417: 'The Art of Deception'
Wr: Mark Verheiden & Misha Green
Dr: SJ Carlson
Synopsis: The new and different Sylar pays Matt a visit, while Peter tries to warn Emma that Samuel isn't what he seems. Meanwhile, Noah begins his plan to infiltrate the carnival and capture Samuel.
Review: 'The Art of Deception' benefits greatly from its distinct concentration on the Carnival storyline. Finally, the writers offer some substantial progression and hint towards our final destination as the season draws to a close. The sequences involving Claire, Samuel and HRG are all very well executed, exhibiting just the right level of tension to keep everyone on the edge of their seat. The scenes are well structured too, with the decision to counterpoint father and daughter proving decidedly interesting. It's certainly refreshing to see Claire taking charge and actually doing something with the information she's been given; it's never exactly clear how all of this will play out, and the level of uncertainty ensures that intrigue levels remain high. Furthermore, Lydia's death comes as a genuine surprise, the first that Heroes has really managed in one hell of a long time. Thankfully, we don't spend an entire episode learning about her past just so that we can 'care' when she's murdered. Instead, she becomes an unfortunate victim of circumstance which, frankly, is far more believable. This all feels like the right pay-off for her character and it works well to cement Samuel's new-found sinisterness. Robert Knepper is clearly having the time of his life with his duplicitous role here, relishing every twist and turn in the dialogue and out-performing just about everyone in his goodbye scene with Tattoo Girl. Of course, it is rather questionable whether the whole Carnival would rather believe the mass-murdering lunatic who'd just laid waste to an entire town than the sane college co-ed, but what the hell, we get some nice gore to help us forget about these pesky details.
Elsewhere, Emma's storyline continues to intrigue. This really is a great place to go with the character, and the question mark that now hangs over her allegiances and future role gives the story an extra shot of pizazz. The Matt/Sylar narrative is at least remotely interesting too, Grunberg and Quinto reminding us all of why they were the reason that we all tuned in during the early days of season four. It's a shame that Matt's bold moves seem a little sudden and extreme, even for this poor tortured soul. And what's more, any metaphorical closure or development that may have been granted to Sylar is rendered moot by Peter showing up ten minutes later to reverse pretty much everything that the story's worked towards in the past forty minutes. Heroes hasn't been quite as guilty of whipping out the old 'bait and switch' this season but sadly, this is exactly the sort of thing that crippled the show last year. Still, on the whole, this is certainly one of the better offerings of the season, feeling far better paced and much more coherent than a great many episodes. 8.5
418: 'The Wall'
Wr: Adam Armus & Kay Foster
Dr: Allan Arkush
Synopsis: While Peter tries to save Sylar based on his precognitive vision of Emma, Lauren goes after Samuel and Claire learns the dark secrets of Noah's past.
Review: Heroes is desperately trying to say something poignant with 'The Wall' but it just isn't quite sure what. The cod-psychoanalytic, metatextual yawn inducer that is Peter and Sylar's narrative irritates after about the first ten seconds since its teleology is so damn obvious. Before the teaser sequence has even finished, it's apparent that the pair are going to be stuck inside Quinto's head for the duration of the hour, and only escape once some sort of psychological milestone has been traversed or breakthrough has been made. Armus and Foster are trying so hard to be meaningful here that they simply fall flat on their faces. It's predictable, it's contrived, it's bloody boring. For all the programme effectively needs something like this in order to make Sylar's transformation believable (to 'sell it', as they say in the wrestling world), paradoxically, it's both too little and too much all at once. The progression needs to take more than simply one episode, no matter how many years are supposed to have passed for the characters, otherwise it feels too abrupt. However, equally, too much of the episode is taken up with this story; essentially, it's just the same scene written in four or five different ways until the resoundingly unspectacular epiphany is reached. For the most part, it all just feels rather redundant.
Sadly, 'The Wall's other threads aren't strong enough to disguise these flaws. At the Carnival, Samuel and Eli abandon all the dimensions that have been afforded their characters in weeks gone by and become caricatures of themselves, taking on the sort of archetypal villain roles that are borderline comic. It's hard to buy into the threat that they pose when they're spouting hyperbolic nonsense about 'making the world bow down' to their wacky and weird ways. The sudden bait and switch from measured eeriness to B-movie cliche is massively frustrating. Still, at least Claire and HRG's sojourn through black and white history is somewhat entertaining. The revelations about Noah are actually rather astute and tie into the show's mythology well. The idea that he marries Sandra initially out of requirement makes perfect sense and gives a much welcome new dimension to their relationship. It's also nice to see Eric Roberts again and the fact that Claire actually takes her father's side after all of these insights and doesn't run pouting off into the distance should certainly be applauded. It's not quite enough to patch up the episode's weaknesses but at the very least, it provides a nice momentary distraction. 'The Wall's problem, essentially, is that the plot is too thin. It touches the same beats too many times and could certainly benefit from the inclusion of some of the other players. As is, it's a bit too average to be anything to write home about. 6.3
419: 'Brave New World'
Wr: Tim Kring
Dr: Adam Kane
Synopsis: As Noah's life hangs in the balance, Samuel prepares to kill thousands and Peter and the others must band together to stop him and save Emma.
Review: So to the end of the season (already! Would you Adam and Eve it?) and potentially the end of the show if we are to take heed of the rumour mills; Tim Kring signing up to executive produce an entirely new programme does seem to suggest it's on the cards, after all. With 'Brave New World', we've been promised an episode that will tie loose ends up in as sufficient a manner to feel like a satisfactory conclusion has been reached, while simultaneously remaining open-ended enough to allow things to continue into a fifth year if the network decides to shock everyone and their granny with a renewal. And let's give credit where credit's due: the segway into volume six is pretty strong. It's understated, there's no ludicrously contrived dramatic event and crucially, the programme hasn't really traversed this path before (well, save for Nathan's botched attempt a few years ago.) Claire's 'outing' is a logical step and fits perfectly as a resolution to the season's central conundrum. It's also a bold move to allow Panetterie's character to make a decision that isn't based on a prototypically teenage need to rebel against her father, but that is actually considered and well-informed. There is much achieved with very little here and it's the subtle touches that count: the hearkening back to Claire's 'attempts' in season one is a particularly good example of this.
Regrettably, the essential meat of the episode, the forty odd minutes leading up to this moment, doesn't fare quite so well. The essential problem here is Kring's desire to incorporate every loose strand into the hour (an understandable decision, given the show's ratings) which, sadly, he just cannot seem to make work. For whatever reason, his writing skills do not lend themselves well to multiple, laconic narratives. Quick fixes and convenient, glossed-over plot holes are appropriated in the hopes of getting the plot from A to B; the sort of logical, tempered character development that has been the fundamental feature of this year's arc plot is summarily cast to the wayside. Basically, there's just too much going on and consequently, stories aren't sold sufficiently or paid enough mind. The interaction between Matt, Sylar and Peter is particularly guilty of this. Parkman objects to Sylar's sudden change of heart, yes, but a few quick words from Quinto and he's won over. This is inherently flawed anyhow since the concept of Sylar's transformation is all too sudden in itself. Sure, it's been five years for the character but it's kinda hard to buy into this notion when it's only been one week for the rest of us; not to mention the fact that Sylar's intrinsic villainy is so crucially woven into the fabric of the show that to remove it with such immediacy feels rather perfunctory.
When he embarks upon his joint mission with young Petrelli to save the day as suddenly-evil Samuel Sullivan attempts to bury one eleventh (is this a good estimate, do you think?) of New York City, insufficient is made of the effort in order manufacture anything satisfying. While it is a nice twist to have Emma working under Doyle's control, and it is certainly good to see all of the key players being brought in to contribute in however small a fashion to the resolution of this element of the narrative, there simply isn't enough time allocated within the confines of the hour to give the Carnival storyline the conclusion it truly deserves. After three seasons of disappointing climaxes, we should probably know better than to expect any sort of spectacular showdown in these finales, but it would certainly be nice if the resolution didn't essentially amount to Sylar and Emma pushing Doyle about a bit and everyone running away from Samuel. Hell, even Peter's thirty second literal ground-breaking competition with the guy is underwhelming. There's no real sense of urgency to the piece, never any suggestion that maybe, just maybe, T-Bag might prevail. And after having spent so much time establishing the morally murky layers within Knepper's character, layering him with as many dimensions as possible to avoid the archetypal, the finale abandons his arc completely, limiting his screentime to the implementation of his over-the-top plan and then, when everything fails, having him give up completely within about twenty seconds and fall to his knees in defeat, despite having several extremely powerful specials within his general vicinity with which to channel his destructiveness.
The extraneous narratives also suffer as a result of their brevity. The pay-off for Hiro's relationship with Charlie comes entirely out of left field and reads as a rather contrived development. Her presence in exactly the same hospital as her former lover is frankly ludicrous and the subsequent interaction between the two, while fairly sweet in itself, is hopelessly telegraphed. It is quite evident that a half-baked moral lesson is being bashed into our skulls; that Hiro needs to learn that his time-travelling antics have far-reaching consequences. The minutiae simply aren't complex enough to disguise the story's teleology and thus, the viewer is forgiven for thinking 'is that it?' once the resolution takes place. There are similar problems with Noah and Claire's underground captivity. While Coleman and Panettiere are excellent and Kring's dialogue has the sparkle of old, it's difficult to escape the fact that there is never any shred of doubt that a quick fix will be implemented in order to allow HRG to escape... and lo and behold, just as everyone starts welling up and it looks like Noah's about to join the choir invisible, Tracey Strauss shows up just in the nick of time to get Kring out of the corner he's painted himself into... and then buggers off without so much as goodbye seconds later! The problem is solved, tucked away and forgotten about so that the story can turn to more pressing points; who cares about the fact that it reads horribly and deflates any sense of tension or suspense from the narrative? We've got an end point to reach, for God's sake!
While there are certainly laudable elements in 'Brave New World', sadly, Tim Kring falls foul of his own weaknesses for the fourth consecutive season, delivering a finale that relies on contrivance and superficiality to get to its destination, never giving the narrative strands the level of attention that they truly deserve. It's a bit of a perfunctory end to the season (and potentially the show) and leaves you feeling rather underwhelmed. Sure, the opening to a potential 'volume six' shows considerable promise but frankly, it's hard to care in the wake of what's come before it. Maybe Heroes' potential cancellation is something of a blessing in disguise. 6.0
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