Home Featured TV Shows All TV Shows Movie Reviews Book Reviews Articles Frequently Asked Questions About Us

Heroes: Our Father

Sylar: "Cake?"

Well.

They did some stuff right, and they made me laugh. They ticked me off big time, though. Writing out Kristen Bell was a huge mistake. Of course, they'd done so much screwing around with her character that she was probably relieved.

Except for the killing Elle part, it was actually fun seeing Sylar on a rampage again. And the episode became totally worthwhile when Sylar (1) made certain he wasn't really a Petrelli, before he (2) killed Arthur, while at the same time (3) preventing Peter from committing patricide. I just despise Arthur Petrelli, and not in a good "hate the villain" kind of way. A villain that works for the audience has to have some depth, some personality, some redeeming or interesting qualities. I've never even enjoyed hating Arthur Petrelli. So he'd better be permanently dead. So there.

Meeting your much younger parents a la Back to the Future is always fun (although I think Supernatural's version this season was much better). Hiro's mother had an unexpected chance to see her son all grown up, and Hiro got to be with her when she died. It was just as touching to see Noah and Claire connecting; it was almost like he knew in his heart who she was. In fact, the whole sixteen years ago thing was going great, until Arthur showed up and ruined everything.

So now, Hiro has no powers -- just like Peter. Arthur threw Hiro off a building, just like Adam threw Kaito, and now Hiro's clinging to a flagpole. Sort of like what happened to Matt. Man, I can see parallels everywhere if I try. What happened to Mama Nakamura's catalyst/healing power/white light? It levitated out of Arthur. Did Peter get it? If Peter is never getting his empath multiple powers back, it would be nice if he had something. What better gift could a nurse have?

Bits and pieces:

-- I don't have a lot to say yet about the super marines, "intelligent design," and the magic red jello. We'll see where it goes in the next episode. Hopefully, into restoring Peter's and Hiro's powers, and not into the other forty-nine marines. It would be nice if Mohinder's scales went away, too.

-- Sylar looking up and saying hopefully, "Cake?" may have been my favorite line in the entire season. The elevator scene was also a hoot.

-- Whatever they did to make Sandra look younger just made her look weird. Come on, it was only sixteen years ago. They could have given her a younger hairstyle and put some Vaseline on the lens and left her as she was. We all have to suspend belief with this stuff, anyway.

-- Claire gave herself her own nickname: Claire Bear. That was sweet.

-- Claire and Hiro both interacted with their younger selves. (Hiro for the second time.) Claire even changed her own diaper. I kept thinking of Timecop, where (SPOILER) Ron Silver's younger self met his older self and they violently canceled each other out.

-- Flint seems to be okay now. I thought he was in a coma.

-- Mohinder's scales have started to look like deliberately applied jewelry.

-- Poor human lie detector Sue Landers died on her birthday.

-- In this week's hair report, we had all this serious stuff with Hiro and his mother, and his hair was standing on end throughout the whole thing. If I could go back in time and be with my mother before she died, I think I'd prefer that I didn't look like Alfalfa.

Three out of four stars,

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

5 comments:

  1. What can I say? This is hands down my favourite episode of the season. In fact, I think this episode goes a long way to restoring the series back to its former glory. They gave us just about everything we wanted; old Sylar back (great!) Not actually a Petrelli (great!) Arthur dead (great!) Hiro no longer an annoying 10 year old (great!), I could go on.

    Yes, they killed Elle. Remember though that this show has trouble killing off anyone for good. Linderman bought it way back in Season 1, and the actors had a busy time of it this season. Nikki? Dead. Actress? Still with us. Kaito? You get the picture. Elle may be gone, but I doubt we've seen the last of her.

    A fantastic episode over all, this has fully restored my faith in the show. I heard that they got in new writers because of falling ratings, and if that's true then kudos to them. This episode felt like fanservice TBH, because it gave me everything I'd been asking for all throughout this somewhat shaky season.

    Next up, I'd expect Peter to take the forumla, get his powers back and rescue Hiro (after Daphne and Matt show him the sketches). I'm also hoping that Sylar becomes the new main villain, because let's face it, he does it far better than Arthur.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i thought Sylar was done inconsistently this season until I realized what they were doing... In a season called Villains, we've seen former villains brought into the grey along with current heroes. While some end of as a hero and some as a villain, Sylar was brought through the entire spectrum, ending to be his own person.

    Sylar is the anti-hero. He doesn't have any evil plan. He just wants to help himself. This is actually the perfect spot for Sylar. He can be evil but also useful for others. He's the wildcard character.

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Near: I think the producers made it pretty clear when Sylar cremated her. Twin sister? Nah, been done. Flashback? Probably.

    I felt sad for Hiro when he screwed up (again!) after all the touching moments with his mother, and his promises to defend the catalyst. In retrospect, Hiro was instrumental to gathering all the important parts of the formula to Arthur, when he was actually intending to keep it as far away as possible.

    I'm glad Hiro lost his powers and is stuck in the past. Maybe in this time he'll toughen up, and learn to stop telling "baddies" his plans to stop them.

    If you are injected with the formula after you've lost your powers, do you get back the same powers?

    Who created the catalyst and where is it now? Is it lost forever? Can Mohinder develop another catalyst from his limited supply of catalyzed formula?

    What makes Pinehearst so sure that the super-marines won't go renegade and follow their own agenda? Did Mohinder develop a safeguard for that or was he counting on Arthur's ability?

    Oh yeah, and how come Mohinder, Nathan, and Tracy became chums so fast?

    ReplyDelete
  4. "I kept thinking of Timecop, where Ron Silver's younger self met his older self and they violently canceled each other out."

    Sadly, I too think of this whenever any story involves time travelers meeting their past/future selves.

    For a crappy, crappy movie it sure has managed to stick around in my consciousness as a result, sadly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. See, I completely disagree. I thought this was another bad episode. Sure, Sylar was extremely amusing and Arthur FINALLY died (he was an annoying villain), but the whole thing on the roof was boring and could've been done in a total of five minutes. All we needed was Hiro getting his memory back (and then getting his powers taken away. sigh). Honestly, Tim Kring says he has the shortened arcs in volumes so that every episode has a purpose, like in cable shows, but...this eppy could've have been a ten minute episode! I was just bored throughout the entire thing...again.

    ReplyDelete

We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.