Tonight’s “Heroes” was one of intertwined stories bound with ridiculous coincidences and total mindfucks…which is to say that there was tension to be had, but there were also a couple of moments where the Plot Police should have been called in to charge the writers with including events which were just waaaaaaayyyyyyy too convenient.
Between Zeljko and Sylar, it was clear from early on that HRG’s mind was going to seriously played with tonight, but as I observed last week, HRG’s been around the block way too many times with Sylar to just accept his death as a given without checking into it a bit…and, of course, it didn’t take long before he’d confirmed that, indeed, the body that looked like Sylar actually wasn’t Sylar. What he didn’t realize at that point, however, was that he’d already had an encounter with the now-shapeshifting villain. When Sandra first turned up, my first thought was that it was Sylar pretending to be her…until it turned into the tale of two Zeljkos.
Of course, HRG did soon get an encounter from a Sylar in Sandra’s clothing, though could you really blame Sandra for serving HRG with divorce papers? No, of course you couldn’t, but I’m sure it occurred to most of us that it was either Sylar pulling a shapeshift or someone controlling Sandra’s mind and making her ask for a divorce in order to blow HRG’s mind. And it did…right up until the point when he realized that Sylar had developed shapeshifting abilities, which is when his head pretty much exploded. The scene with HRG seemingly on the verge of killing Sandra was pretty intense, but it all fell apart for me at the moment the phone rang and it was Lyle on the other end of the line, asking a question about the dog’s medication. It was obnoxiously convenient. In the end, I knew full well that HRG hadn’t really killed an officer and that it was actually Sylar, but, man, it just left me disappointed that I knew that. I really wish “Heroes” was a little darker, because I’d love to have seen HRG have to deal with something like that for real, instead of finding out an episode or two down the road that didn’t actually kill an innocent man. Still, I did like the bit where Sylar hocked up the bullet…
I think we all learned a brief but valuable lesson about stereotypes when Hiro, Ando, and Baby Parkman met Sam Douglas from El Paso. I believe I actually laughed out loud when Sam made his comment about Hiro and Ando being “from the mothership.” The whole concept of Touch and Go Baby stealing the power from vehicles when he’s unhappy was silly, but Ando looked so ridiculous when he made his face to try and keep Matt Jr. smiling that I was willing to endure it.
Does anyone really trust Matt Parkman to go through on his plans anymore? Granted, they always start strong, as this one did, when he decided to get even with Zeljko by making him paranoid and sending him off to check on the person he cares most about. And, wow, how sad and lonely is that guy? When he’s told to go to the person he cares the most about, he heads to a woman from an escort service! You almost felt bad for the girl, though, given how much he’d been lying to her and how Parkman basically caused her whole world to fall down around her. Typically, Parkman couldn’t bring himself to finish the job he’d started, but – what luck! – Hiro turned up at just the right moment. Again, I say: too fucking convenient.
We got precious little Mohinder this week, except his piss-poor attempt to talk Parkman out of going on his quest and the revelation that his father’s things contained a reference to Operation Icarus, which means that we’ll almost certainly be seeing him pop up next week with the Petrelli family. Man, trust Mama to get a chilling final line: “Keep digging.”