| Heroes: Out of Time |
| Sunday, 04 November 2007 | |
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In the seventh episode of season 2, we finally get to see one measly little swordfight; Peter Petrelli goes back to the future, but forgets to bring Doc Brown; Nathan, Nikki, Bob, Parkman, Mohinder, Molly, Maury, and D.L. (yes, even D.L.) all join together in one giant clusterf**k of an episode, and the West/Claire romance takes one step closer to the Fatal Attraction moment we're all silently hoping for. Newton's third law states that for every action there must exist an equal and opposite reaction. For instance, when a bird flies, it's wings push down on the air around it. In return, the airpushes upwards against the bird's wings, keeping the bird in flight. Or, for a better example, when a television show spends six whole episodes of it's second season taking the absolute longest time possible to develop any kind of action or story, the remaining episodes must compensate (or react) by cramming all the necessary action and story into a very short amount of time. Welcome to Newton's Third Law of Television. It's About Damn Time...Travel. In Feudal Japan, Hiro has been imprisoned by Takezo Kensei, who plans to help White Beard conquer Japan using the guns Yaeko's father helped build. It that all sounds ridiculous, well... it is. To keep Hiro from using his powers, Kensei keeps Hiros head directly over a nice hot steaming bowl of opium. Yay, it's the breakfast of champions! Fortunately for Hiro, Yaeko just happens to pick the lock on her solid steel handcuffs using only the end of a paintbrush handle. Um... yeah. Wait, what?  My name is Hiro Nakamura. You killed my father. Prepare to die. After what must have been the hangover to end all hangovers, Hiro returns to White Beards camp to destroy the guns and save Japan, only to run headlong into a showdown with Kensei (like we didn't see that coming). They draw swords and fight, which would have been much sweeter if not for the simple fact that the only swordfight we saw during this entire story arc was between the two of them. Way to go, Heroes writers! During the... scuffle? fiasco? I'm not sure what to call their skirmish. Aha! Skirmish! During their skirmish, one of the lanterns is knocked over in the tent, lighting the barrels of gunpowder on fire. Hiro tries to convince Kensei to come with him, but Kensei, maddened by his need for revenge, refuses and vows to destroy everything Hiro holds dear. Hmmm, foreshadow much? Hiro teleports out as the tent explodes, presumably taking Kensei with it. Well, except for the fact that NO ONE presumes it actually took Kensei with it. Hiro, in keeping with the final trial of Takezo Kensei, "Kensei and the Dragon", symbolically cuts out his own heart by leaving the woman he loves in order to save the past. He returns to the present and reunites with Ando, which must have set off some latent "geek" genome in his DNA because he goes from slapping around Samurai and sweeping swordmaker's daughters off their feet to nerding out with his hetero-life pal again in seconds flat. Unfortunately, the good times don't last long as Hiro learns of his fathers murder. The obvious question is why Hiro can't just zip into the past and save his father, but as we saw last season with Charlie, for some reason that just doesn't work. On a side note: after watching the rest of this episode I couldn't help but wonder if the writers had actually gone on strike months back right around the time this was written.  You don't even want to know what's under this trenchcoat. What the Flux Capacitor? In the second instance of time travel this episode, Peter and Caitlyn are still in 2008 New York. The streets are vacant. Peter and Caitlyn are busy looking for any signs of life, when black military vehicles converge upon them and take them into custody, all the while asking "Do you have any symptoms?" As it turns out, the Shanti virus that Mohinder has been curing in the past has somehow mutated into a supervirus. As a result, 93% of the world population is dead. Somehow however, Angela Petrelli is still alive(she's got to have powers), and helps Peter regain his memory. Well... not all his memory. Just his memories of her, I guess. God I hate the amnesia subplot. It's such a weak literary device. My vehemence aside, one good thing does come out of the trip to the 12 Monkeys future: no more Caitlyn. As they are taken into custody, Caitlyn is shipped back to Ireland as a matter of national security. I wonder if Hallmark makes an "I'm Sorry I Got You Trapped In An Apocalyptic Future From Which You Can Never Return And Will Probably Die In Due To A Deadly Super-Virus" card. For the record, "lost in a possible future timestream" ranks right up there next to "buried alive after a spider bite" in the list of best ways to quickly remove a character from a series. (slowly glares towards Maya and Alejandro) Peter tries to save Caitlyn, but gets thrown back into the past (or is it the present) and finally comes face to face with Takezo Kensei...err, I mean Adam Monroe. This would be more shocking if I hadn't called it last week. Don't Eat the Soup Claire wakes up from a wonderful nights sleep (obviously dreaming about yours truly) to find a few texts from West. The first one asks "Have you had breakfast yet?" The second one asks "What's cooking? Smells like waffles." The third one asks "Which door am I at?" followed by "Is it Safe?" Claire heads downstairs to find that West, in his own bunny-boiling "I will not be ignored" fashion has not only been stalking her, but has also come into her house without telling her and helped her mother make breakfast. I think that the writers are trying really hard to make West seem endearing or like he's trying hard to impress Claire, but it really just feels like at any moment, West is going to reveal that he tattooed Claires name into his chest with a rusty knife and a broken bic pen. *cough cough* STALKER! *cough cough* West shows Claire that they got in the paper, and Claire freaks out. Then, for absolutely no reason other than to show off the mp3 features on the new Sprint phone, they make out on the couch. Wait... what? Anyway, the uncomfortably awkward times come to a close when West finds out who Claires dad really is. He freaks out and leaves, suspicious that this is all some kind of trap. Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. The equal and opposite reaction is that HRG finds out about West and the paper, and tells the family to pack up because they have to move again. The Dirty Half-Dozen Back at the Company, Nathan, Matt, Mohinder, and Nikki all join forces to keep Maury from killing Bob. I know that I was asking last week for some of the heroes to finally start teaming up. Tonight, I politely rescind that request. Teamup = bad. Nathan and Bob have a nice little chat where Bob just basically spills the beans about the whole entire plot thusfar. Key points: Adam Monroe brought the Company together, they did some good, but then Monroe started talking about holocausts and plagues and the Company turned on him. Linderman was his disciple, and Maury is his assassin. He's the one that's been killing the older generation of Heroes off. Thank you Basil Exposition.  James Bond: The Golden Years Parental issues aside, Parkman whines like a little girl most of the episode (living with Mohinder, it must be contagious) and then without warning he's duking it out verbally (because physical fights are a no-no on Heroes, apparently) with his dad inside his dad's head. Parkman beats him and leaves his father locked inside his own nightmares. Back at the lab, Mohinder announces that the strain of Shanti virus inside Nikki's blood is incurable. Oh No! (Wait, no, that's right: we already knew that was going to happen. Bye Nikki! Good riddance. Don't let the door hit you on the way... ok, I'm seriously getting major deja vu over here. Upon finding out about the incurable strain of the Shanti virus, Bob puts a plan into motion to cover it up and gives Mohinder his new assignment: find Claire Bennett. And this is when it all goes to hell: Mohinder, displaying an obvious case of "vaginitis", completely rats out Noah Bennett and confesses to working with him to bring down the Company. Way to go, Mohinder. I'd say I'm disappointed in you, but we all knew it was only a matter of time before you started bawling like a little girl. Tonights episode was just another dismal entry into an otherwise sad season. I had high hopes that they would pull it out of the gutter as the season progressed, but with "make up" episodes like this and the possibility that we may only have 4 more episodes left until the season finale, my hopes are dashed. Surprisingly though, it wasn't the broad strokes of tonights episode that fascinated me, it was actually the little things that you may not have noticed:
Sorry, this part is for members only and may contain spoilers. If you'd like to read it, please LOG IN or REGISTER. Like West, this episode just seemed to be trying too hard. And also like West, it bothered the hell outta me. Six weeks of snails pace, one week of breakneck. Maybe it's because they may only have 4 episodes left and they needed to fill in some gaps. Maybe it's because they just suck. Either way, I felt that this week was a whole steaming pile of "too little, too late". Peter Sorensen is a part time reviewer and... wait. What? Thoughts? Opinions? Something I missed during the cocaine spree of television cinema that was tonights episode? Post a comment below and let us know! Comments (25)
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