Heroes – Episode 3-4 Review

I think it’s safe to say that Heroes has overcome the sophomore jinx and is once again one of the more entertaining shows on television. So let’s break things down to see what happened.

HRG
No Noah this week. Bah.

Mohinder
No Maya this week, but we see things going badly for Mohinder and that things probably went from bad to worse four years in the future. One can only guess what he looks like in the future, but based on what we saw, I think he looks like this now:

So we know that Mohinder possibly worked on the formula to create all the superhumans in the world. But time will tell

Matt Parkman
OK, so using the vision powers gives Parkman a vision of four years in the future, where he’s still taking care of Molly, and he’s married to… Daphne? That’s all he gets, really? There must be some point to all of this, because once again Matt Parkman gets screwed with a lame storyline. Otherwise put the poor guy out of his misery already.

Tracy Strauss
OK, so Tracy is one of three triplets, none of whom was named Jessica. So Jessica was Niki’s adopted sister who looks just like her? Uh, what? Tracy gets all hysterical because of this revelation (just like Niki) and then tries to kill herself, but is saved by… Nathan.

Nathan
We see that, four years in the current future, Nathan is truly Nathan (and not Sylar as in season one). He’s president and trying to make everyone happy. And presumably, he’s got the Company in his pocket since he has Claire, the Haitian, Daphne and Knox working for him. Not having watched The Wire, I had no idea that Jamie Hector (Knox) played Marlo. Presumably he had a much bigger role there.

Hiro and Ando
Hiro’s really fallen down the ladder in terms of likeable characters for me, and I’m wondering if that was the point. He’s now working for Angela Petrelli and The Company (although I doubt that he realizes it) and he’s forced to dig up his true nemesis, Adam – one of the true bright spots from last season. I’m thinking the redemption angle is going to start soon for Hiro, and hopefully he won’t look like as big an idiot as he has thus far this season.

Claire
This week we only get emo Claire from the future. She’s not particularly interesting save for the fact that her demeanour matches her ability to feel pain. She’s learned how to fight and learned how to kill, so she has learned to fight. The question is – from who?

Sylar
In this future, Sylar is the one who blows up due to emotional stress – in this case, accidentally killing his son (Noah. Hmm) thanks to Knox. These last few episodes have been excellent in revealing more about Sylar and how exactly his power works. I also like how it is portrayed that it requires a lot of effort on his part to control his “hunger”, his need to know. I don’t know that they could ever give a serial killer a full “face turn”, but they sure gave it a go here. Oh yeah, and Sylar explodes, except in this future he apparently hasn’t absorbed Claire’s power? Because it seems like he’s dead. And if so, then why is Claire so cold now?

Peter
Future Peter obviously sucked at hiding, since he got capped pretty quickly. By Claire, no less – with some help from the Haitian. And I guess that this beings us to the conclusion that those with healing factors CAN be killed, as long as their powers are negated. Peter has now absorbed Sylar’s power, so it’ll be interesting to see if this changes anything, or if this simply sets him down the same path that Future Peter was on.

So we’ve seen a few more parallels to season one in this episode. My guess is that for however long Heroes is on, we will have some constants where Nathan is President, a guy explodes, and Future Peter/Hiro come back in time to change the future. Really, it’s a good way to keep the show going, but how long can they keep things fresh?

That’s all for this week.

Kevin Wong writes for Prime Time Pulse, Reality Dish and InsiNde Fights. He is currently 3-2 in the Inside Pulse fantasy football league.

Sir Linksalot: Heroes

Kevin has been an Insider since 2003, writing on a variety of topics ranging from The Amazing Race to Mixed Martial Arts. His current hobbies include Fantasy Football, Sporcle, travelling, making liberal use of his DVR and wondering what the heck he's gonna do when his two daughters are old enough to date. You can follow Kevin on Twitter (@starvenger).