"Oh my god, they killed Nathan! You bastards!"
Lots of character downtime in this episode. Even the carnies were just chilling out at the carnival tossing a few knives and tattoos around. Still, it was mostly character-centric downtime, so I'm not complaining. Especially not when it's a Bryan Fuller episode guest-starring a Pushing Daisies alumni. It's good to give everyone time to take a breath now and then, get their motivations straightened out, and give them a reason to head to their next plot point. Sure beats the last two seasons' policy of chucking everyone vaguely in random directions, and hoping no one cares how they ended up there or how many idiotic decisions they made along the way.
PETER: Had a minimal presence in this episode, but a nicely plotline-spanning one. He went to see HRG about the compass tattoo that appeared on his arm last week, said hi to Claire, and gave not!Nathan a bit of brotherly support while he was freaking out about being able to TK coffee mugs. The brief moment with Peter, Claire, and HRG was really damn nice, actually. He and HRG could both use a friend, and they could certainly do worse than each other. I've missed that sense of the characters living their lives in between the moments of craziness, and actually being involved in each other's lives. It's the little moments like that that really bring it back.
Even after seeing Peter gradually gain his competence back in volume 4, it still surprises me that he's gotten so LIKEABLE. His fails are so much less epic these days. At this rate, he might even manage to have a love interest some day WITHOUT screwing up her life, getting her killed, or stranding her in a horrible nightmare future.
"NATHAN": I'm still not sure how to refer to Nathan!Sylar, but I guess "Nathan" will do for simplicity's sake. After staring at coffee mugs for the last few weeks, "Nathan" decides to do some digging. Except rather than uncovering the fact that he's DEAD, he uncovers a series of smaller lies and betrayals. Turns out he accidentally got a girl killed when he was young and irresponsible, and Mama Petrelli covered it up for him. So now that he's old and irresponsible (and, you know, dead), he decides to do the right thing and 'fess up to the girl's mother, Aunt Lily Millie (AKA. Angela's friend from volume 4). Which gets him drugged, shot, and buried in a hole for his trouble. Proving that the universe apparently hates Nathan Petrelli so much that it let him come back (more or less) just so it could kill him for the lulz a few more times.
If it's weird to get used to liking Peter again, it's even weirder to figure out how to view Nathan's journey in his storyline. No matter how you slice it, he's not Nathan, really. But there he is hugging Peter, freaking out, calling him mom out on her lies, and feeling guilty enough about a dead girl to want to put things right. Something that they'll hopefully explore further in the rest of the season. Freaking out over an accidental death does make sense for both parts of him, though. As the promo for next week reminds us, a certain accidental death has been known to drive Sylar over the edge and into Norman Bates territory.
The last scene is a zombie joke and a "BRAAAAAAINS!" macro waiting to happen. GET ON IT, FANDOM.
ANGELA: Trying very desperately to convince herself that "Nathan" can be the real Nathan if she just tries hard enough. She's apparently spent a lifetime covering up Nathan's messes for him without his knowledge, so I guess covering up his own death from him is just the next logical step.
Also, HI AGAIN, MILLIE. I didn't expect to see her again, so I was pleasantly surprised when she popped up in the volume 5 trailer at Comic Con. The conversation between she and Angela at the end gave me chills. I have to wonder how many times they've backstabbed each other over the years without the other knowing it. And whether causing the disappearance of each others' dead kids is even the tip of the iceburg. More of this, please.
HRG & CLAIRE: Between this week and last week, I'm definitely ready for a break from these two. Still, at the risk of this turning into a another massive love letter to Bryan Fuller, it's the power of awesome writing that made the slew of HRG-Claire engaging this time around. It perfectly narrowed in on HRG's current situation. It got in a nice father-daughter moment that actually makes it feel like their relationship has progressed beyond the Company Man protecting his precious Claire-bear. Plus it set HRG up for a collision course with the carnies eventually.
ANDO & HIRO: Another storyline that I've had trouble getting engaged with, mostly because of the frustratingly ambiguous nature of Hiro's "illness" and the Ando/Kimiko stuff . But more kudos to Fuller for - hopefully - stopping another "I have to change the mistakes of the past!" storyline before it starts. No, Hiro. No, you don't. Learn from your experience with Photocopy Guy. Just accept your fuck-ups, move on, and change the future the old-fashioned way: by living in the present.
The end also hit that same note of family connection that most of the storylines did in this episode. As annoying as it was for Kimiko to be shoved into an insta-romance, it was so refreshing to see someone actually talk to their loved ones and tell them things. Better late than never.
TRACY: A lot of the time it seems like the writers don't know what to do with Tracy, beyond being an excuse to keep Ali Larter around. Between Cold Snap and this episode, Fuller's given her a good push in the right direction. This time it isn't Petrellis or Primatech or government agents or revenge obsessions that are keeping her from going back to her old life of sleeping her way to the top: she's discovering that she's not the same person she was before, she wants to do something meaningful with her life, and greasy politics isn't going to cut it any more. I still predict a team-up with HRG in her near future, even more so now that they've both decided that doing something decent with their lives is as good a cause as any.
RANDOM STUFF:
- Fun fact: buildings in Japan don't have street numbers, and most streets don't have names. [/THE MORE YOU KNOW]
- Oh character interaction and internal consistency, how I've missed thee. I loved how so many things in this episode managed to turn even Heroes-level craziness into very realistic, character-drive, down-to-earth moments. Peter and "Nathan"'s conversation, using "Nathan"'s powers to focus on a much more subtle version of Lies Mommy Told Me, HRG and Claire discussing where a lifetime of superhero-hunting has left him... I didn't realise just how much I missed that side of Heroes. (The side that's, you know, actually good.)