Episode 13 - Dual
11 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Sylar traps Claire, Noah, Meredith and Angela in Primatech and stalks them. He injects Meredith with adrenaline causing her to produce uncontrollable flames. He locks Noah in and tries to get him to murder her. But Claire frees them and knocks Sylar out after Angela distracts him with news of his real parents. At Pinehearst Knox and Flint join Peter in destroying the formula. Mohinder is cured in the chaos and Nathan and Peter fight. Daphne steals some of the formula and Ando injects himself. He becomes able to supercharge other people’s abilities. He charges Daphne so much that she can travel through time and rescue Hiro. They go to Pinehearst, take the formula from Tracy and destroy it. Nathan and Peter escape Pinehearst as it burns down. Meredith dies as the others escape Primatech as it too burns down. To begin the next Volume, Nathan goes to see the President and suggests setting up a camp where people with powers can be contained.
The Good: Daphne concludes that maybe people get powers which somehow reflect their personality. Matt apparently cared what people thought of him (now he can hear them). Easier to understand would be Daphne (escaping cerebal palsy with her super speed), Isaac Mendez (who was already a painter), Peter (who was an empathetic nurse before developing the ability to absorb others powers). Tracy was the ice queen (according to a reporter before she froze him), Nathan is very ambitious (so can fly). You get the picture. Again it would suggest some weird kind of alien origin for the abilities because they are no genetic abnormality if they role out from your personality like that. But Ando (the sidekick who helps Hiro) develops the power to supercharge the abilities of others. So he becomes a super sidekick who can help everyone. It’s an intriguing idea which the producers could exploit if they chose to.
Sylar’s attack on Primatech leads to some good developments. Several of the action sequences are interesting to watch. Sylar’s personality seems clearer than usual. He is a bad guy because he blames others for his decisions. He blames Elle and Noah for making him a monster and yet he chose to kill people. We know he can control it (304), so it is his choice to murder people. Later he screams at Angela “Is there any good in this world? Tell me something, anything. Just make me believe you’re not the same as me.” He hates himself because he knows that he is responsible for being a monster. He is really upset to learn that Angela never believed in him after all. It humanises Sylar to see him as this needy damaged child and helps explain his motivation better.
Claire certainly grows as a hero with her decisive and selfless behaviour. Noah is once more exposed for his dehumanisation of those with powers when he releases the prisoners to use them as bait to catch Sylar. He still believes, despite his own actions that they are killers and therefore fit to be killed off. Of course his situation was dire so he had good reason to do it which adds a nice layer of grey to his actions once more.
Hiro completes the task his father set him in the first episode of the season when he destroys the formula. It could be intriguing to see him operate without powers for a while. The final scene with Nathan confronting an Obama-like President with news of the heroes existence is a decent set up for the rest of the season, at least in terms of giving a clear premise for the story (see The Bad).
The Bad: But Nathan’s behaviour just isn’t well explained. We never discovered who healed him in the first place (301) and his religious conversion was swiftly forgotten. He slept with Tracy but they never explored whether they had actual feeling for each other. Then he suddenly became committed to the ideal of giving marines powers to help the people of the world. But when that idea failed he decides to lock up all those with powers. It is a continuation of a story which season one laid out (120) but where does it come from? All season Nathan has been claiming the world can’t know about powers (because he got shot for saying it). Then he decides to give them to everyone. Now he wants to stop anyone from having them. It’s all a mess and poorly explained.
Meredith’s death is sad as we had just learnt more about her (308). We can assume the glass will fall out of Sylar’s head soon enough allowing him to be back soon. His fight with Eric Doyle is more badly explained drama. We have had no explanation for Doyle’s power so there is no excitement when Sylar “mentally” overcomes him. And since when did Sylar possess any mental powers capable of hurting others? He has none as far as I know. It’s more convenient writing and rules being made up to create more drama. The irony is it creates less drama because we have no key to how powers work.
The show treats powers so flippantly that Ando is encouraged to screw his face up like Hiro to make his work. The idea that powers can be activated by facial expressions is so stupid. In season one all the heroes struggled to come to terms with how their powers could be activated but now it’s a joke and you can learn in about five seconds. I love how Matt’s legitimate concerns about Daphne and Ando getting stuck in time are just brushed aside. Consequences and logic are for wussies I guess.
Why does Mohinder heal when he gets covered in the formula (very conveniently)? Was the catalyst added to that batch? Does anyone care about Mohinder’s degeneration? Does someone want to explain why he was building cocoons or is that all to be forgotten as well?
Why do Flint and Knox have to take Peter’s “side?” Why would they need him? Wouldn’t they just kill him along with everyone else? Again it’s part of the ridiculous nature of this season where alliances are formed so casually and without meaning or consequence. Tracy was so guilty (only a few days ago or so as far as I can tell) over killing a man (302) that she tried to kill herself (304). Now she murders Knox and is so cool with it that she is happy to quip “Miss me?” Speaking of quips, in one of the worst pieces of dialogue ever on the show, Angela explains that Sylar is behaving like a spoilt child. So Claire says “Well I’d like to give him a good spanking.” Yes because when a super powered serial killer, who you are terrified of, locks you in a house with your family and threatens to murder you all – that is exactly what you’d say. It’s another mindlessly tone deaf bit of writing from a show which doesn’t understand how to script its characters. The fire following Claire and Noah down the corridor is one of those action movie clichés which it would be good to avoid as it looks fake and cheesy.
There’s not much mourning from the Petrelli boys after their father returned from the dead and then was killed off again. I think I might feel a bit like crying about something.
The Unknown: Usutu appears again. Is that the signoff from his lingering spirit walk with Matt or some such nonsense?
Best Moment: Angela taking on Sylar. She is one of the few characters who doesn’t veer wildly in their behaviour and she is smart enough to find some leverage to avoid being Sylar’s latest victim. She gives a plausible enough distraction to allow Claire to hit him which was good to see.
Epilogue: It’s been a wretched first half of the season for Heroes. I don’t think I have ever watched a show with such potential produce such bad television. The show feels so contrived in everything it does. The characters don’t have jobs or normal friends anymore. There is nothing to connect them to reality. It’s more important what power they have than who they are. They change behaviour and allegiances for no good reason. Their powers can suddenly gain or lose new parts when it suits whoever they are in conflict with. Nothing is well defined. Everything is vague. When the writers tried to show that everyone could be good and bad they just made everyone look badly written.
What’s so awful about this is how quickly Heroes has fallen. Flawed in many ways, season one was exciting and interesting. Slow and even more flawed season two did a far better job asking moral questions. Season three has been confusing and ultimately pointless. Flint, Knox, Arthur, Meredith, Elle, Bob, Stephen Canfield, Eric Doyle and Adam Monroe are all dead. All the good guys are pretty much the same, except Nathan apparently and perhaps Mohinder will have been effected. Hiro and Peter may not have their powers but they will get them back. That’s perhaps the biggest problem of all with this show. There is no sense of consequence to the mindless twists and turns.
This episode wipes most of the slate clean. Perhaps that’s for the best.
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