Episode 9 - Shadowboxing
28 March 2012
Synopsis: Noah and the Haitian arrive to prevent Claire’s new sorority sisters from discovering her abilities. But Gretchen can’t take living under threat from Becky and so leaves. Samuel tells Claire that Noah killed Becky’s father and that is why she was trying to take revenge on her. Sylar wakes up as Nathan and confused he flees the carnival and heads to find Peter. Peter is using his new power to heal people. Emma finally steps back into action, using her medical skills to help out. Now it is Matt trying to sabotage Sylar as he heads to New York. Sylar kills a man by the side of the road to show Matt that it is futile to try and stop him. But Matt then forces the police to shoot him so that he can stop Sylar.
The Good: Emma’s story goes where you would expect. We learn that she lost her nephew because of her deafness and it frightened her into giving up on her medical training. Now, thanks to Peter she is going to become a doctor again. Peter is of course using his new ability to heal accident victims. It’s good to see that healing people drains him physically. Though I doubt the show will do anything with it, it sets him up for moral dilemmas where his own health is on the line as someone needs him.
Poor Gretchen understandably doesn’t want to be attacked by an invisible woman. Her departure leaves Claire all alone again and the idea of them being driven apart by her power is a sad one. Samuel steps into this situation to try and seduce her with tales of life at a place where everyone is special. Certainly Becky’s back-story made it easier to see why she would go to murderous lengths to bring Claire to the carnival. In theory it also adds to Samuel’s grey character, perhaps he didn’t instruct her to kill Annie. Now that Noah is hunting him down we have a bit more of an issue for the plot to focus on.
Sylar’s brutal roadside murder was a logical and effective way of showing Matt that only the ultimate sacrifice could stop him now. Now that Sylar knows who to take revenge on this story might also gain a nice focus which could make it more entertaining.
The Bad: Unfortunately the point about how deadly Sylar could be inside Matt’s head was made beautifully six episodes ago. This felt like the writers dragging out their interactions for far too long. And again, each man’s power to control or sabotage the other have no rules or structure. It feels again like the writers can just make it up as they go along. One minute Sylar can stop Matt, the next it’s the other way around. Of course Matt being gunned down should have been dramatic but wasn’t. No show treats death as flippantly as Heroes so anyone who thought he was actually dead just isn’t paying attention.
Claire seemed pretty flippant too, joking around with talcum powder and not taking Gretchen’s fear seriously. Then the Haitian shows up to wipe everyone’s mind and I think she should have been more angry about that than she was. Remember she was emotionally scarred by the knowledge that the Haitian had been wiping people’s minds back in season one. Back to Gretchen, her departure really should have been much sadder than it came across. Perhaps she will come back but for now it just feels like another waste of time which has no impact on the show as a whole.
The Unknown: More vague attention to detail comes from “Nathan” waking up and not remembering anything. How does that work then? Why does he suddenly now not remember anything? Did Samuel instruct Becky to murder in order to recruit Claire or was he telling the truth? Where was Noah going to take Samuel? He doesn’t work for the Company anymore yet he handcuffed him.
Best Moment: Sylar’s brutal roadside murder. In another show at another time, what a moment it could have been.
Epilogue: At least some discernible good guy – bad guy confrontations are shaping up. At this stage of the show’s development it would be simplest if they just set up some battles and let them play out. Otherwise this is more of the same.
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