"Luke; you really got to stop trying to be my friend, or I'm going to have to kill you."-- Sylar (Zachary Quinto)
Spoilers. After a one-two punch that gave us a fresher vibe to this ailing series, the third chapter of Volume IV, "Building 26", mostly undoes the good work. It's an episode of daddy issues and tedious subplots, brightened by a few twists that half-work -- but, even those succeed because expectations are rock-bottom these days...
Nathan & Tracy: The Building 26 of the title is the secret prison the characters were being transported to before they escaped; a government facility in far-flung... er, Washington D.C. Inside CTU-lite, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) has ice-queen Tracy (Ali Larter) chained to a chair facing heat-lamps to incapacitate her. Not as naked as promo photos deceived us, sadly. The Hunter (Zeljko Ivanek) -- can we call him Danko yet? -- is also present, becoming ever more two-dimensional as the seconds tick past. Emmy-winner Ivanek deserves more than being the immoral clone of Mr. Bennet. The big news is the arrival of government advisor Abby Collins (Moira Kelly), who doesn't believe Nathan's story about capturing dangerous people with so-called "magic powers". She even recognizes PR girl Tracy in her hot-room, and is so shocked by her treatment that she resolves to shut-down Nathan's operation before it's really got started.
Sylar & Luke: A road trip for Sylar (Zachary Levi) and Luke (Dan Byrd), the teen who claims to know where Sylar's real father is. Fairly predictable throughout, although I'm quite enjoying the various attempts by The Hunter's men to track and capture Sylar, as it regularly meets with plenty of telekinetic fun at their expense. A diner is the setting for another skirmish, but it was very disappointing that the story's one genuine surprise (Sylar abandoning Luke, once he attained his father's address) was reneged on minutes later -- with Sylar deciding to rescue Luke from the back of a security van. The big softie.Claire & Mr. Bennet: Heroes still believes the relationship between Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and Mr Bennet (Jack Coleman) is its best chance at tugging on viewer's heart-strings -- which is worryingly accurate, even though the characters haven't really gelled since season 1. Here, Claire acts on another text message sent from the mysterious "Rebel", who tells her to help a fellow "super" working in a Sam's Comics store called Alex (Justin Baldoni) -- a geek who admits he's recently discovered an ability to breathe underwater. Claire helps Alex flee from her father -- but it's a dangerous game she's playing, because if Bennet's superiors found out how meddlesome Claire's being, she'll effectively break the terms of her "probation" and be sent to Building 26.
Hiro & Ando: This is a mind-numbing tragedy for both characters, that made absolutely no sense. Indeed, I had to check I hadn't accidentally missed an episode that explained why Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) have travelled to India to stop a young woman's wedding. But no, I hadn't missed a thing. The writers really do want us to accept that Hiro (who can't teleport now) and Ando (who only got to the US thanks to Daphne assumedly running on water) decided to split from their friends, who are being hunted by Nathan's team, and book themselves a flight to India. All because Matt (Greg Grunberg) drew one of those infernal psychic drawings.
Even forgiving this terrible lapse in logic, the storyline is another irritating example of Hiro learning a valuable lesson about heroism (you don't need super-powers to be a hero, blah-blah-blah.) Sorry, but the days when Hiro's should be written as a dreamy, naïve geek are long behind us. If he doesn't know what being a hero entails after saving the world twice, then there's no hope for the pudding-faced dolt. How infuriating that Heroes' best character has now become one of its worst. I can't even summon the will to write about the idiocy of the Indian wedding storyline itself, or even begin to fathom why "fate" would want Hiro to abandon his friends to run this errand half-way around the world. Dreadful on every level.Overall, the Claire/Bennet story was serviceable enough, and there were a few nice twists in the Nathan/Tracy story (where Abby was seconds away from scuppering Nathan's entire project, until Tracy escaped and turned a guard into ice cubes in front of her -- an escape engineered by The Hunter, to get the operation back on track.) Otherwise, this was quite boring and difficult to get excited about. I'm grateful Heroes is focusing on a smaller handful of subplots each week, and the characters are also conversing with each more than we've seen since season 1, but Volume IV definitely had its first stumble.
16 February 2009
NBC, 9/8c
Writer: Rob Fresco
Director: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
Cast: Greg Grunberg (Matt), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Ali Larter (Tracy), Masi Oka (Hiro), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Jack Coleman (Mr Bennet), Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder), Randall Bentley (Lyle), Ashley Crow (Sandra), Moira Kelly (Abby Collins), Amrapali Ambegaokar (Anna Poora), Justin Baldoni (Alex Woolsey), Zeljko Ivanek (Danko) & Dan Byrd (Luke Campbell)
