongest episode of the season next to 4.08, 4.12 and 4.17, even stronger and more epic than those.
Which brings me to NBC’s decision to axe Arkush’s prominent role in the series. NBC removing him from his position was a HORRIBLE mistake after watching this episode. I never expected to see the brilliancy of many directors from this season, particularly SJ Clarkson and not counting Nate Goodman from 4.08, get diminished with this episode. I imagine how different many things this season could have been with Arkush at the helm, particularly the slaughter house episode which should have been scary instead of god awful. It’s a reminder that the visuals in Heroes have always contributed to its storytelling as much, if not more, than its writing. If there’s a possibility of Heroes getting a Season 5, I hope that Arkush gets more of a chance to direct instead of just one episode, particularly with Melrose Place more than tanking lately, not getting a chance to get renewed. A deal should be made for more guest shots.
And there’s still the season finale coming in. Knowing Adam Kane is directing it, while I don’t expect to surpass the job of wizard Arkush, I have no doubt he’ll manage to pull off the episode visually and in its execution, especially considering that despite some issues with his previous episodes, they always look great and execute some ideas farely well. And since “.07%” is one of my favorite episodes, and was directed by him, there’s no room for doubt.
And for the final saying, there’s still the waiting news for whether next week’s episode will be the last time we see Heroes on air or not. This week the ratings stabilized a bit more than the past 2 weeks, and if we all add all of the season’s ratings, get the average, mix it with Live+SD7, iTunes sells and DVD’s, I think now there’s a chance now, specially now that the finale at least is getting its share of promotion lately. Hopefully the finale ups a bit and gives better averages for giving us a more calm time ’til we wait until the final announcement. Let’s hope for a great finale next week.
That’s it for this week. Thanks again for the review Otto :D.
P.S.: And I don’t know why I ask this, but if there is a bad case scenario and the show does not return, what will you do next, Otto? How do I, or anyone here on this site, will now what your next review gig on a next show would be it its the end? I would hate to lose your reviews completely, considering they’ve become part of my entertainment life for the last 2 years. So tell me if there’s a plan
P.S.S.: Where is KellyH? Did he/she gave up?
Alfredo,
Wholeheartedly agree on Arkush’s vision, but I still think SJ Clarkson is one of the best things to happen to Heroes’ artistic direction. He grounds the story in real life so efortlessly it makes the spectacle of powers seem real and almost new. In my ind, tho Adam Kane is a fantastic director, I really would like to have seen what Clarkson could do for the finale. But, I could be proven wrong. That’s the most exciting and frustrating thing about Heroes this season- how much I’ve been proven wrong.
Absolutely fantastic episode, in my opinion. I was a little disappointed with the focus, which seems to be a common complaint, but I think it’s valid. As much as I buy the idea that Sylar really has turned it around and is on the path to redemption (to which we all say: about freaking TIME! If they were gonna do it, they should have really done it right the FIRST time around so it didn’t get redundant!), I’d have liked to see a little more of the events (or lack thereof?) that actually led to it. But stellar performances on the parts of both actors more than make up for it, so I’ll forgive that.
Though I still fail to see what Noah’s flashbacks achieved. I understand the character better (which is always great, because HRG is one of my personal favorites), and I understand what they were trying to say. However, I DO fail to see how it was relevant to the culmination of the season, except insofar as it advances the Noah-Claire love/hate/love/hate storyline. Though I admit, if it breaks us out of that endless cycle, I am all for it!
Samuel becomes [even more] psychotic, and the masterplan is [finally] revealed. Gotta say, I’m interested. No, more than interested. I’m literally on the edge of my seat, physically and otherwise. The upcoming Central Park Showdown has the potential to have Kirby Plaza-like reverberations, and once again Knepper manages to sell all sides of Samuel’s twisted psychology. And it makes me wonder- if Chandra had never singled him out as being so extremely dangerous, if Joseph and their mother had not raised him the way they did, would it all have turned out differently? Would he use his power for less egotistical, psychotic purposes?
Either way, Ayn Rand would be proud of the guy as he is now.
And now for a big shocker: I am forced to admit… *heavy sigh* …I actually like Lauren. I’ve been resisting it since last episode, trying to deny that there was anything at all likeable about her, but now I’m shoved into a position where I have no choice. The girl does have her high points. “I hope to god we never find out,” may have been the line of the night.
Looking forward to the season (and hopefully NOT series) finale next week, and also your review!
5/5
5/5? Hmm… I don’t think I’d go quite that high…
For an episode that precedes the season (and possibly series) finale, this sure left me with an empty feeling. We saw Tracy last week yet she was never mentioned this week. Charlie has been all but forgotten and we have no set up for how Hiro will come into play. This episode really didn’t move much at all from last week.
A few comments…
1) The Noah flashbacks seemed like a cheap ripoff of “Company Man” to me. It’s nice to know why Noah joined the Company, but why now? To me this seemed like it was thought of at the last minute and it felt out of place in the episode and the volume. And like you said, it really undermined Noah and Sandra’s relationship. Another thing I don’t get is why Samuel would spend so much time trying to convince Claire to join him and that her father’s a bad man, only to say “screw it” and bury her and Noah underground and head off to New York.
2) Emma deserves a Dumb As Award for selling out Lauren! What exactly did Samuel do to earn her trust like that? Give her a cello? I thought Emma was smarter than that, that she wasn’t so naive to give away her loyalty that quickly. She wasn’t the least bit intrigued by what Lauren said? Even if she wasn’t, why would she let Samuel talk to Lauren when Lauren was clearly terrified and in pain? It was so out of character for Emma, in my opinion, and I’m kinda surprised you didn’t bring that up. (Btw, side note, since when do carnivals have such sophisticated medical supplies? Usually it’s just a first aid kit or something…)
3) I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it strange that Matt finished the wall and put Peter up against it. Anyways, the Sylar/Peter thing was alright I guess, although I think the whole thing moved way too slowly for an episode that leads into the finale.
Two lines didn’t make sense to me: 1) Peter: “I appreciate you being patient with me. Keeping me sane.” 2) Sylar: “We’ve been here for I don’t know how many years. Together. I’ve changed. I’ve repented.” The first made no sense because I have no idea what Peter’s talking about when he says Sylar’s been patient with him - patient with him how? About what? What was Sylar doing to keep him sane? Huh?? The second made no sense for the reason you mentioned, because we never got to see Sylar’s repentance on screen. Like with the Noah flashbacks this seemed rushed to me. While Sylar was much more sympathetic to me this week than previous ones, I still can’t help but think about this list: http://heroeswiki.com/Sylar’s_victims Dude’s killed a lot of people.
I really commend ZQ’s performance though. I’ve been saying that if the show wants to redeem Sylar he should be killed off trying to save the world or something, but now that we’re getting closer to the finale I’m like “NO! Don’t die Sylar!!! Aww, just when he turned into a hero!” I know, I’m such a waffler, but despite all my complaints about Sylar he’s been one of my favorite characters from the beginning.
4) Replicating Man is an idiot. He can create multiple versions of himself and make it a 10 vs. 1 game against a non-special (Lauren) yet he let her get away?? And I love how he just casually mentions that, the way you would notice that your shoelace came undone. Makes me think he’s quite incompetent.
And Samuel deserves a Dumb As Award for sending this idiot after Peter and Sylar, two of the most powerful specials in the world. Sylar especially knows how to fend off multiple attackers single-handedly (remember the Season 3 agents?). I can picture it now - Replicating Man standing on top of the stairs, he says “you’re not going anywhere,” Peter and Sylar look at each other, smile, Sylar points at Replicating Man and sends his head rolling down the stairs, Sylar and Peter step over his lifeless body and go upstairs for a snack. Seriously, WTF. Doesn’t Samuel have a fire breather or that guy that can make things disappear that he can send??
Anyways, it’s gonna be interesting to see how everything that needs to happen happens in only an hour-long episode (makes me wish we had a two-hour finale). It seems like SO much needs to be answered and set up, which is why I was so disappointed with this episode. 3/5 for me.
Hmm, that link was a little off… it was copied and pasted right, but didn’t hyperlink the whole thing. Anyways, you just have to put the ’s_victims part in to get the full thing. It’s quite the list!
Wow I feel like I sound like a jerk in this comment for some reason, but I’m really not trying to be one. It also seems like I have mostly negative things to say, but really I love Heroes
Who wants to read about the good stuff anyways? 
Haushinka, don’t worry about being negative! I was worried I was being too positive, so we can balance each other out.
I’m going to defend Emma’s decision to give Lauren away. I don’t think she was consciously thinking, “I’m going to tell Samuel there’s an intruder and he can deal with her.” One of Emma’s defining traits is that she’s honest — sometimes brutally honest. I think it’s one of her most endearing (and most attractive) attributes. She wanted to know if there was any truth to what Lauren had said, and she figured the best way to find out was to confront Samuel and directly ask him if he did indeed orchestrate the shoot-out. I didn’t see that as out of character — if anything, it’s an example of Emma tackling an issue head-on and steering clear of the kind of dishonesty that HRG or Claire would have opted for.
I see where you’re coming from, and I do agree with you when you say that Emma is more likely to tackle an issue head-on rather than be devious like HRG or Claire. However I don’t think we should necessarily equate honesty with near-sightedness. I feel like Emma should have sensed some truth in Lauren’s fear, especially when Lauren scrambled to hide when she heard Samuel coming. Like I said before, Emma really has no foundation to trust Samuel so much and I feel like she’s not putting enough thought into her recent actions. I’m sure next week when she finds herself under Doyle’s control maniacally playing the cello she’ll be thinking to herself, “dang, how did I not sense something shady about this guy Samuel?”. Who knows, maybe she did sense something, but sending him after Lauren was a questionable decision.
“I feel like Emma should have sensed some truth in Lauren’s fear, especially when Lauren scrambled to hide when she heard Samuel coming.”
I wonder if this ties in with the depiction of the carnival as a cult; if living in the carnival fundamentally changes you and dulls your ability to challenge things you disagree with. I agree that, based on the way she’s been written until now, Emma most definitely would be sharp enough to consider that Lauren might be right. But in a way, I think that speaks to Samuel’s villainy: it’s evidence that even if someone as smart as Emma becomes suspicious, Samuel is brilliant enough to quell that suspicion.
“Like I said before, Emma really has no foundation to trust Samuel so much…”
See, I’m not convinced it’s about trust. I think it’s about what Emma has seen, and it’s about what she feels. She’s watched Samuel track down a homeless guy in Central Park with (from her perspective) no motive besides getting him the medical treatment he needs and giving him a home. She’s also now witnessed first-hand the scale of Samuel’s effort — the number of people he’s helped, the community he’s built, the sense of family he’s created. So, it’s all of that, plus Samuel’s innate charm and persuasive skills, stacked up against one stranger’s word — and a stranger who, from Emma’s perspective, is associated with the guy who opened fire on the carnival.
To my mind, Emma definitely gets a pass.
Otto, I was surprised by no Dumb As Hiro award for Emma too. In her initial appearance at the Carnival, when she was taking care of Samuel’s shoulder, she seemed to be seeing him differently … it wasn’t total trust and enthusiasm with what he was signing to her.
How about Peter warning her that Samuel’s not a good guy? Shouldn’t that factor into what Emma knows too? Of course, I haven’t been completely sold on the fact that it was Peter smashing the cello that drove Emma to the Carnival. There must have been a missing/cut scene.
Susan,
“In her initial appearance at the Carnival, when she was taking care of Samuel’s shoulder, she seemed to be seeing him differently…”
OK, valid point. I wonder if that earns the editor a Dumb As Award before Emma, though. Samuel says to Claire, “Maybe [HRG] didn’t pull the trigger last night…” — meaning, presumably, that it’s still the same day as the one when Emma joined the carnival. I’m still inclined to defend Emma for wanting to believe that she’s found a place where she can make use of her medical expertise and feel like she’s part of a community, but if it is less than a day since she was disturbed by Samuel’s raving, I agree that giving him the benefit of the doubt is jarring.
With Emma’s decision to join the carnival, I’m thinking it’s two things: firstly the rejection letter from the medical school, because Emma probably started to wonder if she’d be working in the filing room for the rest of her life; secondly Peter, because although she probably felt she had to kick him out of her apartment, it must have been upsetting for her. Based on the first scene we saw her in 4.03 — the organized apartment, the cat, the regimented routine — I think the implication is that Emma led a very solitary life. And based on that, having to tell her one friend to get out of her apartment and saying “goodbye” to him the way she did, it must have made her want to get as far away from her life as she could.
Noah’s back story isn’t what I envisioned. I was thinking young spec ops prodigy trades cloak and dagger for the private sector after a mutant variable compromises his mission leading to loss of innocent lives — basically Jack Bauer with 80’s hair. But, I’ll accept the cliches on the grounds that they’re at least thematically coherent cliches and the fact that one ep. before the finale I have no choice in the matter.
But, I need to discuss a more serious issue here — Heroes as a brand and how the mismanagement of that brand is now affecting other people. The folks at Heroes and NBC proper have always prided themselves on being socially aware with Milo’s short film on responsibility, the Green Week stuff, and Hayden’s press junket after she tried to help those poor whales.
Now Haiti is in ruins. Real people are really dead, really injured, and really orphaned. Heroes has a Hatian playing a Hatian on the show, who in all likelihood has been written out of S5 if we get one by this real life trauma to his country. Where is Heroes, now, with the franchise power to stand behind Jimmy Jean-Louis in this crisis? Where is the special limited series of GNs focusing on Rene, the Hatian, in Haiti? Why hasn’t NBC put links to HUFH and Hatian Hero on the official website? Why haven’t they put Jimmy’s YouTube footage on the official site in a joint promotion effort?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because mismanagement of Heroes has rendered the franchise irrelevant when it’s needed most and when the ties back to real life are the most logical.
I know they can’t change the screen story line, now, and the earthquake is an event over which they had no control. However, to say nothing about the real life earthquake in other Heroes media when this volume is built around a fictional petulant psycho who generates earthquakes that destroy homes and towns just to build his self-esteem is jarring to me. It speaks to how ill-prepared TPTB are to adapt and how the franchise is ultimately doomed to fail in any wider meaningful way, regardless of how the series’ narrative may or may not be redeemed and that’s just sad.
Well I’m pretty sure they wrapped up filming for this season before the earthquakes happened, so there’s no way they could’ve anticipated Samuel’s storyline being a little awkward now. But I agree with you when you say that they should’ve posted some links to Jimmy Jean’s websites/videos/etc on their website, or even had a small PSA before commercial breaks urging viewers to donate. Mismanagement indeed. So unfortunate…
Yeah, I read somewhere that the actual filming had been done since late December, so the awkwardness of Samuel’s actions kind of can’t be helped. No reason they shouldn’t have posted links or set up some way for people to help, though.
Thwy did post a general link to the Red Cross on the site for a while, but it seems to have disappeared. Granted, the NBCU networks hosted the telethon, which counts for a lot. It just seems strange and disconcerting to me given the themes of the show that the network’s and show’s woes have made it problematic for them to do targeted PR.
Noah’s back story isn’t what I envisioned. I was thinking young spec ops prodigy trades cloak and dagger for the private sector after a mutant variable compromises his mission leading to loss of innocent lives — basically Jack Bauer with 80’s hair. But, I’ll accept the cliches on the grounds that they’re at least thematically coherent cliches and the fact that one ep. before the finale I have no choice in the matter.
I agree, I would have imagined another thing, a bit deeper, and your ‘origins’ story looks better, but I am not going to complain, because at least, this story was OK for me.
And yes, I think they filmed the series before the Earthquake…but they should have posted something…
Raissa,
“Why hasn’t NBC put links to HUFH and Hatian Hero on the official website? Why haven’t they put Jimmy’s YouTube footage on the official site in a joint promotion effort?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because mismanagement of Heroes has rendered the franchise irrelevant when it’s needed most and when the ties back to real life are the most logical.”
I like the idea of a series of themed graphic novels, but I think it’s important to distinguish NBC from Heroes when it comes to responding to the Haiti disaster. I agree that NBC could have been more proactive and pushed harder when it came to promoting ways for its viewers to offer support, but as you and others point out, production on the show was largely shut down when the earthquake happened. Creatively, Samuel’s ability makes for a very unfortunate coincidence, but from trading mail with members of the show’s crew, I can promise you that no one’s more aware of that than the people working on the show.
I think there’s also something to be said for the need to balance an awareness of global events with the need to fulfill the role the network is here to perform — which, ultimately, is to entertain. I’m not saying NBC should have ignored the Haiti disaster, and I agree that the network could have used its shows as a platform to boost awareness and to raise funds to support Haiti. But at the risk of sounding insensitive, I think their defense would be that they’re here to entertain, and Heroes is as much a form of escapism as it is a platform for social awareness.
Not disagreeing with you by any means. Just trying to keep things in perspective.
I think their defense would be that they’re here to entertain, and Heroes is as much a form of escapism as it is a platform for social awareness.
Thanks for the perspective. No one else is really discussing these issues — not on any message boards I’ve seen anyway — and these things need to be expressed.
I had been hoping to see a PSA featuring Jimmy Jean-Louis asking for help and promoting his charity along with the Red Cross or any other organizations offering aid.
I get what you’re saying, Otto, but seeing as there is an actor on the show with direct ties to Haiti, it would have been nice to see something about it.
After not being able to take last week’s review (sorry, Otto … it’s not you, it’s me), it’s good to be able to read and appreciate them again.
Even if it is a bit overloaded with ZQ commentary, I enjoyed it.
The zoom through the wall was beautifully shot, and an early indication of one of the show’s most brilliant directors restoring his vision to the story.
Yes, welcome back Allan Arkush.
No — no, no, NO! What are you DOING, Pete? Don’t put that pipe down!
Ha! I thought the same thing. It really did look like he was going to use it though.
… but the key part is the bloody handprint.
Wow, how do you see these things?
Otto, I really do appreciate the comments on the acting (maybe a bit overdone for ZQ, but that may just be my low tolerance of the character), but in addition to Jack’s acting when he shoots that guy I loved where it took place. I was impressed with that stairwell for the visuals. The surreal feel it gave the scene … the high angle of the camera, the lines on the walls and even the stairs giving it a feel of not knowing which way was up or down … just me, huh? Okay.
Do Peter and Sylar win Dumb As Hiro Awards for sledgehammering a wall that shows no sign of eroding? … … perhaps we’re supposed to assume they did try and discovered that sledgehammering an impenetrable wall was as effective a method as any.
Not to mention the therapeutic aspect of working through anger/aggression by pounding on a brick wall.
This was interesting point I read in another review: Sylar says they’ve spent years here keeping each other sane and Peter has to know “I’m not that guy anymore.” Peter says he knows that as he swings at the wall and for the first time, a brick breaks off. The two are startled to realize the wall was Peter’s all along and start smashing. The interesting part being that the wall was Peter’s.
Otto, thank you for the detailed, insightful review … I may give last week’s another chance … maybe. Until next time, take care.
I don’t know which I loved more, your review or the episode, Otto! Haha!
This really was Heroes at it’s best. I can honestly say that I gave this a 5/5 because everything was on point. It wasn’t perfect, but pretty damn close.
The main plot of the night: Sylar/Peter. Good Lord, I have never seen this many undertones on a show. Seriously. These two had more moments than they knew what to do with! The line “The only thing real is us…” oh, my. So sweet, but sooo suggestive.
But joking aside, the plot worked. Knowing that Sylar was mentally trapped for three years was a sensible move in implying that change in him. The visuals were outstanding. The only thing that I would have liked was to see some of what happened during these many years of solitude. I know that they couldn’t focus the entire episode on this but a lot of complaining was done because people couldn’t believe that Sylar had really changed in the course of three hours. We know it’s been three years for him, but we get no footage of that, or what happens when Peter arrives. A scene or two would have been nice. Like you notice that Sylar’s carrying a backpack around. Why is that? I assumed he carries his many books and watches around in it. But it was an interesting touch that I would have liked to known more about. And the endless watches. What’s up with that? I get the feeling that stuff that did happen was left on the cutting room floor, or will show up in deleted scenes on the DVD. I believe Peter did try to kill Sylar on occasion, especially if he brought up Nathan.
And the quick shifting of time was a problem. Sylar was in his apartment but in the next second, he was on the street. Did he actually leave his apartment or “teleport” himself? I ask this because Sylar thought he was alone in the city. He didn’t realize that it was all a mind game. If that’s the case, then would he get a Dumb As award for not realizing he couldn’t go beyond the city after a certain point? What happened when he did try to leave? Did he magically find himself back in the same place? And if so, wouldn’t that imply that something else was going on? I would have liked more clarity on that part.
But those quibbles aside, this plot worked so well. Milo and Zach both brought their A-games this week.
And the final scene was excellent. Meaningful stares and a brick wall blowing up. You realize that Peter and Sylar are now bestest friends, right?
Noah/Claire: This plot did not go the way the writers said it would. Yeah, I know; hardly the first time that’s happened. I try to stay away from spoilers but I remember reading that in November, a younger guy was actually cast to play Noah for the flashback. I guess financial restraints botched the idea. I also thought that Noah would a real hippie from the 60’s. In any case, I really don’t see what purpose this served. For one thing, it’s really late in the season to introduce this kind of plot. While I agree that this further hinders the relationship between Noah and Sandra, at least Kate was ineffectual and sweet enough so she didn’t bother me. Let’s face it: no one is Sandra, but it wasn’t like Kate got in the way of that hook-up; her death spurred it to happen.
As for the TK robber, again, what purpose did this serve? Just a means to an end. Although there is a rumor floating around that this was no ordinary robber, he was Samson Grey, who fathered our favorite psychopath. It’s far fetched because the only thing they have in common is TK, but it’s fun to fanwank, isn’t it?
But I’m glad that Claire didn’t act stupid, as usual. That was a pleasant surprise. Although I was confused by the bloodstain on her neck. For a moment, I thought Edward Cullen had joined the Carnies.
Ummm… so Matt just left Peter on the floor while he finished the wall? Geez, he couldn’t even throw down a mattress or something? Parkman really is cold blooded!
They need to let Arkush do more episodes. Considering how great this one was, I really hope next week is the season finale and not the series. At any rate, well done, Arkush.
5/5.
Hi Otto, and thanks for yet another excellent review.
As it happened I came home really late Monday night but couldn’t resist and plunked down to watch Heroes anyway. Perhaps I was too tired, but I really couldn’t stomach another HRG flashback sequence, so I started skipping. In the end I skipped over pretty much all of HRG’s past, but watched Pelar (oooh, the smoldering!) and most of the carnival bits. I meant to watch the whole thing again, but haven’t gotten around to it, and now I’m thinking I’ll watch it right before watching next week’s finale.
Bottom line was that I could conceivably buy the Sylar/Peter stuff, but wished that Peter had really punched him a lot more, and sooner. Thank you for taking care of that impulse via Nathan’s commentary. Oh, and there was much smoldering so I can’t really complain too much.
I echo Haushinka in that Emma should get a Dumb as Award… Seriously, her bit made me feel enormously sad, because Emma was the smart one, with a good head on her shoulders, and now she’s been reduced to essentially taking orders. Seriously, a doctor-to-be sees a terrified and injured woman, begins patching her up, then just leaves? I’m sorry but something here is seriously amiss. It would have been better if Emma hadn’t been there at all, just to save her from the character assassination. Although, to be fair, perhaps this means that Peter and Emma have more in common than previously thought.
Regarding the last bit, can someone explain how nobody at the carnival noticed an entire car going down? That was weird.
So all in all, I enjoyed the touching and smoldering and (plastic?) sledgehammering although I would have preferred more violence up front or a “frak-it, as much as it pains and sickens me, I need your help”-vibe from our former empath. I didn’t see what HRG’s past had to do with anything so I skipped it, was glad that Claire stood by dad, and horrified by Emma’s sudden loss of her brain.
Now the big question becomes if it’s possible to stomach Sylar as a good guy. His preview-line had my stomach turning slightly upside down…
Ack, I just scrolled up the beginning of your review, and I just have to say, it’s brilliant. If this is it for Heroes, can you make sure you post where your fantastic writing and keen observational skills land next?
Ah yes, “I’m a hero.” I’m really excited to see this play out, mostly because I hope the writers STICK with it (if Sylar isn’t somehow killed) and because it’s such a departure from not too long ago when Sylar exclaimed, “I hate heroes” (”The Eclipse, Part I”). It’ll take some getting used to, but Sylar is gonna be a hero!! Who would’ve thunk it?! I’m glad the events of “Once Upon a Time in Texas” are coming to mean something - Sylar not wanting to be alone, using his abilities for good. EEK!
Great review, Otto, as always
An easy 5 out of 5 (2 in a row just seems like a miracle). But to continue the discussion we beggan last week, this is sad to see that for most of the people, this episode was a fail. The dialogue was simple, but effective, and it was visually stunning. However, the same people will bash it for *not moving the plot forward* and all the usual blabla. At this point, I’m just enjoying the show while it lasts, because it would be a HUGE bet to renew it (unless their sending it to cable ie).
The name of the show has been so damaged that it’s a fact that it will never get back on its feet rating-wise. What Heroes is strong in is what people don’t care about, which is sad.
As for this week :
- I would love to give a collective Dumb As Hiro award to the carnivale, but it just reinforces the cult angle. Maybe it’s downright dumbness, but it’s what happens to some people joining cults, religious fanatics, etc… but the shows plays it in the extreme way.
- Can’t get enough of Knepper’s performance, even when the dialogue is cheesy.
- Young Anonymious Trenchcoat Guy
More seriously, this one probably the last piece of the HRG puzzle, answering questions we’ve been asking forever. I agree that we’re left asking for more, but at least we have some answer. Now, all we need is that 1977 flashback. The only reproach I could adress would be the *bad* timing (bad as in just before the finale), like the timing was bad for “I was Sylar” (which opposite this one wasn’t stellar, at all).
At least now we have hints, of why he joined the Company, how he barely hesitated to shoot someone who considered him as his friend, how he prayed (or not) for Claire to be normal, etc…
However, putting the backstory in the pre-finale episode makes me thinkg of one thing : HRG *could* die. Now I know that’s not likely to happen, but if it happened, it would make sense - The character was explored almost as much as he could be, his death combined with the specials’ reveal, would be the occasion for Claire to grow up, which has to happen sometime since she’s immortal.
- Peter/Sylar :
The episode was for me, the same journey than Peter’s.
Sylar didn’t redeem himself, and saving those people won’t redeem his character. To get him out, Peter didn’t forgive him, but he had to put aside what Sylar has done, so he can save those people. It wasn’t that much about forgiveness but about accepting that Sylar WANTS to change and not that he can/will. And maybe having some of Nathan’s memory DO play a role in all this.
Apparently, Heroes will be back on down here, next Wednesday… probably the Thanksgiving episode.
“If you had telekinesis and wanted cash, what would you do?” Micah got this covered way back in season one! Just TK the money out of the machine. Okay, so the Kid Genius could electronically alter the machine’s records… still, this is a low-risk/high-reward approach, and a lot easier to get away with when people are used to seeing money come out of a machine when you stand in front of it for a minute or two.
Looking forward to this episode, and the next review… although, I have to ask: Where in Time and Space is Hiro?!?!?
Very good review and good rating! I was a bit dissapointed with the lack of action, but at the end, when you see the episode as a unit, it’s a very strong one. Especially because of Arkush’s direction. Anyway, fortunately, this season has had creative directors and that’s something I’ve always liked from heroes.
Well, a bit random comments:
- Peter and Gabriel…yes, because I cannot call him Sylar now. So, is this the way that Gabriel really gets redemption? Well, I think it was ok and it was well, but I can’t actually believe it. As Angela said, more or less, one single act can’t redeem…Ok, he can finish like a hero this season, but we haven’t forgotten about Nathan, Elle or Eden, for example. At least, it was good to see a headstrong Peter, something I used to miss, instead of Dumb Peter :).
- Noah and Claire. Claire seems to have left the ‘IhateyouIloveyou’ cycle and she showed herself as mature and grown up. I felt the same like you when Gretchen said that Claire needed more for her life…and I think, Claire is gonna get it at the end.
Noah’s backstory could have been better but it was OK and I liked it. I expected to see another actor as young!HRG but it seems that they changed their point of view, and as you point, it’s hard to see Mr Coleman with 25 years less, but as he is a good actor, it was possible, and it was great… It was totally heartbreaking to see Kate (and her baby) dying and I was amazed about the string map too…Poor Chandra Suresh, I just think they used the same way to locate ’specials’, but with differents beginnings…It’s fun that you remember that HRG could have thought when he saw the map…
- Sandra. You know I am not one of her supporters, but I really felt pity for her with this new revelation. I always had a recurring joke in S1 about ‘The Company arranged the Bennet marriage’, and now it’s true. I don’t want to minimize her character and I just want to think that HRG maybe got aware of her presence through Thompson, and they chatted and well, they fall in love, so their marriage is not based in lies…it could be, I mean, I think HRG defined Sandra as a ‘gentle soul’ and it’s not hard to fall for that kind of people…as good and lovely as she is. Also, I highly doubt, that even badass and evilturned!HRG coldly chose Sandra as a Company assignement, because I doubt he wanted to start a new marriage or family without love, even as badass as he could be. We’ve always seen that in the end he’s good at heart. Also, it’s good that you notice that these revelations can be seen in another light: that one of HRG having fear of his baby Claire, his inner struggle about what his daughter could be in the future, if she could try to kill Sandra or Lyle, or the fear he could feel of specials or TK specials after this personal tragedy. Yes, the pessimistic side of normal vs specials is clear.
Also, I wondered about Lauren’s beginnings too…you know, how could a not!special join The Company??
- Samuel. The truth is that he looked smarter, just like Emma, but he is the typical baddy from a cartoon, and to threat NYC sounds a bit of Marvel universe for me…. Obviously the Dumb as Hiro award goest to the Carnies and especially Eli…how can a multiple man can leave Lauren, as trained as she can be, escape? it will be an easy fight for Sylar and Peter.
Now, we must wait for next week and see how Noah and Claire can escape (I suppose with aid of Lauren and Tracy) and the Central Park Showdown. I really hope this season (series?) finale is really worth watching and not dissapointing.
I think that even if sylar had thrown himself off the roof, he would not have died - powers or no. because the whammy wouldn’t have let him. This is one of my favorite episodes. 5/5 definitely
Okay… I dont often disagree with your reviews… but dang, man, this redemption of Sylar/turning him into a hero thing…just bad, bad bad! It ranks right up there with the Sylathan thing. If they continue with this kind of crap, I’m giving up on this show. I’ve held on much longer than anyone else I know through all the bad stuff they’ve done hoping the show itself would be redeemed, but this latest thing of lets turn the villian that should have been killed years ago and let us move on into the great hero? Hell no.
Otto,
One of your best reviews ever for one of the best episodes the show has ever offered. In the same way that “Landslide” perfectly tied up the emotional core of the story to leave room for what should have been a much better “How To Stop An Exploding Man”, “The Wall” neatly wraps up the core character arcs of the Volume (Peter, Sylar, Claire), firmly established how terifying the villain is, and opened the doors for a gripping spectacle of television next week. Which is exactly what a season finale should be! I have boundless optimism that the show will deliver a fantastic ending to the story, but can only hope that the show realizes how lax it has ALWAYS been in delivering an epic, power-based finale. If that part falls flat, then my hopes for a fifth season will be greatly diminished, as that is one of the biggest reasons Heroes loses viewers each season. TPTB leave nothing for the audience to marvel over and wonder how the next season will top what they’ve seen. The fate of one of the potentially greatest shows on television is up in the air but this season has more than proved they still can make magic.
One insane theory to throw your way: Samuel’s bringing the Carnival to New York - and he’s doing this out of the blue! Could it possibly be that my much dreamed ending to the season is coming true -as per my post way back in “Brother’s Keeper”? It does seem feasible that the writers could throw that twist in our directon. What better way to end a volume titled “Redemption” than to set up a twisted new “Five Years Gone” for next season? What with Matt drifting more and more to the Darkside, and the dark undertones of the season thus far, I remain cautiously optimistic that a newly reformed Sylar (Which, very nice twist that I didn’t see coming or expect myself to ever believe in) will tragically cause an accident that causes untold devestation and reveals the superpowered comunity to the world, causing a rift between “Normals” and Specials” (yes, I loathe those terms too). For my money, there’s no better way to leave me salivating for season 5 - which could involve all the Heroes that are still alive trying to find a way to bring peace to the delicate situation they find themselves in.
But no matter how “Brave New World” (see! even seems like they’re hinting at my theory in the title!) decides to end this volume, I have very little doubt that it will be the best Heroes finale we, the fans, have ever seen.
Renaldsrap, thank you, and great post.
This got me thinking:
“I have boundless optimism that the show will deliver a fantastic ending to the story, but can only hope that the show realizes how lax it has ALWAYS been in delivering an epic, power-based finale.”
I agree that this is what most of us are hoping for, but in a way I wonder whether the exact opposite would be more in keeping with everything this volume represents. Haushinka put forward a very valid point upthread about whether this episode was an effective set-up for the finale, but I’m tempted to disagree because I think it all depends on the context. I think a lot of us are comparing this episode to the show’s previous volume penultimate episodes, and in a way I think it’s a faulty comparison to draw. This volume is a different animal to previous volumes, and as such I think its penultimate and final episodes will reflect that. Volume Five defined itself by close-focused, character-based storytelling, and I think the best finale the show could come up with is one that follows through on the same approach. I want to see that epic, power-based finale as much as everyone, but I also think it would go against the tone and style of the rest of the volume, and I’d almost prefer to see the finale do exactly what the rest of the volume did — tell an epic story with its characters rather than with pyrotechnics.
Petlar??? (starts rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably.) Do you remember back in season one when Sylar was ambiguous in the sense that we couldn’t really be sure what his sexuality was. I always figured that he couldn’t be perfectly straight for some reason. Don’t ask me why, but he always possessed some feminine qualities that made him questionable. I’m not saying that feminine guys can’t be straight, I’m just saying I’ve always found it really hard to buy Sylar as being into nothing but women. No offense to Quinto, but he makes a fabulous gay man. (Perhaps this idea was due to a little show known as So NoTORIous that I saw maybe once of twice.)
Now on to the serious conversation. As my boyfriend put it, watching the Peter/Sylar portions of ‘The Wall’ (thank you Pink Floyd!) was like watching a Poe story. I agree that the way it was shot didn’t feel like anything I had seen on television in such a long time. It was visually stunning the way things were set up. I loved every moment of it. My favorite was the dialogue. It was simple but telling. Sylar obviously had grown to accept the fact that he was an irredeemable monster who most likely had lost all chance of redemption, which is probably the reason why I buy it. He still wanted it, but who wouldn’t? I don’t think he planned on Peter coming along to drag him out of there so he could save Peter’s friend. The whole situation had selfishness on both of their parts, but in the end they had both grown to accept what the other wanted. Sylar wanted a twentieth chance, and Peter wanted Sylar to save Emma. For either of them to get what they wanted they had to give into the other individual’s wants. Also, one can stop hating someone and not forgive them. I did, but she also didn’t apologize or acknowledge that what she had done was wrong so Peter is lucky in that account.
As for the smoldering gazes, I kept expecting Peter to just dive on top of Sylar and proceed to pound his face into the pavement until his eyebrows became part of the concrete. I did enjoy the slug that Peter gave him on Sylar not remembering Emma. It portrayed how much he cared for Emma and how much he hated Sylar.
Now, being lit geek I must comment on the usage of ‘Pillars of the Earth’. I haven’t read it, and knew that it was a super dense read (remembering it would be insane), so I looked it up. Its a fictionalized account about the invention of the flying buttress, you know, those things to keep cathedrals from crumbling apart. It grounds them, allows them to soar. Flying buttresses are a support structure. This is quite a brilliant choice in literature, (go writers!) and it helps to put the relationship between Peter and Sylar into perspective. They need each other to maintain a sense of sanity. Peter would have lost it if Sylar hadn’t kept talking too him, and vice versa. As much as Peter didn’t want Sylar around, he acknowledges what being alone would do to someone. Considering that 3 hours was 3 years to Sylar, then half a day would mean about 12 years. They were stuck together for 12 years. If they had been stuck in there for a year real time, then it would be around 8,000 years. I don’t know how you couldn’t go mad.
I really hope that when we get a new season (we will damn it!!!!) we see more scenes with them together. They may not be great friends, but they respect each other.
More later, I always choose to respond when I’m in a hurry for some reason.
Great review Otto. Totally a 5 out of 5.
Just to add some points :
I think Sylar is the only villain who was never showed as more or less good intentioned when it all began. Even when he was still a watchmaker, he was already kinda creepy. Adam ? He’s the fruit of Hiro’s betrayal and 4 centuries of observing the human corruption. Arthur ? We don’t know, but I guess there was a point where he wasn’t crazy/megalomaniac (even though we have no idea what was his plan). Danko ? We don’t know EITHER why he ended up obsessed with special so fast (Angola backstory?), and we’ll never know. I don’t know for Samuel, but it was interesting to see, for once, not someone with a diabolic plan from the beginning, but an evolution towards evilness and what will happen next week.
Maybe Sylar will go the opposite trajectory, after all, I doubt, no matter how many people he saves, that he’ll ever redeem himself. He wants to repents, and I’ve come to accept it, but wether he can and will do it is a whole other thing.
And I doubt anyone at least a tiny sane could ever forget/forgive himself. That ship sailed a long time ago. If the show ends with him getting lost doing countless good deeds, I will be fine with it. It would be sad but somehow poetic, and fair to those he killed.
Damn, you people ruined my hopes for a surprise return of Beeman for the finale :(. Okay I guess if Claude pops out of nowhere I’ll still be fine. ^.^
As for potential next season, I find it ironic that they’re heading towards what’s been avoided for 2 seasons. I’m gonna be seriously be pissed off if the super-population isn’t outed to the world. And it’s not like Peter/Sylar could havoid showing their powers if they want to stop Samuel in the middle of New York.
I’d want a parallel universe/alternate timeline invovled seasons, but I guess I’ll just put up with what we’ll get.
Renaldsrap, thank you. Word on the show’s final three episodes taking a three-part format, and on the volume having a very cohesive structure. Looking back, it does seem like everything was here for a reason, even if it wasn’t always clear at the time and even if the pace seemed slower than it should have every now and then.
“The Wall” — more ingenious than the entirety of “Company Man”? I don’t know, I’d definitely say this was one of the show’s most phenomenal moments, but perhaps for different reasons than the ones that made “Company Man” phenomenal.
Anathema, thank you.
“I have to admit I’m still incredibly surprised at how well this episode made me buy the idea that Sylar might actually want redemption.”
You and me both!
Re: Claire: “Given the love-hate-merry-go-round she’s had with Noah over the years, it’s nice to see that when it comes right down to it, she’ll stick with her dad no matter what.”
I agree. In a volume with such dark undertones, this struck me as one of its most positive messages; the idea that, no matter what, Claire’s love for her father was unconditional.
With burying the trailer, I think the look of focused effort Samuel showed suggested that it’s far from a tantrum. I think he’s counting on Claire to survive the experience, and he’s counting on HRG’s death in the trailer to affect Claire in a way that will drive her to join the carnival. Which is perhaps an insane plan because you’d think that getting her dad killed would make Claire hate Samuel and everything he represents more intensely than ever. But if we’ve learned anything about Samuel this season, I think it’s that we shouldn’t underestimate his deviousness.
“I really hope this next episode isn’t the series’ last. I’ve largely really enjoyed this season, and I’d hate to have the show curtailed when it was finally finding its legs again.”
^ ^ This. This.
Alfredo, thank you, and my apologies for not acknowledging your call last week on how great Arkush would make this episode.
“… it’s hard for me to not say this was the strongest episode of the season next to 4.08, 4.12 and 4.17, even stronger and more epic than those.”
I agree, but I think what made this episode brilliant was the way it balanced epic with intimate. Dramatically, creatively and visually, it definitely is epic. But what I loved about this episode as much as its scale was its heart; the smaller, more thoughtful moments. Sylar trying to tell Peter he’s sorry for murdering his brother; HRG reacting to the news that he’s going to be a dad; Peter acknowledging that Sylar’s experiences really have changed him. To me, those are the moments that defined the episode, and they were the ones that were arguably the least epic.
Re: Arkush returning to direct more often next season: yes, and let’s hope he gets the opportunity to.
Re: the possibility that next week will be the final review: DON’T GO THERE!
I wanted to say thank you to everyone who expressed a willingness to follow me to another show and another site if the opportunity arises. I can’t think of a more wonderful compliment, and if people are loyal enough to do that then I’m both flattered and humbled. I have to say that at this point I’m not thinking about any projects beyond Heroes. I very much hope I’ll have a chance to review another season, and I feel incredibly fortunate that, four years in, people are still willing to read what I publish within minutes of it going live. But if Heroes doesn’t get another season, it opens up other possibilities — the first of which is a long vacation.
I honestly don’t know if I’d want to jump into another review gig as early as next fall, and if I did, I don’t know if it would look anything like this one. In terms of style, length and format, I feel like I’ve pushed this approach to episodic reviewing as far as I can, and if I was going to commit to another four or five seasons of a new show, I’d want to review it differently. Not necessarily shorter or in a different style, but certainly in a way that would make it distinct from this gig and prevent it from looking like “HeroSite Reviews Ver2.0.” Hopefully taking a different approach wouldn’t put anyone off reading if they happened to be into the show, but to answer your question, Alfredo, it really will depend on whether Heroes gets another season, whether there are shows airing next fall that grab my attention the way this one did four years ago, and whether there’s an online fanbase that’s willing to put up with me for another four seasons with the kind of warmth and generosity that you’ve shown.
I wouldn’t want to speak for KellyH, but I believe he’s still watching and still reading and simply stepped back from his investment in the show after one too many installments of The Sylar Show.
Laura,
“I’d have liked to see a little more of the events (or lack thereof?) that actually led to it.”
I agree, but I wonder how the show could have gone about conveying it. If Sylar had spent several episodes wandering around an empty city and feeling sorry for himself, would we have complained that it was dragging on for too long? I imagine that’s the dilemma TPTBs faced when deciding how to balance Sylar’s off-screen atonement with on-screen drama.
HRG’s flashbacks and what they achieved: I see it as threefold. They vindicate Claire, because they demonstrate that no matter how appalling HRG’s actions might have been, Claire’s love for her father transcends everything. They also make HRG a more tragic character than ever, because they show how hopeful he was and how brutally his dreams were shattered by one incident. And they vilify Samuel, because they show him pulling the darkest secrets out of HRG’s head, hoping they’ll sever his bond to Claire and leave him a broken man.
On liking Lauren: that I can understand. It’s liking the Lauroah that would scare me.
Haushinka, awesome post. Couple of thoughts:
“Peter: ‘I appreciate you being patient with me. Keeping me sane.’”
I took it to mean that, off-screen, Peter had often been moody or withdrawn, and that Sylar had basically given Peter as much space as he wanted instead of pestering him with, “OMG, YOU MUST FORGIVE ME!”
“Sylar: ‘We’ve been here for I don’t know how many years. Together. I’ve changed. I’ve repented.’”
I agree with your point that too much of that repentance took place off-screen, but I think the significance is in what Peter believes. We might not trust that Sylar has changed, but Peter does, so perhaps the question is whether we trust Peter when he acknowledges that Sylar has changed. I think we’re meant to buy the scenario based on the context (the length of time Sylar spent alone, Peter’s influence, the idea that a part of Nathan is knocking around in Sylar’s head), and on the strength of the performance, because ZQ plays Sylar as a fundamentally different character.
Samuel winning a Dumb As Hiro Award for sending Eli to kill Peter? I agree that he’s earned it, but perhaps not for this particular reason. I’d like to know why Samuel’s given up on whatever he was planning for Peter when he branded that Magik Compass Tattoo onto him. I really hope that’ll be addressed next week, because it strikes me as one of the few gaping plotholes that’s been left unresolved all season. If Samuel wanted Peter to be the next Joseph, what happened to that plan? Is Samuel really assigning Eli to kill the guy he’d previously planned to recruit as the carnival’s new leader?
Susan,
“After not being able to take last week’s review (sorry, Otto … it’s not you, it’s me)…”
[*Reassuring pat on the shoulder*] ‘S OK. I understand.
The stairwell was indeed spectacularly filmed. I liked how the scene was set up — how HRG pretty much had this guy cornered and was still terrified of him.
Was the wall Peter’s? I saw it as a two-way dynamic: Sylar needed Peter to recognize that he’d changed, and Peter needed to realize that even the most monstrous villain is capable of redemption. It’s when Peter granted Sylar that acknowledgement that the wall came down, but I think it depended on Sylar gaining the acceptance he craved as much as on Peter granting it. That’s very much open to interpretation, though, and I understand if you want to see it as a Peter-centric storyline.
B., thank you so much for the kind words, and I agree, the fanfic potential from the Petlar subtext is limitless.
With Sylar’s redemption, I agree, more of an on-screen atonement would have helped, but perhaps what helps to make it believable is Peter’s reaction? Even if we can’t believe it, I think the crucial detail is that Peter believes it, and if the guy Sylar hurt the most can buy into it, surely we can too? I think that’s what saves this episode from the trapping that “1961″ fell into — the one that involves a dense storyline being reduced to its simplest components and losing all of the detail it needed in order to be effective. Even if we haven’t witnessed Sylar’s transformation, Peter has, and he’s surely the most qualified person there is to judge whether Sylar has changed.
“… Sylar thought he was alone in the city. He didn’t realize that it was all a mind game. If that’s the case, then would he get a Dumb As award for not realizing he couldn’t go beyond the city after a certain point?”
I wondered the same thing. Only explanation I could come up with is that Matt’s whammy causes Sylar to ignore the part of his brain that says, “This is impossible!”, “I should try to escape the city to see what’s out there!” and “Wait, how did I get from Point A to Point B in the blink of an eye?” Sylar was probably whammied into ignoring the parts of the dreamscape that made no sense.
Re: the actor cast to play Young HRG: now that would be a fascinating DVD extra. I wonder if it was budgetary constraints or whether someone decided that there just wasn’t an actor out there capable of doing the character justice. I’d be surprised if the second of those was true after the casting department found such great actors to play Young Angela, Young Charles and Young Samuel, but perhaps Young HRG is a nut they just couldn’t crack?
Hrefna, thank you. If it helps, you know I recommend watching every part of this episode — even the part where it turns out that HRG was ordered to hook up with Sandra.
“… Emma was the smart one, with a good head on her shoulders, and now she’s been reduced to essentially taking orders.”
I didn’t see it as taking orders; she doesn’t know that Samuel is a killer, she’s just suspicious. This is also the only shot Emma has at being a doctor in any shape or form after the rejection letter from the medical school, so Emma is probably desperate to hold onto the opportunity.
With the trailer getting buried, I could come up with two possibilities: either no one saw because they were busy packing their bags and vacating, or everyone saw and tacitly approved of Samuel burying the agent who (as far as they knew) opened fire on them from a hilltop.
Pas,
“An easy 5 out of 5 (2 in a row just seems like a miracle). “
You’re telling me!?
Word on the undeserved pummeling the show’s taking, and I agree, it’s sadly the kind of critical mauling the show will struggle to recover from. Perhaps people will one day look back on the show more kindly, especially when there are episodes as beautifully realized as this one to represent it.
HRG’s going to die? NOOOOOOOOO!
I agree, it would make a lot of sense, and the way HRG’s arc has built up to this point, there’d be a certain finality to it.
Myrystyr, glad to hear you’ll have a chance to catch up soon. It’s amazing to think how far the story will come between that episode and this one.
I miss Micah.
Hiro: recovering in a hospital, in the present, after his tumor was treated.
Well, the problem is that the pummeling has been going on for a while. And I doubt, unless the finale gives us a reboot, that the show will ever recover from it. As you stated last week, the flawlessness and brillance the show demonstrates almost every week just emphasizes how some parts of the show were stupid sometimes. Which makes me sad, because when it’s gone, most people won’t remember the same things about Heroes than we do.
Frankly, I’m pretty sure that if “Company Man” and “The Wall”’s positions through the series’ course were inversed, “Company Man” wouldn’t get the praise it had 3 years ago.
I’ve never really be a Sci-Fi fan, and never really considered Heroes a Sci-Fi show, because of how the normality aspect almost always overcame the abilities. However, the atmosphere Arkush and the sound department managed to create for the Empty-NY scenes made me feel like I was being sucked in a fantastic novel. Both amazing and disturbing at the same time and I can hardly remember other shows making me feel that way.
Tackling random things now :
- As anyone else noticed how the carnivale people tends to dissociate themselves from the rest of the human population (super included) ? I’ve pretty much came to my ming that they consider themselves specials opposite to our main characters, that have mostly always considered themselves normal people with abilities. That can’t end well…
- We’ve not been talking about her for a while, but am I the only one worried about Charlie ? I’m doubting more and more that Hiro will be able to rescue her in the end. Even putting aside the fact that we don’t know his new perspective since the operation, I’m wondering if saving Charlie would open the field to many more potential time travel. After all, why should Peter not go back in time save Nathan (amongst others) ? Why shouldn’t Hiro send Sylar back in the past if he really wants to redeem himself and prevent himself from becoming evil to start with ? Since Hiro’s ability is basicly to screw with time, saving the most of lives with it should be a plausible option.
And frankly, with some characters’ potential fading, it’s just that time travel offer so many possibilities that it feels like a waste to get rid of it :(.
It also bugs me, now that I think of it, that Hiro’s directly interfered with the past, as it never ended well. There has to be a reason S1-Future-Hiro went to Past-Peter and didn’t cut Sylar’s head off himself (ie not going back to a new timeline he knows nothing about).
Okay, one more to go. Let’s hope that 3rd 5/5 is on its way
I never really thought about Sylar’s repentance that way - that we should believe it because Peter believes it. Good point. However I still have this unsatisfied feeling, like we’ve been so rushed through Sylar’s redemption that we barely feel it. It’s a lot to move from “I’m going to kill everyone involved” to “I’ve repented” in six episodes. The whole “time moves faster in Sylar’s mind” thing felt too contrived for me as well, because we all know it would take a LONG time for Sylar to truly repent and break those walls with Peter - but obviously the show can’t drag it out that long. I guess I’m in a love-hate relationship with this story arc is playing out.
Again good point for remembering the compass on Peter’s arm. I actually kinda forgot about that, so thanks for being so sharp for people like me! But that’s only worthy of a Dumb as Award if that’s still Samuel’s plan. I feel like Samuel’s plans at the beginning of the season aren’t the same as his plans now (which I’m still not so sure of… lol). He already ditched Claire so maybe he figures he doesn’t need Peter anymore either. Or Eli for that matter - maybe he knows Eli stands no chance? Oh Samuel, so mysterious!
Otto,
Re: “Company Man.” lol. I think I mispoke. I wasn’t implying that “The Wall” was a better episode than the show’s Holy Grail. I’m just saying the creativity is on a whole new level for this one. “Company Man”, tho absolutely brilliant, was an origin story for HRG. I’ve seen plenty of great origin stories from plenty of TV shows. “The Wall” is like a new beginning. It basically set up a clean slate for the series to rebound and regroup. Starting with (hope, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope) the awesomeness that will be “Brave New World.” One thing I liked about this season, upon reflection, is how puzzle like it was. Samuel’s mysterious plan, Hiro’s redemption path (albeit with that irritating “deus ex machina” at the end), Sylar’s redemption path, etc. and yet it kept it’s plans building thru the entire season while delivering fantastic character moments that grounded this intricate puzzle in a sense of reality - almost like a certain show about an island… The approach to this season felt fresh for the most part. And I think the best way to keep it alive next season is to shorten the season to like 15 episodes (please don’t hate me for saying that, cuz it’s true that Heroes works best in shorter volumes) so they can add that spice of action that’s been missing from this season. Give us more intricate, heartfelt, tension-filled spectacles like “Hysterical Blindness”,”Once Upon A Time In Texas”, “Shadowboxing”, “Brother’s Keeper”,”The Fifth Stage”, “The Art Of Deception”, and “The Wall”. And never let Tucker Gates direct an episode again. Because “Strange Attractors” could have very easily made this list if he knew how to be cinematic.
I think that the idea is that Lydia told Samuel that Peter is coming to stop him, and that caused Samuel to abandon his previous plans for Peter. That raises another question, though- did Lydia’s powers enable her to sense that Peter would be at Matt’s house at a certain point in the future, or does the Carnival have someone with powers similar to Molly’s?
I don’t think that Samuel deserves a Dumb As Award for sending Eli to kill Peter. However, Eli definitely deserves a Dumb As Award for announcing his presence instead of trying to sneak up on Peter and Sylar.
I’d like to know why Samuel’s given up on whatever he was planning for Peter when he branded that Magik Compass Tattoo onto him. I really hope that’ll be addressed next week, because it strikes me as one of the few gaping plotholes that’s been left unresolved all season. If Samuel wanted Peter to be the next Joseph, what happened to that plan? Is Samuel really assigning Eli to kill the guy he’d previously planned to recruit as the carnival’s new leader?
It would be nice to find out more about that, but I doubt they will have a chance to follow up on it. Another thing would be Samuel seeing about Nathan’s death. Will he use that with Peter somehow?
Pas,
“I think Sylar is the only villain who was never showed as more or less good intentioned when it all began. Even when he was still a watchmaker, he was already kinda creepy.”
But he repaired Chandra’s watch for free! Isn’t that evidence of his kind heart?
That aside, I agree, and I find it interesting that the character ZQ’s playing now is perhaps a better person than the one Chandra found in 1.10. I imagine that will (/would have been) the goal of Volume Six: to beat us over the head with another 20 installments of The Sylar Show, but perhaps to also explore whether an irredeemable villain can atone for his atrocities if he suffers enough and feels bad enough to want to atone for them. I’d still say that’s a very tough challenge for the show to set itself, but after this episode — after the premise TPTBs came up with and after the way ZQ sold it — I think it’s within the realm of possibility.
Very interesting point about the carnival supers considering themselves as distinct from the supers living among the normal population. It seems that, if you have an ability, you tend to have one of three possible outlooks: (1) that everyone with an ability needs to keep their ability secret and blend in with the rest of society, (2) that supers should be open about what they can do so that the non-supers can accept the supers and move towards some kind of coexistence, or (3) that the supers should subjugate the non-supers because Darwinism proves they’re better. I have to say that THIS is one of the biggest reasons I’m hoping I’ll be able to review a fifth season, because I’d love to dig into the whole socio-political aspect of the story. That, to me, represents the kind of brilliant storytelling the show could generate on the back of this volume finale.
On renaldsrap’s point about whether “Company Man” would garner the same critical acclaim today that it did back in 2007: probably not, and I agree that that’s a very sad thing to have to acknowledge. I think we would love it (meaning this online community), but the wider audience would probably be more apathetic because at this point the flashbacks are old hat, HRG is less enigmatic and the novelty of the show has obviously worn off. All of that said, I’m not sure anyone would fail to be moved by those final scenes between HRG and Claire. Those are timeless.
Otto,
I’m just saying that hopes for a 5th season are going to be very slim if they don’t do something to make those disenfranchised tv critics take notice. But no, I think the best way to end this volume is with an episode that flows as well as “The Art Of Deception” or “The Fifth Stage” did. Perfectly balancing dramatic acting with dramatic action. I’m with you in the belief that the fight scene between Peter and Sylar this season was probably the best they’ve ever done. It was as electrifying in my eyes as Peter taking Sylar down with the syringe in “An Invisible Thread”. Deliver tense moments like that, and the Finale will be amazing. But hey, I liked the season 3 finale - so, like I said, I’m pretty sure I’ll enjoy this one regardless what happens.
Dude, I would be happy no matter which route the show decides to go!
A few thoughts:
Compare/contrast Sylar’s voice-over to episode 3.13 with this episode’s redemption. As I recall, ZQ was directed to deliver the lines as if from a distance, having gained perspective…
Charlie can be rescued by Ando super-charging Edgar (again, see 3.13), bringing her to Hiro’s bedside.
If we don’t get a new season but Heroes does continue in some other format, such as a comic book, I won’t be following it. Why? Because I want to watch a television series about “ordinary people who discover they have extraordinary abilities” - when it first screens, and then again in a video marathon when my father comes round for dinner.
Also, if we do get a fifth season, I am considering not following the online graphic novels anymore. Why? Again, because I want to watch a television series - and don’t get to see additional content, like webisodes, unless/until they are on the DVDs. So I hope all the story that we need to follow the story actually gets put in the televised episodes.
Thanks again for your reviews, and may we see many more of them!
Renaldsrap,
“I’m just saying that hopes for a 5th season are going to be very slim if they don’t do something to make those disenfranchised tv critics take notice.”
See, I know exactly what you mean when you say this because a finale, when it’s done right, can serve as a creative springboard for the following season and leave us clamoring for the next episode. I personally felt that 3.13 was the best example of this: it hinted at what was coming and gave us a tantalizing idea of where the story was going, but at the same time it was shocking enough that it left us wondering what we’d just seen.
But when it comes to making critics take notice, I worry that it’s exactly this knee-jerk response that hurt the show in the past. I mean, killing Nathan in 3.25 was probably the result of someone in the writers’ room saying, “Eh, no one will see it coming — it’ll make people sit up and TAKE NOTICE!” That kind of stunt can backfire, and in that instance it did, which sucks because in the end the Sylathan storyline turned out better than anyone expected.
I think having a shocking development just for the sake of being shocking can lead to the kind of reaction that 3.25 suffered from: a situation where, even after we’d gotten past the outrage, the general “WTF?!” was hanging in the air all summer, and it was a negative “WTF?!” when it should have been a whoa-can’t-wait-to-see-where-THAT-goes! “WTF?!”
Here’s hoping TPTBs strike that balance with this finale. The way it’s been played up as a “simple but momentous” game-changer, I think there’s reason to be upbeat.
Myrystyr, GREAT point about the 3.13 voice-over. It wouldn’t have occurred to me if you hadn’t brought it up, but I agree that it’s very relevant to the storyline now.
Here’s a part of the voice-over that seems to tie into the current story: V.O.-Sylar says, “In each of us is the capacity to decide what drives our actions.” If the aim really is to depict Sylar as repentant, I’ll be curious to see if the show explores what his motivation is; whether it’s really just a case of Sylar wanting to look like a hero and to assuage his guilt, or whether it’s a case of him believing that the people who need him are worth saving and that there are principles worth fighting for. In other words, I wonder whether Sylar’s motives will be portrayed as selfish or altruistic. I’m thinking that at this point they’re very much selfish: “I’ve changed,” “I’ve repented,” “I’m a hero,” etc. But perhaps the plan for Volume Six is to explore how that changes.
You’re raising an interesting point about Sylar, and this is exactly why I find this change beleivable. All of Sylar’s motives, from wanting to be the most special, wanting to be accepted, and now for repenting himself always were selfish. He doesn’t strike me as looking for redemption, but more looking for what redemption will bring him which would be again acceptance, not ending alone, etc. which will lead him to be a hero by accident (if you get what I mean). A bit the opposite of Hiro, who wants to be a hero but ultimately looks like a dumbass :).
Wether we get another season or not, I hope they’re not gonna end the season by a “no one saw THAT coming”/shock just for the hell of it. I’ve always thought that a show that neaded to kill a character (or anything else shocking, it’s just an example) just for the shock value were in bad shape, and as much as it’s bashed, I don’t think Heroes is - quality wise - bad, at all. I hope the finale will be a continuation (and a term) of the season. That way, at least we will be able to say that - aside some things that happened during S3 (rolleyes) - the show stayed true to itself over the years.
And unless something cataclismic happens, I’m pretty sure I’ll be hopeing for more tuesday :).
Arkush. Is. The. Man. The Sylar-Dreamworld-Hell stuff was amazingly cool. I have to agree with Nathan: it was the shouting and punching. I hope Sylar’s redemption is legit, because for once it was believable. Him and Peter are going to be the best superteam ever… and maybe save Noah and Claire from the Underground Trailer of Doom? Or maybe that’ll be Hiro… that would be good too.
Great review, Otto! (as always^^) This was so much a 5 out of 5! I hope the show keeps up this amazingness for the finale!
I wish this episode had been exclusively about Sylar and Peter. And not just because I love the characters, and the dynamic that has been there with them for a long time. It would have been given more time to show what we can only imagine, as far as what Sylar experienced in the 3 years before Peter’s arrival, and the 2 year period after he showed up. What happened that made Peter want to go crazy, and how did Sylar prevent that from happening?
As unbelievable as some may feel about this episode, I could see it, but only with some filler. In real life, who could forgive the killer of a loved one?
No mention of Knepper’s exquisite moment when he sees Claire crying after seeing the truth about her father. As she tells him she now knows Noah is a bad guy, that he, Samuel, was right, Knepper smiles and we see a man who believes he has convinced this girl to turn against her own dad. Until she says “you’re my hero” in such a way that denotes sarcasm. Kudos to both Knepper and Hayden.