Spoilers. A good episode, after a long drought. Maybe my expectations have dropped so low that a half-decent episode suddenly seems like Chekov? But things moved, the plot developed, emotion returned (for a few characters), there weren't any dud subplots, and the sense of fun painted over any nitpicks. Let's see what they all got up to:Hiro, Kaito & Ishi: Child-minded Hiro (Masi Oka) arrives back in time with Claire (Hayden Panettiere), to witness his father Kaito (George Takei) handing baby Claire over to Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman) 16 years ago. Genuinely funny scenes of Hiro and Claire unable to understand one another, before they decide to split up…
Hiro poses as a chef, to get closer to his dying mother Ishi (Tamlyn Tomita), whom he notices has the power of healing. Does not compute. Anyway, this eventually led to a touching scene of his "mommy" being united with her adult son, before she returned Hiro's memories and passed the catalyst into his body. They then shared her last, dying moments together. Oka clearly relished doing this scene and Tomita's Ishi (given a mere five minutes of screen-time), outshone many of season 3's newcomers who've been around for 12 episodes! A great reminder of the simple emotions Heroes used to play with more regularly.
Claire, Sandra & Mr. Bennet: Leaving Hiro behind, Claire masquerades as a kindly neighbour called Bonnie, ingratiating herself to her mother Sandra (Ashley Crow). Mr. Bennet's arrival home almost exposes her, but she manages to persuade him to refuse taking a call from The Company -- who want to turn baby Claire into "the catalyst" (the missing piece of Kaito's power-giving formula.) This story benefited from being given room to breathe, while Panettiere and Coleman's poignant relationship was nicely played.
Ando, Matt & Daphne: The weakest subplot, but easy to stomach because it seemed to be setting up better things. Matt (Greg Grunberg), Daphne (Brea Grant) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) search for the fabled bike messenger Isaac Mendez bequeathed his final 9th Wonder drawings to. They find him and consult Isaac's sketch book, using it to essentially keep tabs on Hiro and Claire's storylines in the past. A bit redundant, and the precognitive drawings idea has become tedious, but it results in Ando deciding to rescue Hiro (probably by gaining powers of time-travel using Kaito's formula), which should be fun.
Peter & The Haitian: Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) is on a mission to kill his father, now that his brother Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) has joined forces with him. With the help of The Haitian (Jimmy Jean Louis), who can nullify Arthur's powers, they set off for Pinehearst with murder in mind. But can Peter commit patricide? Nice to see The Haitian becoming more of a rounded character recently, instead of the golem-like help/hindrance he's usually treated as.
Sylar: The comic-relief, strangely! Sadly, Sylar (Zachary Quinto) really did kill Elle (Kristen Bell) last week and starts this episode by burning her body -- ending hope that she'll be revived with regenerative blood, or suchlike. From there, Sylar basically goes back to his season 1 motivation (using the address book on Elle's phone to track more people with powers.) I have to admit, Sylar had some amusing scenes (nonchalantly entering an elevator covered in blood, to the horror of an office worker; being discovered in the middle of a kill by a surprise birthday party), but I'm not sure this is the best use of his character. Season 1-style villainy, but with laughs?
Arthur, Nathan, Tracy & Mohinder: After a long absence, Tracy (Ali Larter) was back and has now poured herself into a devil-red dress -- yes, this means she's now a bit evil. Well, misguided and blinded by political ambition, at least. Nathan returned to Pinehearst with a surprising take-charge attitude that stunned his father (Robert Forster), but Tracy convinces Arthur the company need a popular, respected, political face for PR purposes.
For Arthur, a trip back in time has him meet up with the healed Hiro and Claire. Hiro is easily beaten in the super-powered equivalent of a quick-draw, allowing Arthur to drain him of all his power and consume the catalyst himself. A powerless Hiro is sent flying over the edge of the building to his "death" (a flagpole inevitably saves him), and Arthur sends Claire back to the present to give Angela a warning.
Back at Pinehearst, Arthur transfers the catalyst into Mohinder's (Sendhil Ramamurthy) formula, and it's injected into a test subject -- one of the company's volunteer soldiers, who immediately gains super-strength. Phew, lucky! He might have been given that stupid "melting solid objects power", which wouldn't be nearly as handy. Arthur himself is unexpectedly killed after Peter and The Haitian arrive to assassinate him, but his death actually comes at the hand of Sylar -- who uses a stolen ability to discern the truth, realize Arthur isn't really his father, and allows a time-frozen bullet from Peter's gun to continue its trajectory and kill "dad".
I enjoyed this episode, for the most part. Like season 1, it felt like we were making definite progress and the pace was cranked up. Claire and Hiro's stories worked because they actually had heartfelt emotions to deal with. Sylar's return to bad-guy status was enjoyable, if slightly too blithe. Nathan's decision to help his father somehow didn't feel as unbelievable, probably because Adrian Pasdar is good at delivering subtleties where none exists on the page. The catalyst itself was a bit silly -- it's a glowing energy, transferable between people? I thought it was meant to be something a bit more scientific and reasonable than that! Something in the D.N.A of Claire since birth, perhaps -- which I was hoping would connect her to Dr. Zimmerman, who had created Tracy and her clone sisters. But hey, I went with the visual shortcut.
Overall, "Our Father" kept me entertained. I was glad to see the bike messenger nonsense with Isaac's sketches was wrapped up early, Hiro's scene with his mother was an acting highlight of the season, and there are actually some developments I'm interested to see resolved: Hiro stuck in the past without his powers, the fallout to Arthur's death between Peter and Nathan, and Nathan's creation of a super-army. I don't trust the next episode to capitalize on those things, but it would be nice to see Volume III end on a mild high. An early Christmas present, you could say.
Incidentally, returning producer-writer Bryan Fuller has been outlining his plan to revive Heroes next year. An interesting read.
10 December 2008
BBC Three, 10pm
Writers: Adam Armus & Kay Foster
Director: Jeannot Szwarc
Cast: Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Greg Grunberg (Matt), Cristine Rose (Angela), Ali Larter (Tracy), Brea Grant (Daphne), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), George Takei (Kaito), Robert Forster (Arthur), Kristen Bell (Elle), Ashley Crow (Sandra), Jamie Hector (Knox), Blake Shields (Flint), Tamlyn Tomita (Ishi Nakamura) & Chad Faust (Scott)
