"Upon This Rock" is by far the worst episode we've had in ages; one content to drip-feed background minutiae about "big bad" Samuel (Robert Knepper) that just confirms what we've guessed, long assumed, or already know. Claire's (Hayden Panettiere) already suspicious of the carnival barker's true intentions, after leaning from Lydia (Dawn Olivieri) that Samuel developed a sudden obsession with "collecting" people with abilities after the death of his brother, then later catching Samuel looking guilty with a box of materials from Primatech. However, Samuel's able to persuade Claire his intentions for the carnival are noble...To do this, Samuel's finally appeared in Emma's (Deanne Bray) storyline, introducing himself as the person who owned her the mysterious cello she was sent anonymously, before helping her use her" sound-seeing" ability to... well, apparently her music can attract people she's thinking of, and Samuel wants her to track down Ian Michaels, a homeless man with the ability to make nature bloom. No, it doesn't a lick of sense, given what we know of Emma's ability, but we just have to go with it. See, having attracted the hobo for Samuel by playing her cello in Central Park (a cursory glance around would have been just as effective!), Michaels later helps fertilize an area in the desert Samuel has apparently selected as his family's new home -- a kind of readymade Eden for super-people? It's enough to convince Claire he's on the level, anyway.
Most distressingly, Hiro (Masi Oka) is once again neutered by the writers because his character's always been too powerful -- even when operating at lower capacity because of a brain tumour. At this point in time, it's interesting to compare the use of Hiro to Misfits' Curtis, too, whose ability to control time is reactionary and never premeditated. Yes, the time-travel could have been reigned in that simply, Tim Kring. Anyway, after teleporting away from harm in "The Fifth Stage", as he was being drained of his ability by one of Samuel's henchmen, Hiro arrives back in Tokyo... but has now gone "crazy" after his mind-scramble, meaning he can only communicate via tedious references to fanboy trivia.
Ando (James Kyson Lee) comes to realize that Hiro's incessant chatter about "Arkham" and "swamp dragons" are a kind of geek-code indicating what happened to him and who was responsible. So, it looks like we're in for a mind-numbing adventure as the two friends are reunited to reference Star Wars, Star Trek, Don Quixote, Arthurian legend and Battlestar Galactica in an effort to get us back to the carnival. It's a time-wasting effort, pure and simple, because it was impossible to know what to do with Hiro at the carnival. Indeed, most people that Samuel "collects" tend to vanish within a few episodes, because there's really nothing interesting for them to do once they become part of Samuel's clique.
The episode ends with the funeral of Nathan Petrelli, whose suicide has been kept secret from the public, who were instead told he died in a plane crash. At this point, Heroes tries desperately to make his burial (with somber flag-folding and a fighter jet flyover) land an emotional punch, but it's incapable of doing so. As good as Adrian Pasdar was, Nathan was never a particularly emotive character. He was even a very annoying villain for part of season 3, and considering the fact he technically died a year ago, I've exhausted my sympathy for the Petrelli family's loss. Plus, it's always in the back of your mind that a spot of time-travel will facilitate Pasdar's return someday, however brief, as nobody's truly "dead" in Heroes' universe.Overall, " Upon This Rock" just didn't interest me and quite a few of the subplots (Emma, Hiro) were listless bores that don't bode well for the future of those subplots. There were a few interesting moments with Samuel/Claire at the carnival, but not enough to make this episode worthwhile. Indeed, you could probably skip this hour entirely and not really have missed anything crucial to your understanding of the season's story.
"Let It Bleed" was definitely an improvement, but it was still pockmarked with problems, periods of monotony and dubious diversions. For reasons that don't make much sense, this episode actually takes places 86 hours before the funeral denouement of "Upon This Rock", begging the question: why not just stick to a linear timeframe, particularly considering the events here were twice as engaging as your mid-season premiere? I give up.
Claire is frustrated by the Petrelli's and her father (Jack Coleman) for keeping the fact Nathan (her biological dad) was actually an amnesiac Sylar (Zachary Quinto) in disguise all these months. The only person who understands her feelings is Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), who was also lied to -- although I didn't see him grabbing the phone to let Claire know the deal with "Nathan" when he discovered the truth, did you? Anyway, the half-siblings further bond, shortly before there's a rather extraneous subplot where Peter rages against the situation by rushing to the scene of an office place massacre...
A fired employee has gone crazy and started shooting his colleagues, but Peter's there to fend off the gun-toting desk-jockey with his current Haitian super-power of... being able to dampen other people's super-powers. Oh, okay, he can also knock people unconscious by touching their head, but it still looks like a terrible way to go about things. What if you get killed? That will really make your mother happy, losing two sons in as many days. Anyway, Claire tracks Peter to the office (both getting the jump on the emergency services, somehow) and, despite the fact Peter ends up getting shot after giving his best impassioned speech to the gunman (a very funny scene, the bullet the punchline), she uses her power to heal his wound. I also found it funny how Peter, the victim of a gunshot, was being left alone on a gurney in the street, instead of being rushed to hospital by paramedics.Faring better was the subplot with Sylar arriving at the carnival to attack Samuel, for reasons I've forgotten about. I got a superficial kick out of seeing Samuel successfully defend himself from Sylar, by creating a localized dust-storm that literally twisted Sylar's flesh into gruesome deformities. That was good fun, and actually gave Samuel some added credibility as a worthy, powerful villain we should take seriously. He's often so introspective, lyrical and charming that you forget he's the season's primary antagonist. I know that's part of his character's makeup, but I think we need some stronger emphasis on Samuel being bad news now we've started the second wave of episodes.
Like Hiro, the show has never known quite what to do with Sylar's near-omnipotent powers, either. He's lost his abilities, he's found love and decided to go straight, he's had his body and soul literally torn apart. And now, well, it appears he's lost his killing instinct and has become "impotent", as Lydia puts it when she's sent to his trailer for an awkward sex scene. I guess some residual goodness leftover from Nathan has made Sylar this way, so I'm guessing we'll now have to watch Sylar get his groove back -- once again. Is anyone else feeling a sense of déjà vu? And I'm still confused by Lydia's power, incidentally. She can sense people's desires, right? So why does she sometimes need Samuel to inject her skin with ink to produce a tattoo for an easy visual? Anyway, Sylar steals Lydia's power (well, at least the writers remembered he can do that without slicing heads open), and Samuel gives him a tattoo that shows him his destiny: Claire.
There's also a subplot for Mr. Bennet, who manages to capture exiled Edgar (Ray Park), after the "speedster" sneaks into his apartment to kill him as a "peace offering" to Samuel. Together with Lauren (Elisabeth Röhm), they interrogate Edgar in a restaurant's freezer (which weakens his power), but despite coming to an arrangement to work together, Edgar instead chooses to flee when he's released. Which kind of means the whole subplot was needless, but it gave Park the most lines of dialogue he's ever had over his entire career.Overall, both of these episodes were worryingly poor, offering a mix of pointless or tedious storylines and weak dialogue. Writers Juan Carlos Coto and Jim Martin are hardly the dream-team of Heroes' writing staff, but quite how these stories were given the blessing of the creative team and positioned as the mid-season premiere is anyone's guess. They nudged along a few elements of the season's arc (Samuel's plan), but they mostly ran around in circles (Edgar, Claire), reset a few characters (Hiro, Sylar), or wasted our time (Peter, Emma, Bennet). I wish I cared enough these days to get upset about this, but I'm just resigned to the fact Heroes blows hot and cold now.
4 January 2010
NBC, 9/8c
written by: Juan Carlos Coto (4.13) & Jim Martin (4.14) directed by: Ron Underwood (4.13) & Jeannot Szwarc (4.14) starring: Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet), Hayden Panettiere (Claire), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan), Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Milo Ventimiglia (Peter), Robert Knepper (Samuel), Elisabeth Röhm (Lauren Gilmore), Dawn Olivieri (Lydia), Cristine Rose (Angela), Julian De La Celle (Young Samuel), Noah Greenwood (Shonen), Doug Haley (Young Joseph), Henry Hayashi (Ramen Vendor), Ray Park (Edgar) & David H. Lawrence XVII (Eric Doyle)
