Weekly Heroes analysis saves backpack, world.

By:: Chris Bucholz

December 04, 2007

Well that felt a little rushed. Hindsight is 20/20 and everything, but I wonder whether Tim Kring didn't miscalculate when he rewrote this episode as an impromptu season finale. Instead of leaving a bunch of threads hanging sort in a sort of enormous cliffhanger, he's instead capped them off in a really unsatisfying way. In my mind, this actually provides far less incentive to tune in for the next season – whenever that may occur. My biggest criticism of the episode is that we still don't have a terribly good explanation for why Adam wants to destroy humanity. It feels lazy to chalk this up to insanity, yet what other information do we have? With his biblical name and explicit references to God and his flood, it feels like the show's writers were intending to create something much grander with Adam. But in the end all we got was a vague speech about wars and plagues, before concluding that the world would be better off without humans. Humans suck - there's no getting around that - but the inner-grade-school-teacher in me really wants Adam to show his work here, instead of just blurting out the answer. Also ruined by being rushed: the Noah-Claire reunion. What could have been a

timeless piece of slap-stick comedy got compressed down into one of the weirdest two minutes I've seen on TV. The dialog was weird, the timing was weird, and the reactions were weird. It was all weird. The whole scene could have been acted out by monkeys on a trampoline and come off more fluidly. What a wasted opportunity.

Continue Reading Below

Other things: Mohinder, knowing that the world's most dangerous man is in his apartment and is holding his adopted daughter hostage, decides that he can handle it on his own. I've been joking all season about Mohinder's growing stupidity, but this is actually insane. Did he think even for a second of telling Bob about this? Doesn't Bob have guys with guns at his disposal? Or an old black lady who can breathe fire or something? If Mohinder wasn't bluffing when he analyzed Sylar's blood, we now know that Sylar had a strain of the Shanti virus, specifically the same strain they used to "cure" Niki. This seems reasonable – Sylar was held in a Company facility in Mexico – but it again raises the question: what was Sylar doing down in Mexico? Why was he saved, then infected, then hidden? Given all the other crap going on this episode, I guess it's probably better that they didn't try to shoe-horn this explanation in. Still, what point did Sylar serve to the story this season? Unintentionally Funny Moment Number One: Maya to Sylar: “You lied to me!?” When last we saw Parkman, he didn't know where Victoria Pratt was. This episode, he returns from Maine, where he evidently found her house with ease. Adam and Peter found her really easily last episode as well. This is ridiculous. Did she go into hiding as a TV weatherperson? Elle really backpedaled away from becoming an interesting character this episode. Nothing terribly complex or deep about this one: all she wants is her Daddy's approval. Now that I think about it, there's actually a lot of father-issue stuff in Heroes. What did Tim Kring's dad do to him as a child? I'm picturing a pickup truck rolling down a lonely desert highway when Tim's father pulls over, tell his son to get out and says, "Boy, if you don't create a moderately successful comic-based serial drama on network television, you are nothing to me."

Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Two: The picture of Bob holding up a fish. The only thing that would make him any less menacing of an evil mastermind would be if there was a picture of him splashing water on the Haitian in one of those peddle boats. I'm still not too sure about Peter's motives; i.e. how does he think he's going to rescue Caitlin from the future, by changing it? I wasn't entirely sure I understood this correctly, yet in this very episode, Adam actually confirmed Peter's motives for both his benefit and the viewers. It still didn't make a lick of sense, but to Adam's credit, he did manage to keep a straight face the whole time. Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Three: Parkman riding Nathan across the country, bareback. The employees of Primatech Paper are really good at not noticing things. Two dudes stroll into the Primatech Paper warehouse and no-one questions them. Then another dude appears unconscious on the floor beside them with a sword, and no-one bats an eye. If the Primatech employees are in on the conspiracy, shouldn't they be doing something to stop everyone from strolling into the ultra-secret vault? And if they're not, why are they so non-chalant? At my office, work stops for hours every time someone gets new office supplies. How on earth these people didn't notice the parade of men who were armed, flying, or Japanese is beyond me.

Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Four: When Molly can’t find a person it sounds like someone trying to start an engine that won't turn over. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. For everyone sitting on the edge of their seat, anxiously waiting to find out the fate of Micah's backpack, you can sleep easy now. It's OK. I have nothing else to say about this subplot. Ok, one thing. If a building explodes while Niki's in it, and no-one's around to care, does it make a sound? Unintentionally Funny Moment Number Five: "Sylar’s gone; my dad is going to kill me." Special Cliffhanger of next season's Heroes Analysis!: Sylar will discover that his powers, impressive though they may be, can be enhanced with the power of spinach. He uses this knowledge to defend his willowy girlfriend from the local town bully.