ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
This episode brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
PETER: Stopping time? Not so useful when you already have a shiny new gaping chest wound. Ouch.
What is it about Hiro's power that always manages to bring out the Epic Fail Guy in Peter? Oh well. He's done worse. At least he didn't go charging off into the past or future to cock up the space-time continuum again. (That's Hiro's job at the moment, thankyouverymuch.) And at least the only person he really endangered with his teleporty funtimes was himself. And Noah. A bit. But mostly himself.
Peter's been interesting interacting with people this season, especially HRG. He doesn't really seem to want anything to do with all the scheming and whatnot, but they have enough trust between them to call on each other when they need help. Peter is the only character that actually seems to make FRIENDS with people. Or at least, genuinely want to help them, and cultivate enough trust to let them know you've got their back.
He also got the best - or at least, the most apt - line in the episode: "Yeah, [the Company was] more about the powers, less about the people." If I were inclined to meta, I'd say that nicely summarises what went wrong in season 2 and 3.
HRG: Covering up accidental deaths? HRG's slipping back into old habits. Not that there's anything wrong with that. No reason you can't help people AND fake crime scene evidence.
CLAIRE: Only in the episode for a minute, but I laughed because that's more or less exactly what my brother did when HE was living on his own for the first time. As long as you're close enough to your parents' place to come by and do laundry, you're never REALLY far from home.
EMMA: Guh? The cello WASN'T hers? I assumed it belonged to her dead boyfriend/fiancé/whatever, so that she actually, you know, had a REASON to know how to play it. That's what I get for assuming things might actually make sense. You'd think the episode might have made more of it, but no. Instead of exploring that MAYBE POSSIBLY KINDA RELEVANT bit of information, Emma bonds with Hiro a bit, wants to get rid of her power, and then...doesn't. Or something.
Show? We get what Emma's power is. You can move on now. Really. Yes, it's pretty. Yes, nice music is nice. Yes, I'm liking Emma as a character. Yes, I'll take gradual character development over rushed, nonsensical clusterfucks any day. But it still has to go somewhere. Having two episodes in a row with nearly identical scenes, and just swapping Peter out for Hiro? There's other characters who could use the screen time. Just saying.
SYLAR: Sylar - or "Gabriel", or "Nathan", he's not sure which - chills out with the carnies after his little prison break last week. Since the "being a murderous dick" part of him is off haunting Matt's storyline, and the only memories he's recovering so far are Nathan's, he isn't exactly living up to Samuel's expectations.
So, what do you do with a confused amnesiac who's more interested in playing Mike Rowe, having a superpowered pissing contest with Edgar, and sharing a complete lack of sexual chemistry with Lydia? Why, send him off to the House of Mirrors to jump-start his brain with a clip show trip down flashback lane, of course. Which ALSO backfires. Sylar/Gabriel/Nathan is totally sickened by how many brains he OM NOM NOMed, and doesn't particularly feel like killing people again. Samuel and co. still grant him honourary "ONE OF US!" carney status, though. (The symbolic baptism kind, not the hideous mutilation kind.)
We've already been down Amnesia Avenue with Peter two seasons ago. Back then, I said that Pete's amnesia plotline had been squandered on (1) a bullshit "mystery" that the audience didn't care about (ZOMG WHAT'S IN TEH BOX?), and (2) tangling him up with new characters and pointless plotlines, so he and his million billion superpowers wouldn't fuck up the main story arc. So far, Sylar's amnesia is avoiding that for the most part by actually being relevant and character-oriented, but this episode tripped into the second hole a bit. I do like the idea of the carnies - if not always the execution - and anything that gets their plotline moving is fine by me. Too bad Samuel's manipulations just made less and less sense as the episode went on. And that Lydia's job seems to be the carnival bicycle. I can live without another lame romance plotline, KTHX. I liked Sylar's interaction with Madeline last week precisely because it wasn't another round of "Let's Manipulate The Serial Killer" or "Let's Get In Sylar's Pants". Don't fall into that trap, Lydia. Ask Maya, Candice, and Elle how it went.
HI VIRGINIA. Nice of you to stop by to make your son remember killing mommy.
HIRO: HRG isn't the only one falling back into bad habits. Not two episodes after accepting that some things weren't meant to be changed and the timeline is tenacious about course-correcting, Hiro's back to trying to "correct his mistakes". This time: Charlie.
Here's the thing: on any other show, I wouldn't be worried. I'd assume that there was more to a goal like "Save Charlie" than meets the eye, and that it didn't literally mean Hiro trying to save her from death. Especially after learning not once, but TWICE, that some things just can't be changed. I'd assume that, given his current condition, it made perfect sense for Hiro to want to go see the woman whose memory is giving him the strength to face his death, and tell her how important she was to him.
That's if it were any other show. Here? I have no idea. Hell, I'm surprised them even REMEMBERED Charlie enough to draw that parallel. If Hiro DOES charge in and try to save her life, then his entire exercise in ass-photocopying futility a few episodes ago was a tremendous waste of time. Which wouldn't surprise me. But would suck. A lot. Prove me wrong, show.
On a positive note, at least we know why Hiro's dying now. Not sure why they danced around it for so long. And it was cute to see him, Peter, and Emma interacting together. I like that notion of Peter and Hiro being friends, not just people whose fucked-up lives occasionally intersect with each other.
THE CARNIES: First Samuel steals Mohinder's exposition, now he's stealing Mohinder's spot as narrator? These two MUST meet at some point. They can have a monologue-off. (You should have caught up with Mohinder in volume 3, Samuel. He would have made a good freak show exhibit back when he was The Fly.)
Looks like Samuel isn't quite as informed about the heroes as we thought he was. You know, since he actually seems to think bringing out the "real Sylar" will result in anything other than his carnival becoming an all-you-can-eat brain buffet. I ask you the same question I asked Danko last season, Samuel: IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS THIS A GOOD IDEA? Why would you roll out the welcome wagon for a brain-eating serial killer without a few precautions? If all you wanted was someone to manipulate into being your own personal weapon, wouldn't it have been easier to just manipulate Sylar/Gabriel/Nathan when he was still amnesiac and clueless? Why replay the highlights of Sylar's brain-slicing career, and expect it not to give him ideas? Why bring Lubbock into the picture just to try to provoke a reaction from Sylar, when it risks drawing attention to the carnival? Christ.
RANDOM STUFF:
- Am I just obsessed with Pushing Daisies, or is this season making a hilarious amount of effort to throw in shout-outs to the crew at the Pie Hole? We've already had Aunt Lily and Aunt Viviane guest starring, as well as Simone-the-dog-lady. Now we have a kid who can unintentionally resurrect-or-kill (more or less) by touching people? Including a DOG THAT WAS RUN OVER? Lulz.
- "Tabula Rasa" indeed. It's always interesting to see what a character will default to when they get a visit from the Amnesia Fairy. So despite my hardwired instinct to nitpick and snark everything, Sylar's storyline is keeping me interested so far. It's got to seriously screw you up when your memory wants to default to Nathan, your body wants to default to Sylar, your disembodied serial killer mojo wants its body back, and the rest of you wants nothing to do with ANY of them.
- Whatever happened to that new Company that the government was going to help Angela start up? Considering all that recent health care reform clusterfucking, I guess it takes a while to get funding for "top secret superhero support system" through congress.