Lower Decks

The following contains spoilers through the episode “Brave New World,” originally broadcast 2/8/10.

Last week ‘Smallville’ aired the two hour episode “Absolute Justice,” which featured Clark Kent and his budding superhero friends meeting the previous generation Justice Society of America, a team that had systematically been hounded, imprisoned, and institutionalized into retirement, so that no one even knew who or what they were. The comic book and film ‘Watchmen’ likewise featured heroes who’d been forced out of the spotlight for no other reason than the world deciding they didn’t need them anymore. For four years, ‘Heroes’ has featured a set a characters who have been denied a semblance of this existence, partly because that’s the way creator Tim Kring wanted it, and partly because, the way he designed it, those characters could never imagine it being any different. Time after time, it seemed that hiding was the best and only way to maintain an idea of a normal life.

When the show debuted in 2006, like ‘Smallville’ before it, ‘Heroes’ was seen as a breath of fresh air in superhero television, an innovative way in the vein of ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and the early seasons of ‘Lois & Clark’ to bring a fantastic reality to TV in a believable, relatable way. There’s no question that it was made possible by the phenomenal success of ‘Lost,’ and its promise of delivering a more compact story was what made it all the more intriguing during that first season. Then a funny thing happened. Bolstered by that success, it made a second season, which is strange, right? The same viewers who warmly embraced it the first season suddenly didn’t know what to make of it with a sophomore year. Somewhat thankfully (who knows, though, how things could’ve been different?), that season was cut short by the writers strike. A show that began relying heavily on the weight of the past then moved on to deepening its own mythology in the third season, through two arcs that seemed to confirm every fear of its characters that their special natures could never lead to normal, happy lives, unless they were systematically repressed.

This led, of course, to a lot of viewers who grew increasingly bored with a show that had once been a beacon of quick answers and fast storytelling. Who would’ve guessed that the first season wouldn’t lead directly into a more challenging, public reveal of these characters, that it would take three seasons to reach “Brave New World,” a season finale and the title of a (potentially) sixth arc? I mention “Absolute Justice” and ‘Watchmen’ because they’re excellent examples of the kind of work other creators have already done to demonstrate exactly the territory ‘Heroes’ has been more or less avoiding for four seasons, the messy questions and uncertain future even the bright and sunny world of superheroes can lead to.

That Kring and his cohorts have done everything they have in order to explore their version of a world where people with special abilities even exist has gone, at least in this critic’s opinion, increasingly unappreciated. From the start, the creators have made it clear, from the initial perspective of Mohinder Suresh (absent in this episode, naturally) and his father’s work to scientifically explain the existence of such people (which itself was always a unique angle to follow) to the knowledge of the previous generation and their continuing impact on the present, that their idea of a series arc would always be more complicated than a bunch of characters emerging to “save the world.” The way Sylar and HRG were introduced and their stories unfolded were a constant parallel and compelling addition to the main story, which in their own ways continually seemed to twist away and remain elusive, whether Sylar seemed to grow only worse as a villain despite the tragic nature of his origin, or HRG held onto his idea of a Company to police this hidden community, even with the knowledge that his own adopted daughter was one of them.

From the Petrellis to the Parkmans, from Hiro Nakamura and the strange saga of Tracy Strauss, it’s been a long and winding road, which has finally come to a head. Since Samuel Sullivan was introduced, the ‘Redemption’ arc has been leading to a more direct confrontation with destiny than has ever been possible before. The late Nathan Petrelli was always the clearest link and detriment to progress, so it was only natural that he be the most prominent casualty of the series, and that this death lingered well into this season was another reminder of the final steps that would need to be taken, how difficult it would really (and in fact continue to) be to deliver on the process that began at the start of the first season, when everything was new for the cast of characters that would, in one form or another, continue to carry the series through each of its seasons. I guess that’s why my appreciation of ‘Heroes’ would grow rather than diminish through the years, because I was always looking for exactly the opposite of what all the fans who massed during the first season came for, not a simple arc but a complex one, which might carry a series rather than any single season. The more complex it got, the harder it seemed to enjoy, the more it seemed for me that this show might be worth following after all. I watched the first handful of episodes, then didn’t watch the show again until the third season, after catching up with the DVDs, because of the backlash that struck ‘Heroes’ during its second year. I was fascinated by the Hiro arc, as I heard of it, in feudal Japan. The lack of depth which I had initially perceived seemed to finally be there. I had no idea that the series had already tapped it the first season, and that’s why it became so easy to become a fan with the DVDs, why I was mesmerized during the third season, to see how the Petrelli legacy continued to haunt everyone and how Nathan made the biggest (and final) mistake of his life when he turned his friends into fugitives, convinced that he was doing the right thing.

That’s what made Samuel Sullivan so compelling, that quite nakedly, he was the opposite of Nathan, transparent in his greed to exploit others like him while operating under the guise of lifting them up. Throughout the season, we’ve witnessed as he’s tried to recruit our familiar characters, all while the continuing ramifications of the past have continued to haunt them. Parkman was the character affected the most by that past, and so he was the one forced to carry the burden of Sylar, which “Brave New World” finally vocalizes as the fight between a continually pure character and one who has come to personify, however rightly, evil. Then there’s the flipside in Claire Bennet and her father Noah, the infamous HRG, who have both from the start personified the horrible potential of the most normal of people to be caught up in all of this, Claire because she’s one of them, Noah because he wants them to be controlled. Naturally, it’s Claire who finally pushes everyone to the next step, HRG every step of the way to that point continuing to caution her otherwise, because it’s all he’s ever known, all he’s been comfortable with, which is only increasingly natural now that we know how Noah Bennet became HRG. His whole relationship with Claire has become that much more intense, that much more deep, and has finally moved beyond the parameters originally set in “Company Man,” where he was only doing what he did to protect her. One of the stagnant elements of the series has been its refusal to look at this relationship in any other way, but this season has consistently challenged that, refining it to the point where they have no other choice, almost every other level of comfort removed, but to confront each other on their most basic levels. The ending of this episode wouldn’t have been possible without this kind of development.

Hiro, meanwhile, is finally reunited with Charlie, and for the very first time is confronted with a situation he can’t simply time-manipulate to his favor. Who would ever have imagined this character facing such a scenario, especially one that brought him back to some of his earliest and most innocent circumstances? If the series does somehow end with this season finale, the work done with Claire, HRG, and Hiro, at the very least, would have been justified. You might still argue about Sylar if you like, might wince at another season exploring his redemption, or wonder if Parkman and Peter didn’t get quite the same amount of resolution. Peter, I’d argue, did, even if it wasn’t quite wrapped in the same neat bow as some of the other characters, but Parkman, like Mohinder, like Tracy, is left in something of a bubble.

Well, anyway, for what it’s worth, this reviewer thought “Brave New World” did its job.

For the record, this was the 77th episode of the series.