Every once and a while, an episode of television comes along that totally deserves your full unbiased attention. When an hour of TV can be left unscathed by my own sarcasm, it must have been pretty fucking fantastic.
This episode of Heroes was the most emotionally jarring yet of the season, and quite frankly, the entire series. It left me with a feeling I haven't had about TV since last season's Lost and season two of Greys Anatomy. It carried the same sincerity of the best episodes of Felicity and Everwood, while packing the same punch as the most daring episodes of Six Feet Under and Nip/Tuck.
Mr. Bennett’s death has been foreshadowed for several episodes now, so the general direction of this episode was never really in doubt. Once Claire was in the blue cheerleading outfit, the clock was ticking. This leads to a growing sense of desperation for both Claire and her father, and that becomes one of the more intriguing aspects of the episode. The writers have done an effective job of taking a sinister presence and making him sympathetic. As well as taking a seemingly shallow girl and giving her much depth. As always, Mr. Bennett is doing everything for Claire’s sake; his motivations haven’t changed.
This presents an interesting parallel, one that was clearly at the heart of the episode. Bob delivered his daughter into the hands of the Company, and Elle is psychologically twisted as a result. Elle’s damage gets better treatment this time around, as we get to see more of the conditioning that went into her development. Elle is a grown woman with massive gaps in her memory and a selectively replaced memory by her father. She’s used to seeing people as objects to be used. The child-like aspects are still annoying, but now that she sees what kind of father Bob has been, compared to Mr. Bennett, things could get very interesting. Elle actually seems like a real character with depth. Plus the rivalry the writers created between she and Claire was awesome. Elle seems to be jealous that Claire had the life she never did. Please keep Elle around for a while.
On the same lines with the father/daughter drama is the latest turn in Mohinder’s descent. Mohinder began his alliance with Mr. Bennett in the hopes of using the Company to develop a cure for the Shanti virus before bringing it down entirely. Instead, surprisingly, Mohinder has been forced to compromise his morality again and again, all thanks to Bob’s manipulation. This episode brings him to apparent murder, and the effects on his character should be pretty intense.
Matt is treading a similarly slippery slope, one that was foreshadowed in the season premiere. Matt has already used his abilities to his advantage for his detective exam and in the field, but now that he knows how to use his abilities to control others, he’s stepping into darker territory. His treatment of Angela Petrelli is interesting, because his decision to strip away the identity of Victoria Pratt suggests obsession, and as always, obsession can lead to some disturbing mentalities. Is Matt becoming like his father, who he hates and dreads becoming? Their scenes together showed some real talented acting from Cristine Rose as well.
Hiro’s story was particularly heartfelt, finally getting the fuck out of ancient Japan, considering that it was mainly a means of delaying Hiro’s realization about Kensei/Adam until the final act. It was a strong resolution to the conflict between father and son, and a good paralel to the Mr. Bennet/Claire, Bob/Elle and Matt/Matts dad (dont know his name) dynamics. The second to last scene of Hiro speaking at his father's funeral, cutting to voiceover and images of all the characters no doubt thinking about their own fathers was seriously affecting...I almost cried a little. Most of the discussion, of course, will be on the final scene. I’ll admit to being a little surprised. I had assumed that Claire’s ability allowed her to survive death through some subtle effect of the regeneration process. If she can bring people back from death with a little bit of her blood, even after several hours, that has enormous potential for abuse (both within the story and on the part of the writers). Mr. Bennett may soon find himself wishing he had died, considering what the Company might do to him.
By the end of the episode, I found myself wondering if the writers had re-watched the first season for inspiration. This felt like one of the best episodes of the season and quite possibly one of the better episodes of the series. The theme of father/child relationships was fantastic. We saw paralels between characters who on surface level, seemingly have none. But they gave us well thought out paralels between Claire, Matt, Hiro and Elle. To put it bluntly, this episode was frigging brilliant. After a lacking second season slump, if the writers continue to build the next two episodes as they built this one, its possible this season could turn out to be amazing television.
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