Episode 22 - Turn and Face the Strange
27 July 2009
Review
Synopsis: Matt goes after Danko and follows him to the home of Helena, an escort whom he loves. Matt exposes who Danko really is to her to exact revenge for Daphne. Hiro and Ando save Matt from being killed and take him to meet his son. Noah discovers that Sylar isn’t dead and is now a shape shifter. Not soon enough to avoid Sylar pretending to be Sandra and messing with him. Noah confronts Danko and kills Sylar. But Sylar was posing as one of Danko’s men and Danko uses it to send Noah on the run. He heads out to meet Claire and the Petrelli’s at Coyote Sands where Angela claims “it” all began. Mohinder discovers that his father worked there too.
The Good: This is a terrific character episode for Danko and Noah. They both learn the price of letting one’s loved ones get involved in their dangerous work. Having both men deal with their significant other rejecting them in the same day when they have to confront each other about Sylar is really good writing. It gives the episode an organic feel, so that we see their emotions spilling over from one scene to the next as they would in real life.
Sylar’s nasty idea to pose as Sandra and ask for a divorce is pretty cruel. Imagine what a show Heroes could be if Noah had shot Sandra in the back of the head. But even his forceful confrontation with her is enough to make you feel sorry for him. It’s a very effective demonstration of why he can’t have a normal family while he is keeping the world safe from monsters.
Noah is well characterised throughout the episode. He is too wary of Sylar and too thorough at his job to just accept the dead body. He even remembers his wife’s signature well enough to see something suspicious in his divorce papers. He is excellent at this detective work as you would expect from a life dedicated to tracking and detaining people. The rejection from Sandra stirs up his passion to catch Sylar that he doesn’t take all the care he should when confronting Sylar and Danko. Now he is on the run and Danko has no one to hold him to account.
I liked the details of Noah’s story too. Having lost Claire it makes sense for Sandra to come to Noah for answers. Lyle’s phone call is a perfectly plausible plot device to convince Noah of the truth. When he runs out after killing “Sylar” he really runs like his life depends on it. He smacks people out of the way as you would if you couldn’t slow down. I like that Danko didn’t have one of his men killed just to escape Noah’s scrutiny. As ruthless as he is, we just saw him mourning for his dead men (321) and this would have ruined that. I also like that Sylar really wants to torture Noah. He doesn’t just want revenge on the man who hunted him; he wants to destroy his family too. It fits that Sylar, the product of a fairly loveless family hates that Noah could be better than him and really have the love he missed. It fits with the way he leapt on the chance to drive a wedge between Claire and Noah (305).
Meanwhile Matt seems fully justified in taking revenge on Danko after losing Daphne and being framed as a terrorist. The way he goes about it gives us a terrific character sketch of Danko. It makes so much sense that the workaholic Danko would only find love with a woman he could call on when he had time – an escort. Even better though is Matt using his knowledge of lawmen to guess why Danko lied to her about having a family. Danko knew she couldn’t love a killer but she might just love an adulterer. Seeing Danko genuinely hurt and upset at losing Alena as well as declaring in front of her that the mission is more important to him really does get us inside his head. We now know him better than almost anyone on the show. He may be lonely, he may love her but he still takes more satisfaction from his work than anything else. And he will cross moral boundaries to be successful. Best of all about his story is the sense of consequence. He loses Alena because of what he did to Matt. Now we know he will be all the more bitter, sad and focussed on his work.
Hiro would have been able to find Matt at Danko’s place because Mohinder knew the address from when Peter went there (317).
There’s a nice moral undertone to this episode too. Danko may be morally grey but he is a bad guy because he is working with Sylar. He has gone for the ends justifying the means and they clearly don’t. Possibly the best line of the episode was Noah asking him “How dumb are you?” for trusting a serial killer at all. Then you get Hiro lecturing Matt Parkman about being a real hero. Heroes don’t don’t take revenge on their enemies because they are better than that. They rise above their emotions to do what is right.
The final scene of Angela instructing her family to dig up bodies at Coyote Sands is an interesting scene. I wouldn’t say it drives you to watch the next episode. But it does ask a question that most fans will want answered.
The Bad: Just the usual logic holes. If you are dressed in tight fitting clothes as the diminutive Danko and then morph into the tall strapping Sylar then those clothes are going to pinch. I won’t speculate about what underwear Sylar had on as Sandra Bennett. It would have been nice to see Matt ask the obvious question about how this could be his son before he started hugging him.
We know that Danko puts cameras everywhere (317) including his own apartment. Yet he doesn’t leave any surveillance at Mohinder’s old apartment? Even though Mohinder just escaped from a government facility (320)? The final shot of Mohinder implied he was moving back into his apartment which would be ridiculous.
Sylar’s new ability does give the show the Mission Impossible II problem as well. Every scene with Danko and Noah could potentially be distracted by not knowing if people are who they look like. It wasn’t a problem here but could become tiresome quickly.
The Hiro, Ando and a baby comedy was very basic.
The Unknown: What did happen at Coyote Sands? What was Chandra Suresh doing there?
Best Moment: Noah confronting the real Sandra thinking she was Sylar. It drew real sympathy for the confused Noah, trying to do the right thing but losing what he loves most.
Epilogue: Excellent television: logical, dramatic, character driven and moving the plot forward.
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