Episode 15 - Close to You
30 January 2010
Synopsis: Noah and Lauren track down Vanessa Wheeler, a woman Samuel grew up with and is still in love with. Noah takes Matt to help persuade her to talk to them. She does and agrees to set Samuel up. However he sees it coming and whisks her away to the carnival. Noah tries to mend his relationship with Claire but she is still upset. Angela warns Peter that she had a dream of Emma killing many people. Peter takes her power and sees for himself the destructive power of her playing and Sylar offering to save her. He destroys the cello and Emma kicks him out. Hiro and Ando rescue Mohinder and head to find Noah.
The Good: It was a small moment but Ando swallowing Mohinder’s pills was a good bit of writing. In a good story there should be a sense of danger and consequence to rescuing someone. So often there is no real danger in Heroes and though they almost instantly ruined it, this was a good plausible development.
I also liked Matt acknowledging that he should have done something about Sylar once he got him out of his head. He played his guilt and fear clearly where I could understand him doing nothing himself about Sylar but he could have made some calls.
The Bad: Otherwise in terms of details this was Heroes at its worst. One thing after another doesn’t make sense, goes unexplained or is flimsy to the extreme.
The worst offence for me is Matt Parkman walking around free. He was shot by a dozen cops and bludgeoned another man to death at the side of the road (408). He was arrested, he was shot so many times that he was on life support and then he disappeared. If the police believe he is dead then surely they would have had a funeral for him. If they thought he escaped then they would have come looking for him. Neither of which has happened and he doesn’t seem worried about being recognised in the street. Yes maybe he can brainwash everyone who recognises him but that’s got to be a huge drag right? It’s mindless writing. I didn’t think it was possible to make the scene where he was shot to pieces even less meaningful than it was. But they found a way.
Next on my list of grievances is Ando giving Hiro electroshock therapy and “curing” him. Hiro’s temporary brain issue made him call everyone by pop culture references rather than their correct English names. Of course that is a completely ridiculous and laughable mental issue to have. But the idea that it can be cured by one electric shock is equally stupid. But that isn’t even my biggest complaint. I would be willing to accept the “magical cure” story because it is a device which TV shows and comic books use a lot and so I have become immune to the outrage. It’s more the fact that Ando’s power (like everyone else’s) goes so completely undefined. No one has come up with a real name for it yet, the way say Claire’s power can be seen as rapid cellular regeneration. At least come up with some scientific explanation for how his power works rather than have noted scientist Mohinder Suresh refer to it as “red lightening.” When he uses the power on the mental hospital doors it unlocks them. If it is meant to be like lightening or electrical current than it shouldn’t unlock doors, it should fry the circuits. Just a tiny bit of effort from the writers could have cleared this up in seconds.
Then we have Noah describing the plan to put Nathan’s mind into Sylar’s body as “a terrible idea.” Characters on this show are all masters of understatement. But what’s really galling is that Noah is chasing Samuel around to the point of obsession. What about Sylar? Who would you say presents a bigger danger on a day to day basis? Yet Noah makes no attempt to track him down. We also have Lydia somehow “contacting” Peter with her mind and Emma calling him to her with her cello. Both moments go completely unexplained. Peter comes across as an idiot for smashing Emma’s cello without explaining everything to her first. He’s meant to be sensitive and full of empathy and so this came across as an incident which the plot needed more than an organic choice on his part. I’m also not thrilled that yet again a vision of the future is determining our characters actions. How about they all just talk to each other and agree to go lock up bad people? Isn’t that what heroes do?
The Unknown: The good thing, perhaps is that the pieces of this long and winding story seem to be coming together. The introduction of a long obsessed over woman into Samuel’s life is an interesting move. Usually that would signal that his plans were made for selfish reasons to obtain his old love first and look after his people second. Then we have Peter being touted as the new Joseph which might be a fitting end to his character arc. We see how the introduction of Emma’s character might end up being the crucial piece of the puzzle and that Sylar might be equally involved. In general though seeing Ando, Hiro and Mohinder join forces with Noah and Lauren (and Matt admitting the need to do more), we finally get a sense that the good guys and bad guys are taking sides and squaring off for some confrontations. Heroes has meandered for so long this season without a sense of consequence. The writing seems to assume that fans will be interested in these character stories just because it’s these characters. Now perhaps at last we will get some action which has a sense of something important riding on it.
I am intrigued that Vanessa is a cellist. Could that be a connection to Emma and how she ends up at the carnival?
Best Moment: Ando swallowing those pills. A sense of consequence at last.
Epilogue: Heroes terrible logic returns but we also gain a sense of direction. A wash I would say.
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