So, where are we? And what have we learnt from the latest episode, ‘Lizards’? Claire’s still struggling to fit into high school, is showing an unnatural interest in Lizards – they can regenerate, y’know – and takes radical action to discover whether or not her limbs grow back (they do, by the way). There’s an Isaac Mendes painting – in the possession of Bennett Snr. – that depicts the death of Sulu (Mr. Yamagato – Hiro’s dad) from the last episode. Apparently there are six more in that series, HRG’s going to track ‘em down.
This new threat breaks into the police station as the lights start to flicker, then escapes into ‘thin air’ as Matt bursts in – can he/she possibly travel along wires like electricity?
Hiro’s substituting himself for the useless Brit – Kensei – whose timeline he messed up. He rescues the swordsmith’s daughter to help bring things back into line with the myth, and then encourages Kensei to accompany him on a quest to rescue her father and win her, matching the legend. Mohinder’s sent on his first job by the Alchemist; it’s another case of the ‘plague’ that killed his sister. It happens to be ‘The Haitian’, who thinks he’s being punished for misusing his powers. Mohinder makes the big man better using his blood, and then lets Alchemist think he’s been mojo’d and lets him escape… WRONG! Mo actually sent him to hook-up with HRG; the old team’s back together but hitting for the other side.
Claire’s Nissan Rogue’s been nicked, but why is this such a big deal? Advertising revenue, we presume… Newbies Maya and Alejandro are on the run across the border, they’re told by a ‘healer’ that they’re cursed – that what’s inside her is ‘black’. We see that, when she cries, her tears are black and they infect other people, who die quickly with black tears too. But we’re also shown that her brother can heal her and the people in the immediate vicinity. Presumably there’s a time limit on this, as he couldn’t help the truck full of people she did for last week.
Emo-flyboy West is not happy to witness Claire self-mutilating; presumably she’s not happy that he was spying at her through her window at the time. He disappears leaving a copy of Suresh Snr’s book for her to ponder over. Cue ‘To be continued…’, and I should hope so too! In fact, Heroes may already have shot the pooch on that front by saving Nathan and Peter for series two – last I saw they were blowing up in some sort of nuclear explosion somewhere in low orbit. How do you survive that eh? Well, easily, it appears.
Let’s face it, the people who’ve died so far in Heroes were an annoying art dealer (Simone), a manipulative gangster (Lindemann), a self-destructive junkie (Isaac) and a semi-reformed confidence trickster (Eden) and Sulu… Plus some extras and a cheerleader courtesy of Sylar… We don’t know about DL for sure. Only when the show starts killing-off people we like does the idea of tension grow; right now the plot is intriguing but far from tense. Right now, it seems the script has left characters stranded; it certainly has shown no imagination on the part of the creators to keep the show fresh and interesting. Frankly, if I hadn’t have invested so much time on Heroes already, this would’ve lasted about ten minutes before I flicked the football on. But I have invested, so I’m sticking with it, hoping it’s going somewhere beyond hoppity-skipping from protagonist to protagonist – all of whom are hiding and/or stuck. The big bad better be coming soon… Be it Sylar or otherwise… If not, I’m off to McDonalds for some real service.