[SPOILERS] Am I a glutton for punishment? Perhaps. Heroes will never regain the popularity of its first season, because its time in the mainstream spotlight has passed and it's become more famous for a disastrous drop in quality. But that's not to say Heroes can't still entertain and perhaps win back a few lost viewers through positive word-of-mouth. The latter half of season 3 was a faltering step in the right direction, but I'm pleased to report that season 4's finale is less ostentatious than previous premieres and does a good job drawing you into a mystery, rather than club you over the head with another world-threatening disaster to prevent...
Six weeks after the events of "An Invisible Thread", Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) -- who's actually a shape-shifted Sylar implanted with false memories by Matt (Greg Grunberg), in order to replace the murdered politician -- is beginning to suspect his true nature. Nathan confides to his mother Angela (Cristine Rose) that his memories don't always feel like his own, before accidentally using telekinesis to attract a mug of coffee to his hand while alone in his office.
Angela insists Matt mentally re-patch her "son" to prevent Sylar regaining full control of his identity, but Matt refuses because he's decided to focusing on his wife and baby -- even refusing to use his telepathy in his role as a detective. However, Matt's abstinence is proving to be quite difficult because he's being "haunted" by a hallucination of Sylar (Zachary Quinto), whose psyche appears to be lodged in Matt's head and keeps appearing to demand he be reunited with his body...Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) is trying to atone for the heartache he believes he's caused society these past few years, by returning to his job as a paramedic and using his abilities to save dozens of lives single-handed, much to his ambulance partner's amazement. Unfortunately, this means Peter doesn't have much of a social life these days; his New York apartment is an empty shell containing a police scanner and a corkboard pinned with articles of his heroics
Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is now a freshman at college, where she meets career-minded roommate Annie (Rachel Melvin) and a kooky girl called Gretchen (Madeline Zima) who recognizes her as the survivor of the infamous high school massacre in Odessa. Yes, the ramifications of that classic mid-season 1 event are finally referred to plausibly. Things turn Veronica Mars when Annie's found dead on the ground outside her room's open window -- seemingly an open-and-shut case of suicide, but Claire isn't sure someone of Annie's temperament would kill herself, despite the presence of a suspicious suicide letter...
In Tokyo, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) are wasting millions in corporate funds with a "Dial A Hero" business, where they hope to put their combined super-powers to good use by providing a rescue service for the city, in a similar but more entrepreneurial manner to Peter. Business isn't booming, unfortunately, and Ando becomes concerned about Hiro's health when his nosebleeds return and freezing time sometimes results in Hiro himself being frozen solid for long periods of time. Hiro reveals to his friend that he's recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness (assumedly a brain tumour?), just before an accidental trip back in time sets in motion a righteous plan to change history for the better before he dies...
Hiro's story is one of two subplots that connect to season 4's overarching storyline, involving a travelling circus of super-beings led by enigmatic Irishman Samuel Sullivan (Robert Knepper), who is grieving the recent death of his brother and alerted to Hiro's time-travelling via precognitive tattoo ink. For unknown reasons, Samuel is sent back in time 14 years by a circus colleague to meet with the time-slipped Hiro, and encourages him to alter the past so that Ando and his sister Kimiko (Saemi Nakamura) will have a healthier relationship together.The Sullivan Circus is also integral to a storyline for Mr. Bennet (Jack Coleman), who's currently trying to stop a spate of killings perpetrated by a vengeful Tracy (Ali Larter) after she was "killed" by being deep frozen and shattered into tiny fragments. Tracy's now targeting the mercenaries who were involved in hunting "supers" last season and drowning them in freakish "accidents", with extremist Danko (Zeljko Ivanek) her primary target.
Bennet manages to persuade Tracy to end her campaign of terror, by erasing Danko's memory of her using The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis). Tracy later witnesses Danko being murdered by a lightning fast knife-wielder from Sullivan's circus called Edgar (Ray Park), whom she manages to frighten off because of her invulnerability to his attacks. Later, Bennet discovers that Danko's stomach contains a key to a bank's safety deposit box, which he opens with Peter as his bodyguard, to reveal an old "broken" compass that spins to life only when in the possession of super-people...
As usual for Heroes, there's a fair bit going on so you're never bored. This double-bill premiere was less flamboyant in its aim to hook viewers, instead it felt more measured than the show has been in awhile. This actually made a refreshing change, as the stories and characters felt more accessible this time -- it wasn't all wham-bang pyrotechnics and repetitive crises to aver. Sullivan's carnival also inspired some intriguing questions to explore -- why is Sullivan interested in some of the characters? Who killed his brother, and why? How did Danko come to swallow the key to that safety deposit box? Where will that compass lead them? Right now, I suspect that Samuel intends to manipulate everyone into unwittingly helping him change history so that his brother won't be dead, and that's going to be a very bad thing indeed. But we'll have to see.
Actually, no subplot totally flopped for me. It was nice to see Claire back in a school environment, and the murder-mystery she's embroiled in could be fun. It's too obvious to believe Gretchen's the killer, right? Peter actually came across as a rather cool dude, too; his selfless attitude and the lack of bad decision-making going some way to recovering his character. Matt had by far the weakest storyline, but it's a ghoulishly fun idea to have a phantom Sylar stalking him. Seeing Nathan slowly discover his true identity will be an exciting way to reintroduce Sylar this season, even if it assumedly means the end of Adrian Pasdar's tenure on the show. Hiro and Ando may still test your patience with their "comedy" shenanigans, which are always unfunny and predictably plotted (their rescue-the-cat scene was particularly banal), but I kind of like the idea of Hiro zipping around in time doing a temporal "bucket list" of good deeds before he dies.
The way Tracy quickly partnered Bennet didn't really work for me, and the pair's storyline with Danko felt very forced, mainly because it just wasn't the direction the epilogue to season 4 alluded to. That said, this storyline gave us some of the premiere's most stimulating imagery and action scenes -- Bennet nearly drowning in his frozen car, and Edgar going toe-to-toe against watery Tracy and power-leech Peter inside a bank vault. It's just a shame that skilled martial artist Park (best known for his role as Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace) doesn't have someone of equal skill to go up against, so the fight scenes are a little bland and embellished with blurry slow-mo to compensate.
Overall, "Orientation" and "Jump, Push, Fall" offered a quieter, slower start to the season. I'm sure some people will have been bored at times, but I think these episodes were as accessible to newbies as you can expect a four-year-old serial to be, and I'm hoping they'll be able to retain the mystery that surrounds the carnival without dropping the ball as Heroes tends to. Robert Knepper made a strong impression as inscrutable Samuel, and there were enough decent character moments to make you care about the human drama behind everything -- like Bennet calling home and realizing the wife he's separated from has a new man in her life. That said, Ando's reaction to being told Hiro has a terminal illness was ineffectually handled by James Kyson Lee, which was a shame.So yes, this was a good enough start for me to stick around to see how things develop, even if I can't help expecting it to crumble into irrational noise and nonsense in the weeks to come. Please prove me wrong, Heroes...
21 September 2009
NBC, 9pm
written by: Tim Kring (4.1) & Adam Armus & Kay Foster (4.2) directed by: David Straiton (4.1) & Edward Bianchi (4.2) starring: Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Masi Oka (Hiro), Greg Grunberg (Matt), Cristine Rose (Angela), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Zeljko Ivanek (Danko), Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan), Ashley Crow (Sandra), Saemi Nakamura (Kimiko Nakamura), Assaf Cohen (Hesam), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), Kazumi Aihara (Japanese Woman), Natalina Maggio (Cheerleader), Rachel Melvin (Annie), Daniel Newman (Jimmy Keppler), Madeline Zima (Gretchen) & Ray Park (Edgar)
