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Heroes 314 – A Clear and Present Danger

I’m going to throw this out there, okay – and I hope you’re not offended. Heroes is one of my favourite shows, flaws and all, so if you don’t like it. Well, don’t read this. I make no qualms about how much I like this show, and will argue all day about that fact.

At one stage, I was going to do a recap for the show. Then I decided not to. If you’re not watching by now, you won’t watch at all – and if you are, this is likely going to be a fresh start anyway.

The good news is, they’ve ditched the superheroics.

With 314, Heroes has gone back to what it started as. Normal people dealing with extraordinary abilities and trying to live their life in a normal fashion. They’ve just added a twist, namely the Government (led by Nathan Petrelli) hunting down people with abilities.

It’s been done before a fair few times, and has ties to historical events – yet here, it works again. They’re not raising the bar, no – instead they’re simply telling a simple story effectively.

This episode has one plot. The capture (or attempted capture) of people with abilities. Instead of having everyone running off trying to save the world, they’ve gone with something that everyone can emphasize with, in a manner of speaking. Namely the terror that would come about if you were taken out of your house in the middle of your night simply for being yourself.

Obviously, we aren’t talking gritty drama here. It’s still a TV show with pretty characters and colourful sets. But it does lend Heroes more of a focus than it had before when everyone was trying to save the world.

The characters certainly fair better.

Someone like Claire has had her entire story be centered around trying to be normal and being hunted by one Company or another. Now she’s going up against the US Government, and her own Father(s, to be exact.) That creates an interesting shift, because now Claire is declaring war on something far bigger than anything she can contemplate – and the US Government, I think we can all agree, doesn’t concede defeat on a war easily.

Then you have Sylar. He’s looking for answers, and runs into the US Government. He’s proof that people with abilities are dangerous, as shown by him kicking the living Hell out of several Government Operatives in a rather fun action sequence. We should be relating to the Government Operatives, but the backstory (however clichéd) on Sylar means that we understand him and his weird and quirky search for answers as to who he is. Which, funnily enough, now includes his Uncle being his real Father – said Uncle having sold Sylar to the parents he thought he had.

Is it any wonder he’s a sociopath?

We leap onto Hiro and Ando. The shift in their dynamic, worrying for a time, actually appears to have worked. Without his abilities, Hiro is transferring his desire to be a hero onto Ando… yet at the same time, is being pro-active by setting up a lair (screw any criticism, that’s just awesome) and an ‘Ando-Cycle’ (that’s even more awesome.) Even better, Ando uses the ‘Ando-Cycle’ to pick up loose women. It’s a neat way to explore the contrast between the characters, without having them arguing over saving the world every second – and it also serves to showcase a response many of us would have to the rising confidence surrounding an ability.

I guess one could knock Peter for hugging Nathan, again. However, I see it as a very human trait for Peter. While he may hate his families’ actions, he does love them. Sure it’s a dumb thing to do, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the wrong choice to make..

Furthermore, Matt seeing the future isn’t inspiring. Particularly here, in this context. They probably have a reason for it down the line, it just feels pointless and a step in the wrong direction.

The episode doesn’t have the slam-bang excitement of 301/302. Instead, it goes for a smaller focus. As said above, each character factors into the plot in a concise fashion. It should be interesting to see how the storyline develops, because (from this episode) it is actually remarkably centralised in such a way that the episode could stand on its own merits AND work as part of a larger context.