Episode 23 - 1961
27 July 2009
Review
Synopsis: In flashback we see Angela and her younger sister Alice coming to the camp organised by the government. Doctors Zimmerman and Suresh are testing people with powers to learn more about them. Young Angela meets Linderman, Bob and Charles Deveaux. They agree to break out after Angela has dreams that everyone will be killed. Once they escape Suresh tries to test Alice, but her power is to control the weather and in the chaos the guards open fire on those with powers. Angela forms the company to prevent the disaster from ever happening again.
In the present Angela admits she dreamt about her sister and wants to find her. She thinks she is dead and hence needs to dig up the bodies of those who were murdered in 1961 at Coyote Sands. Mohinder arrives and worries that his father was a murderer and he is just as bad. Peter struggles to forgive Nathan and Claire talks about how she doesn’t have a normal life anymore. A storm whips up and Angels finds Alice who has stayed in Coyote Sands for her whole life. She leaves angrily when Angela admits that she lied to her. Sylar impersonates Nathan and holds a press conference in Washington.
The Good: In the pilot of Heroes caring Peter and irritated Nathan have to deal with their recently bereaved mother Angela. They have to deal with her because she stole socks from a department store. Whether planned or remembered it is details like this which make long term fans feel rewarded for paying attention. It encourages viewers not to skip episodes and reminds us that any story can be an important piece of the jigsaw of any character’s life.
Angela’s flashback fills in some important details for the show’s mythology. We can now fully understand the cloak of secrecy which the company operated under and why Angela’s generation seemed to live with such guilt over what they had done. We see in particular how Angela learnt at a young age to lie and manipulate, with the best intentions. She took responsibility for her sister’s wellbeing and lost her whole family when she lied. She has lived with that guilt ever since and it certainly gives us a better understanding of the way she has meddled with and cajoled her two sons and explains the methods she employed on Sylar.
Angela’s story is greatly aided by the actress (Alexa Nikolas) playing the younger her. She has a naturally expressive face and plays the vulnerable naive Angela really well. She has to cover a lot of ground, being uncertain and scared herself, reasoning with Dr Suresh, reassuring Alice, lying to her and then showing her growing affection for Charles. It is an impressively convincing display.
We also get to see the mature young man Charles Deveaux was and understand why he and Angela were so close (123). A young Bob, Linderman, Zimmerman and Chandra Suresh are also pleasant reminders of the show’s history. I liked the way the elements of how society has changed since 1961 were woven into the story. There was the acknowledgement of the obvious when the cafe owner takes exception to a black boy dancing with a white girl. But more subtle was Angela pointing out that back then when the government offered to round up those with abilities and help them “we believed them.” It doesn’t just speak to Danko’s manhunt but also to our general perceptions of the roles of governments in our lives in the 21st century.
In the present we see the extended Petrelli-Bennett family come together and discuss getting their lives back in order. It would be a relief after two seasons of disarray to see them agree to work together toward the common goal of keeping their powers a secret and living normal lives.
Mohinder’s search for forgiveness may not be compelling viewing but it does flow logically from his actions earlier in the season. To give the writers credit, they have not swept his heinous actions under the carpet (307). Mohinder shows that he genuinely regrets experimenting on people by wanting to do more penance for his crimes.
Claire reminds us of her disconnect from the real world when she says she can’t remember the last book or movie she got to enjoy. I wonder where her school thinks she has been all this time.
The Bad: Alice still being alive is perhaps too complicated a story to be able to tell here. It’s so difficult for the viewer to relate to someone who has spent fifty years alone and afraid. Let alone to how that must make Angela feel. It raises some awkward questions too about why Angela didn’t go back to search for her or why no one noticed the strange weather patterns and thefts happening in the area. I don’t have a problem with the idea of Alice remaining in this place. As a traumatised child who can accidentally summon terrifying storms and just lost her whole family, the story has all the details we need to comprehend it. It just feels too epic, too tragic and maybe too strange to be something a viewer can absorb amongst the rest of the story.
As Heroes has struggled with the consistency of its storytelling since season one, many of the conversations between characters sound hollow. I didn’t think it was a big problem in this episode. But Claire’s speech to her two Dad’s was an example of this problem. She calls herself an idiot for wanting to fight the bad guys and trying to impress them. The tone of the speech implies that was a long time ago, but it was only about four months ago. It’s just a small example of where the show needs to be firmer on each character’s personality and development. Claire was “trying to stop the bad guys” a week or two ago when she helped Alex escape (318). She wasn’t an idiot then.
Perhaps the young Linderman shouldn’t have attempted to mimic the older man’s accent.
The Unknown: What is Mohinder hoping to accomplish exactly? What is Sylar saying as Nathan?
Best Moment: I thought Peter summing up the difference between the company and a family worked nicely. That is assuming they all stick together and communicate and don’t all wander off into their own stories. Then Sylar (as Nathan) appears on the television screen and suddenly they all have an obvious common threat to deal with. Angela smiles while everyone else looks concerned. Finally we as an audience feel like we know what she is thinking. It could be any number of things but I suspect there was a part of the smile which was just saying – this is nothing new, I have seen it all before.
Epilogue: It’s tough to get used to the new Heroes. This is a pretty detailed, sensitive portrayal of Angela’s back-story. It does a good job of giving us insight into her behaviour over the past three seasons. It also offers hope of a more logical, better developed show for next season.
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