“Heroes” - Four Months Ago
I’m not sure how they manage it, but it seems that Heroes has now built a successful history of having great episodes after really picking up the pace and then setting that progress aside with a flashback/flashforward episode the next week. Last year the story had moved ahead near the end of the season, and they left us on a big cliffhanger, only to keep us waiting on the resolution for two weeks, by setting the next episode five years in the future. Despite how worried I was that this would interrupt the rapid-fire pacing that they had built up over the previous few shows, I was captivated for the entire hour of the “Five Years Gone” episode, and would totally rank it as the best episode of the show, only slightly above “Company Man”. I think it’s safe to say the same thing happened this past week. More after the jump…
Like last week, the show has finally realized that it can’t put out a good product every week if it focuses on more than four stories at a time. Thankfully we only had Peter and Kensei’s prison break, Nathan’s Two-Face-inspired hospital-stay scarring, Maya’s first time, and the death of DL. Strangely enough, all of them were extremely compelling, something the show has had trouble with this year.
The strongest of the four were the two Petrelli stories, with Peter’s being the real A-storyline for the episode. This was most likely due to the incredible screen presences of Kristen Bell and Cristine Rose as Mrs. Petrelli. I still can’t understand why they would keep Elle, such a dynamic character, and one that brings such energy (no pun intended) to the show, off of it for three weeks.
The beginning, which showed what happened to the Petrellis after they flew away during the exploding man finale from last year, was probably better suited to have been shown then, but I doubt they had the effects budget to handle it a year ago, and it was good that we got to see what happened at some point, even this much later. Nathan’s makeup effects were awesome, and if Two-Face looks that good in “The Dark Knight”, I’ll be a very happy camper. I didn’t understand why his eye color would’ve changed though, but it looked really cool.
Maya and Alejandro’s truncated story was actually really well-done for a change, and the image of her killing off an entire wedding party was just about as epic and horrific of an origin for a power that anyone could think of. Sure, it was only really two scenes, but they got the story across with such brevity that stretching it out would’ve made it boring like their parts in all the other episodes.
Simultaneously upsetting and incredibly unbelievable was the Nikki/ D.L storyline. I thought it was fantastic that D.L. became a firefighter, and it would’ve made for a good few episodes worth of material. However I didn’t believe that he could just become a firefighter without four months of training at least (which wouldn’t have fit the timeline), or without Micah (who apparently didn’t have to go to school now that they were living in a trailer somewhere) knowing what he was doing with his time. The sad part came because I was genuinely starting to buy D.L. as a legitimately interesting character with a potential future (much more interesting than the tired split personality drama of Jessica), when we all knew he was going to die. The worst part? He went down in the stupidest way possible, shot in the back by some guy who had no realistic motivation to be shooting him in the first place. Because he cut in during his dance? Because D.L. punched him in the face? And if that guy was packing that gun in the club, that place must have the worst security ever!
This was by far the strongest episode of the season, and with only a few weeks left until the strike-induced half-season finale (and wrapping up of the big virus storyline that has only been a big deal for like two weeks), I wonder how well they’re going to handle having to conclude the main stories. Will more events be totally forced and not organic to the story of characters? How will Maya, Sylar, and Alejandro fit in to the main plot? Will the conclusion render most of the first few episodes pointless, i.e. Claire’s romantic exploits, Sylar’s strange escape from whereever he was being held by whomever, and his lack of abilities, Micah’s cousin in Louisianna, and his Grandmother or Aunt Sulu, who obviously has more to do with things than she’s letting on. Is someone going to die just for ratings or a shock, like on LOST? Will they explain what Kensei’s plan was or why he (presumably) was killing off the older generation? Three weeks isn’t a lot of time to move about fourteen stories to conclusion. Which of these do you all think will suffer?
November 18th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I believe it was 4 months not 5 yrs.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
five years gone was the episode from last year that took five years place in the future. four months ago was this weeks episode.