Episode 16 - PassFail
30 January 2010
Synopsis: Samuel continues to seduce Vanessa with stories of the past and dreams for the future. He reminds her of her dream cottage out in nature and see that he has created it for her. She still rejects him and he takes out his anger on a nearby town. Sylar ties up Gretchen and asks Claire to help him out in order to save her. Claire escapes and tells Gretchen what she thinks about Sylar only for her to morph into him; his plan all along was to draw out what she really thought. Hiro collapses and is rushed to hospital, in his mind he stands trial for breaking his own heroes code. With his father as Judge and Adam Monroe as prosecution he is sentenced to death but his mother heals his tumour and he lives.
The Good: The really good part of this episode is the morality story being told across the four major characters.
Sylar makes the case that Claire uses her abilities as a convenient excuse to avoid people getting close to her and being hurt. Her relationship with the ever lying Noah has clearly put her in an untrusting state of mind. She suspects that by having so many powers Sylar is in an even worse position, unable to find any connection to humanity because he is so far removed from it. She decides to do something about it and reach out to Gretchen and make a connection. Sylar is apparently headed in a similar direction as he heads to the Parkman household.
And then you have Samuel. Once he gets rejected by his love he deals with his heartbreak by turning on those who are different to him. Instead of realising that his dreams didn’t match up with Vanessa’s he turned on the outside world, blaming everyone else for his problems. His powers have become more than just an excuse keeping him from the rest of humanity. By gathering specials around him he has created an entire lifestyle to hide him from the real world and the pain he felt at being treated as a servant, a carnie and now a selfish romantic who has wasted his life on one woman. His anger has real consequences as he levels the town and it finally stops him from walking the line as a morally grey character and marks him out as a mass murderer.
Hiro is less related to the major theme but as you would expect his selflessness earns him forgiveness and he is healed. The link between the main stories was impressive though. The theme was how these powers affected each individuals interaction with the world. It’s a real issue that those who are different face and it drew out why some (Claire and Hiro) are able to retain their morality and human connections (Gretchen and Ando) while others end up alone (Sylar and Samuel).
The Samuel story itself was excellent with another strong performance from him. The writing took its time showing him seduce Vanessa with memories of their good times. More than that though he demonstrated how much he cared about her by remembering things she had wanted and making them come true. Even better than that slow build was the scene where he shows her the cottage. It was a dream to her and one that she no longer had, she didn’t want to leave the real world and go live in the middle of nowhere. She rightly saw it as his dream, his selfish obsession rather than evidence of a real connection with her. TV shows can be so good at painting simple emotional stories and this was one of them. Suddenly he was acutely embarrassed and upset. All his effort and planning exposed for the selfish desire it was and he was rejected after wasting years of his life on trying to win her back. It was the ideal lead up to his anger and exposing him for the terminal “bad guy” that he is deep down.
Sylar’s plan was typically clever and drew out what he needed without hurting anyone. It was consistent that he threatened, coerced and tricked Claire rather than trying to be reasonable. Forcing a kiss on her was definitely creepy.
The Bad: Claire’s story was missing something though. Her topsy turvy relationship with Gretchen hasn’t really focussed on her hiding behind her powers. In a show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Claire (were she Buffy say) would have had a whole episode to herself battling some problem and it would have built up the message of how she was feeling and behaving. Where as in Heroes there is a lot of talk about how people feel and not much action to demonstrate it.
Realistically she and “Gretchen” should have been far more scared of Sylar than they were when they huddled in a closet. He was searching for them (in theory) while they chatted happily away. This is the most dangerous killer who’s ever lived, they should have been completely silent and quivering. It’s stuff like that that really lets the show down. The writing makes it clear that nothing ever matters until they want it to.
As for Hiro’s trial, it was a waste of time in the end. The trial format needs a lot more effort than this to feel significant. By only dealing with Hiro’s behaviour this season it came across as a long recap of the past few episodes as opposed to a significant development. I also warned a long time ago that Hiro was not going to die of a brain tumour or if he did it would be a lame story. Having his mother magically heal him is a big cop out. I don’t even pretend to know what scientific or sci-fi explanation you can come up with for how he was actually healed. Essentially it’s just a cheat, like Ando shocking him in the previous episode, it gets you from A to B in a completely implausible manner. Someone lying near death and then being revived when all hope is lost is a TV cliché which really needs to go away and this did it no favours at all.
The Unknown: Perhaps the carnival will be the final story for Heroes. Clearly some of those with abilities would be better off there rather than being reintegrated in the real world. Can Peter become the new Joseph and lead this group to somewhere where they can live happily and in peace? It would make for a more fitting end than some I can imagine.
What can Matt do for Sylar now? I don’t know if Mohinder’s absence is related to the writers not needing him or the actor being unavailable. It’s not a big deal but it would be nice to know.
Best Moment: Samuel getting rejected, a very well told story.
Epilogue: Much stronger stuff than usual though the faults remain ever present. But the direction of the show is improving with Samuel becoming a clearer villain and sides being drawn with Sylar in the middle.
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