But first, Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) and Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) were told by The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) to look inside a shipping container across town, which was being used to store the dead body of the real Nathan -- complete with ugly stitching across his slashed neck.
Anyway, this bizarre discovery still isn't enough for Nathan to realize what's been happening to him, but when the Petrelli's hear about Matt's (Greg Grunberg) critical condition in hospital, they literally fly to his bedside and get some clearer answers. Peter used his restorative touch to heal Matt's gunshot injuries, unaware that he's delivered his brother (well, Sylar's body made to look like Nathan) to the Sylar residing in Matt's mind. It's amazing this stuff doesn't confuse me these days! Matt has regained control of his body following his brush with death and blurts out the truth to Nathan when he's revived (rather inexplicably, given how big a secret this all is), before Sylar takes over and tries to lure Nathan into touching him so they can become whole. And they do, indeed, accidentally touch -- but it appears that Sylar's transference into his own body doesn't result in instant reunification, as Nathan's psyche still has control.
An equally significant story shed light on exactly what Mohinder's been up to since the end of season 3. It turns out he moved back to India to become a teacher and has another beautiful girlfriend in tow, but he can't let go of the past -- symbolized by the fact he's kept his father's '60s research material from Coyote Sands. After playing an old film reel, Mohinder is intrigued by scratchy footage of his father Chandra's (Ravi Kapoor) fears about a newborn baby called Samuel, who appears able to draw on the power of other "specials" in the vicinity to boost his own ability. As Coyote Sands is an internment camp for dozens of people with special abilities, this means the infant's already responsible for a series of frightening earthquakes.
Mohinder is worried that such a person exists as an adult in the world -- as he could theoretically increase his power a thousand-fold in the right company -- so he tracked down the Sullivan Brothers' circus and met with Samuel's elder brother, Joseph -- a man who knows his sibling's dangerous potential, but has kept the truth hidden from Samuel for over 40 years. In the present, Samuel sends Hiro (Masi Oka) back in time to steal the film reel from Mohinder, seconds before it was destroyed to keep the secret safe. Hiro reluctantly obliges, so Samuel will tell him where his girlfriend Charlie's been hidden, but also uses his ability to prevent Mohinder's death when past-Samuel killed him for seemingly destroying the footage. There was even some welcome logic with the time-travel for once, as Hiro ensured the reprieved Mohinder can't now interfere with the timeline (as the past eight weeks of history could be riskily altered now Mohinder's alive to affect things), so he found a way to get him locked-up in a mental asylum for a few months.
With so much good work being done across the season's two main storylines, you may perhaps have expected the third subplot to be a tiresome bore, but it was actually quite an entertaining bridge towards better things. Here, Tracy (Ali Larter) went to Mr. Bennet's (Jack Coleman) looking for help, because her ability is becoming difficult to control and causing mayhem. Unfortunately, Bennet's not home, but Claire (Hayden Panettiere) is around and offers to try and help -- leading to some female bonding, semi-nakedness in a hot bath tub, and the comical scene of Claire being accidentally frozen solid and losing a foot. It's later revealed that Tracy is giving serious consideration to Samuel's offer of safe haven at his carnival, as the stresses of living amongst normal people is having an adverse effect on her capacity to control her power.
My usual practice when writing reviews is to never read anyone else's until my own has been posted online, then see if my thoughts and feelings were echoed by the majority of critics/fans. But there's a mosaic of opinion when it comes to Heroes. There are some reviews that savagely rip apart everything it does, others bow at the altar of season 1 but hate everything since then, others appear to have disliked the show since the very start (and now feel vindicated in their early hatred), some enjoy it as unchallenging entertainment, and others truly love what season 4's been doing.
I tend to agree with a wide variety of points all the critics make about Heroes -- it will always be known as the show that unnecessarily flushed away its own success, it writes itself into too many corners, it's not very logical when you pick it apart, its own rules are so silly that they undo any sense of drama (particularly when people "die"), but... I have to say that season 4 has been a lot better than it had any right to be. It's still too slow and awkward at times, plus it lacks big action moments (have NBC put their foot down over the budget, which proved unmanageable last year?), but "Brother's Keeper" seemed to prove that there's a coherent sweep of narrative beneath the surface.
Hey, the new information about Samuel's hazardous potential might even explain the future Hiro visited in season 3, where the planet was seen literally splitting apart. Is it all coming together?
16 November 2009
NBC, 9/8c
written by: Rob Fresco & Mark Verheiden directed by: Bryan Spicer starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennet), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Greg Grunberg (Matt), Benjamin Fitch (Officer Ramsey), Jimmy Jean-Louis (The Haitian), Ravi Kapoor (Young Dr. Chandra Suresh), Aleene Khoury (Student), Robert Knepper (Samuel Sullivan) & Kavi Ladnier (Mira Shenoy)
