Heroes: Distractions

Claire: "Some family."

Why didn't Sylar kill Bennet? Yes, I know it was because Bennet is such a cool character and the story would suffer if they killed him off, but come on. Sylar has left mutilated bodies behind him all over the country. Why didn't Sylar kill Bennet?

Leaving aside my disappointment that Peter is Claire's uncle and no longer a future romantic possibility, this whole interrelationship thing is starting to weird me out. There are only 36 people on the list, right? Yes, there could be more Gifted people out there, but we can assume that the grand total is fairly low. What are the odds that Nathan and Meredith found each other and made a baby sixteen years ago? Ditto Niki and DL? Is it some kind of superhero pheromone? I was just thinking back to Linderman forcing Niki to seduce Nathan. Does Linderman have some sort of superhero breeding program going on?

I'm finding Claude to be very amusing, and I loved the way he taught Peter to control his powers. I actually gasped out loud when he threw Peter off the roof. And Peter has now found the key to evoking powers that he has previously absorbed. I like Peter a lot. Let's get him past the whining and let him be cool superpower guy now, huh?

I'd like to know more about Claude. Has he really been invisible for fifteen years? (What a way to live.) Why is he living on Deveaux's roof? What's with the pigeons? He mentioned being in people's bedrooms a lot; is he a voyeur? Bennet seemed to know him, too. Let's have some history, folks. If this were Lost, I'd be ready for a backstory episode about Claude.

We learned that Hiro is the son of a wealthy and powerful man, and was working his way up, starting at the bottom. It explains a lot about Hiro: his lack of worldliness, his confidence, his desire to be special on his own terms. Unfortunately, I could see the plotline with his sister Kimiko being Nakamura's rightful heir coming a mile away. Although I did enjoy Ando's preoccupation with her. Does Hiro's sister have powers? It runs in families, after all. Practically gallops.

Finally, this episode made me feel rather bad for Claire's adopted mom. She's been mindwiped so many times it's amazing that she still remembers her recipe for fajitas.

Bits and pieces:

-- I really like Isaac's paintings. Isaac himself? Not so much. Although the fact that he seems to be Bennet's spy now may make him more interesting. Or not.

-- I'm confused about Claire's powers. She was vulnerable until six months ago. Why didn't she die in the fire when she was a baby?

-- Linderman has managed to get Niki out of jail, but not in time to keep her from tasering the ambitious shrink into a puddle on the floor.

-- Niki's recollection of Jessica and the piano versus herself with the crayons made it sound like Jessica was older. So maybe they weren't twins.

-- George Takei didn't get to do much more than rant in Japanese. Although he did growl at one point; I thought that was fun. And there was a great in-joke: Nakamura's license plate was NCC-1701. (Okay, if you're not a Star Trek geek, I'll help you out: it's the registry number for the USS Enterprise.)

-- No first name on Bennet's Texas driver's license. Add in Mrs. Bennet's almost but not quite giving his name in conversation, and it all qualifies as a first class tease.

-- According to his license, Bennet is 6'1", has blue eyes, and was born on August 6, 1962.

-- The thing about Claire's paper on manatees is probably meant to evoke some evolutionary comparisons to our Gifted people putting regular humans in the shade.

-- Ah, the romance of faraway places on Heroes. This week, we went to the Forever Young trailer park in Kermit, Texas. There really is a Kermit, Texas. You can't make this stuff up. Was the "forever young" thing a hint about immortality?

-- Meredith's trailer was number 36. There are 36 people on the list.

-- What's with Sylar's eyebrows? They practically encircle his eyes.

-- The taxi that Peter landed on had an ad for Hiro's samurai exhibit. Good continuity there.

Quotes:

Ando: "Your father looks angry."
Hiro: "My father always looks angry."

Claude: "You get to know people if you see them when they think they're alone. You see them for what they truly are: selfish, deceitful, and gassy."

Peter: "She's not like the rest of them."
Claude: "Everyone's like the rest. That's why they're the rest."

At one point, Sylar said to Mrs. Bennet: "I guess he just looms a little larger when he's drilling you." (1) Was that really what he said, or did I hear it wrong? (2) Was it a comment about Sylar's pretend relationship with his boss, or a sexual dig of some kind at Mrs. Bennet? Or both?

Isaac: "There's something about this roof... I mean, it's connected with what's happening. It's important somehow." The series started with Peter on a roof, too. Was it that roof? And why didn't Simone's father worry about who was feeding the pigeons, and how they got there?

Three out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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