Lower Decks

The following review contains spoilers for Heroes through the current episode, “One of Us, One of Them,” originally broadcast September 29th, 2008.

Like many people, I fell in love with the character of Sylar during the first season of Heroes. Here was a villain both powerful and terrifying, with just the right amount of horror and suspense. As the season progressed, and more was revealed about this enigmatic serial killer, the character began to take on epic characteristics. Defeating Sylar would take all of the heroes — Peter, Claire, Matt, Hiro, Niki — and all of their powers combined. And they did it. After saving the cheerleader and stopping the exploding man, our heroes stopped Sylar.

And then he came back. Part of me was glad Sylar was still around during Season Two. The rest of me wondered why, after so much build up to his defeat, Sylar had to come back at all. He was the “big bad” for the first season. During the second season there should have been a new big bad, a new super villain. In a way, The Company was the ultimate villain for Season Two. But Sylar was always there in the background, lurking. And now, in Season Three, the escaped bad guys from Level 5 are the collective big bad. But yet again, Sylar is still in the picture, more powerful than ever but also, it seems, under control. Where things will go from here I am interested to see.

As for “One of Us, One of Them,” the two best aspects of the episode were Meredith treating Claire to a literal trial by fire (as I often say, I adore Jessalyn Gilsig) and Peter being freed from the body of Jesse by Future Peter. Now the two of them can team up to repair the damage Future Peter has done to the timeline. Also intriguing was the revelation that Tracy Strauss is not Niki Sanders (who is dead) but an apparently identical copy created by a mysterious doctor. Less interesting was the teaming of Noah and Sylar, which ended far too predictably with Sylar double crossing Nathan, killing Jesse and absorbing his power. In the end, Sylar is placed back in detention alongside one of the escapees (I believe his name is Flint). Knox, however, escapes, and the German is killed. At least we learned Jesse’s power: super sonic speech.

The opening of the episode confused me. Angela explains that she gave Sylar up for adoption and then introduces Bridgett, who has the ability to see the history of any object she touches. Somehow, she is going to “feed” Sylar and as Angela walks away, Bridgett screams. Loudly. So, what, she touches Sylar, learns about his past abilities, and then he kills her and reabsorbs them? Bridgett was willing to sacrifice herself? Or did Angela trick her? The end of the episode was clear, though, as Noah explained to the Haitian that he is waiting to find Sylar’s weakness so he can kill him.

Meanwhile, Hiro and Ando continue their boring pursuit of Daphne the Speedster, this time in Germany. The Haitian is there to take possession of Angela Petrelli’s half of the formula. After far too much time is spent with Ando trying to convince Daphne that his friendship with Hiro is solid, Ando knocks out the Haitian, which allows Daphne to grab the formula, and then both Hiro and Ando are apprehended by the Haitian and placed in Level 5. How sad it is to see Hiro act with such stupidity.

Nathan had little to do this episode. He was sworn in and then goes to see Tracy. She shows him the video from Las Vegas of Nathan and Niki Sanders having sex. This seems to convince him that Tracy is not Niki. Later, Tracy goes to New Orleans, stumbles upon Niki’s funeral, meets Micah and learns that she was born at the same hospital as Niki, at the same time, and by the same doctor. When she goes to see the doctor, he calls her Barbara. He seems to know her and she asks why. He says he created her. Interesting. So is Doctor Zimmerman’s power the ability to create clones with abilities of their own?

Finally, Matt learns that his new friend has spent an entire lifetime painting Matt’s lifetime on rocks in the desert. All of them appear to have come true save one, which the friend explains was a possible future that will no longer come true. He starts a new painting. It shows Matt holding a girl who looks like she is on fire. Matt doesn’t know who she is, but thinks the painting is why he is on his spirit walk. His friend appears to have the same ability to paint the future as Isaac had, complete with the white eyes. Matt gets to experience the future himself thanks to something he eats and music from a cassette player. As always, Matt’s storyline bogs down the episode the most.

All told, I was happy with this episode. The lack of Mohinder and Maya helped, of course, but it was mostly the development in the Claire and Peter characters that made this episode work. Claire is now solidly on her way to forging her own future, one in which she doesn’t even try to be normal and instead use her ability to fight evil. And Peter, no longer trapped in Jesse’s body, will be taken to the future by Future Peter to see the horrible things that may yet come to pass. How restoring (or otherwise fixing) the damaged timeline will tie into the search for the remaining escapees will be interesting to see.  Three episodes in, Season Three has been pulled in, not as much as the first season, but far more than the second season did.