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Days of Dawson's Guiding Hospital Creek

As if the writers didn't learn their lesson with West, we once again have to sit through another half hour of hacky teenage drama in the form of Claire and West... err, Alex's budding romance. With dialog that not even the WB would have spouted, we find that Alex is still living in Claire's closet, like that sort of thing is totally possible and Alex wouldn't mind standing in a small cramped space for over 24 hours just waiting for Claire to bring him a sammich. Thankfully, Ma Bennett catches them before we have to listen to another "you need to listen to me if you want to stay alive" speech, and after an awkward conversation where Claire tries to convince her mother that Alex and her are sleeping together, Claire finally 'fesses up and Ma Bennett offers to help.

Using character traits that feel shoe-horned in at the last minute, Ma Bennett reveals that she knows the house is being watched, steals her son's drivers license (then insults his driving - Mother of the Year nominations incoming), and makes a fake ID to help smuggle Alex out of the city. Yeah, because I'm sure that no one is going to wonder why Lyle Bennett booked a ticket to Albequerque or whatever. Apparently, the "thorough surveillance" Danko and his men are doing only applies to Claire and absolutely no one else in their family. Rrrrrright....

'What do you mean, one more season of this?'

Claire's mother tells Alex to change his appearance, then Claire accidentally walks in on him changing because it wouldn't be Heroes without a totally gratuitous scene of someone shirtless and muscled. And of course the "shy comic book geek" just so happens to be charmingly handsome and chisled like a triathlete. Yeah, like us real comic book geeks don't have a hard enough time finding dates without having to live up to that expectation. Thanks, Heroes. Way to do us a solid.

Claire's mom psyches out the surveillance team with the oldest trick in the book (c'mon, any real government team would know a decoy when they saw it), and Alex and Claire escape capture by hiding in a pool. Yes, I said a pool. A clear, perfectly calm pool. No, it wasn't murky. No, the agents didn't hear Claire's air bubbles coming up to the surface the whole time. No, they couldn't see 2 teenagers swimming at the bottom of the pool with flashlights. Apparently, the government is not only employing poorly trained agents, they're also hiring deaf and blind ones as well. But hey - it's not like this whole thing was just one big setup to show Alex's powers and to get Claire and him to lock lips, right? Right?

*sigh*

Daddy Was a Rolling Stone Cold Killer

Yup, that's the face.

Meanwhile, Sylar and Luke continue their happy little sociopathic field trip and end up in the parking lot of Big Jim's Franks and Fries, a boarded up old diner that Sylar seems to recognize (and I'm betting it's not because he's a big fan of Big Jim's Franks). Sylar pulls the boards off the doors and walks around inside, having sudden flashbacks of his childhood. He finally remembers that this was the place where his father sold him to his uncle, and that after chasing his father through the parking lot, he saw his father use telekinesis to kill his real mother (by slicing through her head) and then left her there as he sped away. Sylar ditches Luke (deciding not to kill him after all), and goes after his father to kill him.

I'd really like to say that more happened, but it really didn't. That's it. That one single tiny paragraph perfectly sums up over 20 minutes of Sylar (for the most part) just standing around in a dusty old diner with weird constipated looks on his face trying to remember what happened there while Luke stands behind him doing absolutely nothing. Waste... of... screentime.

Petrelli is Italian for "Same Conversation Over and Over"

Meanwhile, in the not-quite-as-sucky part of the story, Peter Petrelli's status gets upgraded to Public Enemy #1 alongside Matt Parkman, and Danko issues an order to take them down using any means necessary. "Short of killing them, of course", Nathan interjects, coffee in hand, leading to a "mine's bigger than yours" showdown when Danko tells him that he authorized deadly force without Nathan's approval. Nathan looks to Bennett for support, but Bennett (presumably playing his role to get closer to Danko) tells Nathan that after being kidnapped by them, he may just pull the trigger himself. They locate Peter and Matt at Isaac's loft (which probably wasn't that hard because by now it should be the very first place anyone looks for anyone on this ridiculously ill-planned show) and jump into action.

Peter tries again and again to snap Matt out of his painting spree, and finally convinces him to give it up and leave after offering to help find and rescue Daphne. The computer turns on by itself, and "Rebel" (who is obviously Micah Sanders, so let's just get around to it already) gives them the address to Nathan's base of operations, and warns them that they have to get out. They finally do leave, just in time to miss the giant squad of agents that arrive to take them down. All two of them. Really? The top two targets on your list, both with incredible powers, and you only send two people in after them? No wonder Danko can't catch anyone - you'd have to be a total mental deficient to get snagged by them. Danko's men send him photos of the paintings, tipping him off to their destination.

'Wonder Twins! Powers, Activate!'

Peter "borrows" Matt's powers to help him infiltrate the building (losing his powers of flight in the process) and even though Danko knows they're coming and has time to prepare (for however long it takes Peter to fly him and Matt from New York to Washington, DC) he still doesn't have any extra security or a trap waiting for them when they arrive. Matt and Peter mind-trick guards and analysts into letting them into the building, where Peter uses their computers to look for Daphne.

The mind-controlled guards keep Danko and HRG locked in another room in the building while Peter learns that Daphne was transferred to an unknown medical facility (which finally explains why Nathan told his new boss they only had 1 prisoner), and with Rebel's help, he finds video footage of the agents blindfolding and gathering up all the people with abilities and other evidence of their illegal activities. Peter decides to burn the info to a disc in hopes of exposing Nathan's actions to the world.

HRG pulls the fire alarm, which breaks Matt's concentration on the guards. Rebel remotely shuts down all the power in the building for 30 seconds to give them time to escape, but they run into guards and Nathan in the hall. They use the guards to keep Danko from killing them both, and Matt offers to hold them off while Peter escapes. He makes a run for it, but as soon as the power comes back on, Matt loses his focus and is captured while Peter escapes. Peter later calls in with an ultimatum - let Daphne and Parkman go, and he doesn't release the footage to the media. Danko pretends to agree to the terms, but instead sets up an ambush to kill Peter, citing that "the United States government does not negotiate with terrorists".

'Damn you, Speedy Gonzales! We'll get you next time!'

Worried, Nathan reminds HRG that Peter can hear his thoughts, and when they meet at the rooftop rendezvous, HRG tries to warn Peter that it's a trap, but it's too late. Danko manages to get a shot off and hits Peter in the shoulder before Peter reels back and falls of the ledge of the building. Of course, at the last second before Peter pulls a Katio Nakamura, Nathan swoops in and saves him. He takes Peter to another rooftop, and tries one more time to convince Peter to turn himself in (because we haven't heard that conversation a million different ways by now), but Peter swipes his flying powers, and takes off.

Angela Petrelli stops Nathan from going after Peter, and tells him "the game has changed and you need to be ready". She leans in and whispers something in Nathan's ear, and Nathan's jaw drops. I'm assuming what she said to him was "Tracy is pregnant with your Cylon baby".

Peter leaks all the info and footage to the media as he promised, and Danko has no choice but to up the stakes himself - he drugs Parkman, straps explosives to his chest, and kicks him out of a van in the middle of Washington DC, just like in the painting Matt made back at Isaac's lost. But don't worry, I'm sure Nathan or Peter will fly in at the last second and fly the bomb up into the sky where it'll explode completely safely. Then maybe one of them will get nasty burns all over and see God while the other one loses a girlfriend in the time stream.

At the end of the episode, Claire and her mother make up in that sickly Mommy-Daughter way that never happens outside of soap operas, and Claire goes downstairs for popcorn when she comes face to chubby face with Eric Doyle (the puppet master guy). He shows Claire a message from "Rebel" that says to find her, and he asks for her help. Way to go Micah, I'm sure that won't be uncomfortable for them both.

With episodes like these, do we really want to see another season? I mistakenly thought the show was headed in a new direction this volume, only to be sucker-punched with the exact same boring drek that they've been regurgitating for the last 2 volumes. Let me guess, for the fourth season, Tim Kring will announce that they're going to fix all the problems with volume 3 and come back with a new direction and feel for the show? Please, we've heard that one before. They're even teasing that Hiro will get his powers back (with some changes to his abilities, like they did with Peter) and that some of the main cast will die, but to be quite honest - there isn't a person on the show right now that I'd want them to keep. Even Noah Bennett, who until recently was a favorite of mine, has started wearing thin with the same "who's side is he really on?" plot over and over.

Come back for a recap and review of the next episode, entitled "Shades of Gray", where Sylar finally meets his father, probably gets into a super-powered brawl with him, maybe learns that Luke is actually his clone, makes love to a moose, falls down a chute to the bottom of Cloud City where Lando saves him, and quite possibly finds out that he was Keiser Soze all along. It's just as likely as anything else on this show.

[I CAN MAKE STUFF UP TOO - DIGG THIS ARTICLE]

Is Heroes better, worse, or the same as before? Will you watch a fourth season if this season is a let-down? Care to defend the noble and majestic moose? Post a comment below and let us know!

Comments (1)

crood wrote...

I'll try to comment without using info from last night.

Can't say I totally agree with you, but I mostly do on the Claire side of the episode. I too wondered how using Lyle's ID was going to help at all. By the way, I understand Noah was keeping his involvement secret, but wouldn't his bosses have insisted on some sort of hidden camera in his house?

I liked the Sylar bit, but the whole "like father, like son" aspect was a cliche.

The one thing of note in regards to Peter is that he copied Matt's power by touching his sleeve, not his skin. This may be a clue that Peter's powers really aren't different. He may have put up some mental blocks to avoid becoming like Arthur and/or keep himself from getting "the hunger" again. My main thought was "FINALLY!!" when Peter did the "Petrelli Hug". It's at least some indication that a character has learned something.

The Micah/Rebel thing has been pretty obvious from the get go. The only thing that threw it off even slightly was the seemingly prophetic "Save Matt Parkman", which could easily be explained by hacking the government's files and learning their plans. Also, last night confirmed what I had suspected about the message.

Onto the part that makes no sense. How does strapping a bomb to Parkman further Danko's crusade against powered people? So far as anyone will know, it was just some regular guy with a bomb. If anything, it makes them seem like less of a threat because he's not using his powers to cause destruction, just regular explosives. He was put out in plain sight with the bomb obvious, so there wouldn't be any plan to attribute the explosion to powers

|| March 10, 2009

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