Heroes: The Shark’s Out Of The Closet

Well, here we are at the end of the season. Quite possibly the end of the series, depending on which rumors you believe. I don’t know about you, but I have a few questions I want answers to:

Who’s gonna die? PLEASEgretchenPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE

Will Peter get his whole power back?

Will we ever see Charlie again?

Does anyone still care?

Hey, the “Previously on Heroes” voice is T-Sam tonight. That’s kind of interesting. The previously clips are about 68% Charlie, so I bet they’ll try to squeeze her in somehow. It’s gonna be a full plate tonight. Let’s do this.

At the end of last week’s episode, Claire and HRG were buried alive in a carnival trailer. Just deep enough, it so happens, to cut off cell service. Thanks to cell phones, writers now have to do a lot more work to close all the plot holes. (Where does Superman change clothes now that there are no phone booths? Think about it.) Claire can’t call anyone, but she can still use her phone as a flashlight. She finds a lantern and lights it. Um. That’ll use up the air in there a lot faster. No, wait, it’s electric. You win this one, writers. Claire bangs on the trailer door to make some noise. She might have better luck banging on the ceiling. Lauren is walking around right over their heads, but sees nothing.

Halloooo! Superfluous character here! Need something to do!

Rewind the clock a few minutes to Peter and Sylar waking up in Matt’s basement. They didn’t show us this last week, but Matt was upstairs at the time, chillaxing with a six-pack or something, when Copy Boy dropped by on orders from Samuel. Matt wants to know if Sam is there too. “I came alone. So to speak.”

I’m gonna miss you, Copy Boy. All of you.

Eli sends a few Elis downstairs to handle Peter and Sylar (Pylar? I need a shipper name, dammit!) and Parkman tries to Jedi the rest of them. This has no effect, because Eli does not have a brain. Well, the real Eli does, barely, but the copies don’t. Or something. Seems like Matt would be able to figure this out on his own, and just target the original Eli. But what do I know about telepathy.

Meanwhile at the carnival (which we can assume is now sitting in the middle of Central Park, no questions asked), Eli’s boss is making his eleventeen dozenth speech about rising up and claiming what’s theirs and showing those normal people who’s boss. Nothing much to see here. Let’s just go back to LA where Copy Boy is all over Matt. Remember that fight scene from the Matrix movies where Neo gets bum-rushed by a couple hundred Agent Smiths? This is like that, but without the awesome. Then before you know it, all the copies vanish. Sylar’s taken out the real Copy Boy. And you start to wonder if maybe Sylar really has turned over a new leaf, because Eli’s skull is still in one piece. Kinda disappointing. How much of a BAMF would Sylar be with that power? 
 Sam summons Emma to do her siren song thing and lure hundreds of people to the carnival. How lucky is it that he has a backup cello for her to play? Although I stand by my opinion that Emma’s power would work just as well if she was just banging on a tin can. Ems remembers Peter’s dream, sees T-Sam for The Villain He Really Is, and balks. “You can’t force me to do anything.”

Right on cue…

So, who haven’t we checked up on in awhile? How about the Dynamic Duo? (Anro?) Anro seems to be awakening from a good solid post-coital nap. Ando was having a great dream…

I think I’ve heard enough. Ewww.

…and he’s kinda done with the hero stuff for awhile. He just wants things to get back to normal, you know, marry the girl Hiro got for him by changing the past. Hiro reminds him that they gots work to do first. He hits the 7-second skip-back on the TiVO remote in his head. Yep, fully healed, of course. Time to go find Butterfly Man and save Charlie. But first! A nurse hands him a note from a patient down the hall.

Greato Scotto!

Back to Pylar and Parkman. Matt is not at all convinced that Sylar is on the up and up, so Peter goes poking around in Eli’s head to get the deets on Samuel’s dastardly plan. “He wants to bury them all,” and by “all” I’m hoping he means huge freaking catastrophe of the sort Heroes hasn’t had the balls to go for since Season 1. Enough with this weak trash Arthur Petrelli let’s-just-give-everyone-superpowers climax. I want to see some big-bucks CGI gold already. “Sounds like a plan I’d come up with back in the day,” Sylar says. “You say that like it wasn’t yesterday,” scoffs Matt, apparently forgetting whose fault it is that Sylar thinks he was trapped in his own head for years, and brainwashes Sylar into not wanting to leave. How easy was that? That’s right, in case you forgot from Season 2 or whenever, Good Sylar is a huge pansy.

Back in the Bennets’ early grave, Claire is trying to dig them out but not getting very far. HRG has uncharacteristically already given up the ghost. He’s just gonna go ahead and die, thanks. It’s what Samuel wants. Claire will live, but she’ll have to watch Daddy kick the bucket. OK, I have a small problem with this. I also had a problem when Adam survived being buried alive back in Season 2. Her brain needs oxygen to live, and needs to be alive to do its healing thing. Claire might wake up a time or two, but eventually her brain would just have to stop working. Like, Claire could starve herself to death too if she wanted. Right?

While we’re on the subject of powers that don’t work the way you think they should, Doyle is forcing Emma to play into a microphone, and people are showing up. Does her power work when it comes out of a loudspeaker? And when Samuel told her how to do it, didn’t he also say she had to think, like happy thoughts? Can Doyle control her thoughts too?

I swear, I better start seeing some realism on this show or I am out of here.

OK enough with the blockbuster climax action. Time for some touching human drama. Hiro’s tracked down the sender of his mysterious note. I just have two words to say:

Casting Emmy!

I mean this woman looks and sounds JUST. Like. Charlie. Where did they find her? Amazing. So let me sum up: we thought she was “lost in time”, right? Well, turns out that’s just writer code for “the actor ended up on Glee and we haven’t figured out how to write her out of the show for good yet”. What really happened is that Samuel’s time guy dropped off Charlie in 1944 and just left her there. Fast-forward 65 years and now she’s his grandma’s age. And just happens to be staying in the same hospital.

While you let your noodle bake on that a bit, let’s zip back over to Burrow de Bennet and see if HRG is dead yet. Nope. But he’s not done with his death speech either; in fact, he’s just getting warmed up. He wants to explain the nasty memories she saw in last week’s episode, and how they prove humanity is not ready to accept people with superpowers. Claire begs to differ, but HRG says the pitchforks will come out eventually. “Things change, but people don’t.”

This is pretty much exactly what Matt is saying to Peter and Sylar right now. Wow, great segue, writers! Sylar insists he has changed and wants a chance to prove it and redeem himself. Heeeeyyyy what’s the title of this season again? That’s right, Redemption. Sylar goes all in and tells Matt to peek inside his head and see for himself. For like the hundredth time, I don’t know why Matt didn’t think of that himself, but he’s not exactly the brightest knife in the shed. After reading Sylar’s mind, he’s still not convinced. Maybe he figures Sylar might have learned Occlumency while he was riding around in Parkman’s head. Who knows. Anyway, Peter begs Matt to trust them, and he finally releases his hold on Sylar’s brain and lets them go. We done with Parkman now? Not quite. First, he wakes up Copy Boy and sends him along too, with some seekrit orders.

If you see a tall chick with a Gumby mouth and bushy center-parted hair, KILL HER.

HRG is still death-speeching. Why don’t you, I dunno, shut up and dig already? Or bang on a pipe or something. You’re wasting all kinds of air going on like that. Everyone exchanges I-love-yous and Valentine’s Day cards and all of a sudden HRG is gasping for breath. So Claire finally goes back to digging, and hits water. Wow, they’re deeper than I thought. Except… this water looks kinda familiar. It’s… Tracy!

Nice of you to drip in!

So I don’t know how Tracy and Claire can breathe in there but HRG can’t… but anyway, he’s saved now. Good thing, because if they really want to kill off some more people there are a lot less awesome characters available. Tracy made a hole when she poured herself down into the trailer, and now all HRG has to do is let her float him up to the top. Seems kind of dirty, splashing around in your ex-love interest while your current one is waiting topside, but I can’t think of a good pithy metaphor so I’ll just leave it at that. HRG pops out of Tracy’s hole. There, that’ll do. Woohoo, everyone’s saved! Lauren even thought to call a government chopper to take them straight to Central Park. Yes, all the way from LA or Ohio or wherever the hell they are now. I’ve lost track.

Old Charlie is so happy to see Hiro that she starts her old habit of regurgitating random bits of trivia like how many rivets it takes to put together a B-29 bomber. Plot hole #23: Charlie seems like the type that can’t keep her mouth shut, and she has the power of perfect memory. When she ended up back in ’44, do you really believe she wouldn’t tell everyone she met that she was from the future, and we won the war, and Oliver Stone killed JFK and OJ was innocent? At the very least she should have made a bazillion bucks off the stock market. Hiro is impressed despite her underachievement.

Please no don’t kiss the old lady. I can’t unsee that.

Nah, no kissing. Old Charlie is just happy she got to see Hiro again before she croaked. Sylar cured her brain aneurysm (obviously), so she got to enjoy a long and fruitful life, get married, have grandkids, all that stuff. Hiro, not really listening, offers to fix everything. All he has to do is hop back to 1944, bring her back to the present and erase her whole life in the process, no harm done. Ando can’t believe what he’s hearing and walks out.

Now back to the hot mess of disbelief-suspension that is the Sullivan Bros. Carnival. Ems played the cello till her fingers bled, just like Bryan Adams. The carnival is packed with people wandering around in a daze. For crying out loud, HRG and Claire and Peter and Sylar are all there already. Fine, I don’t even want to know how. Not even Jack Bauer can cover ground that fast. Peter remembers his dream and sends Sylar off to save Emma, but not without a moment of distrust. Go find Sam, Sylar says, I got this. HRG happens to have Ando’s number on him, calls him up and says to get Hiro out there stat. He’s interrupted by Edgar’s knife to his throat. It’s ok though, Edgar knows he’s one of the good guys and they all need to stop Samuel.

I always greet my friends like this.

Sylar finds Ems. Doyle finds Sylar.

You just got pwned, wuss-boy.

T-Sam preps for his big moment by giving the carnies yet another sermon. Claire busts in to interrupt him, and all the carnies rejoice because they’re sick and tired of Sam’s little speeches. Well, all except Ian the Formerly Homeless Guy.

Hey, he gave me this awesome Willy Wonka suit!

Ando finally puts a stop to Hiro’s Save Charlie quest. “Yo, we gotta skate. HRG called, he needs backup.” So Hiro blows Old Charlie a goodbye kiss and ports out. And I hope that’s the last we see of Loverboy Hiro. We need Badass Future Hiro back already.

Give the Glee people my resume, k?

Well, it hasn’t even been an hour since Sylar turned good and already two fat guys have cleaned his clock. But what’s this? Ems suddenly realizes that her power has a Blast Mode, and uses it on Doyle. Sylar is saved! By a girl. The girl he was supposed to be rescuing, no less. How embarrassing. Sylar is about to take out his frustration on Doyle and gets his Darth Vader chokehold all ready, but suddenly remembers he’s supposed to be a changed man. “I’m a hero!” he says, getting all teary-eyed and looking around for someone to hand him a medal.

Live long and prosper.

And we’re back to the Claire and Sam debate. One scene of talk, one scene of action. Talk, action. They call this “pacing”, right? Claire drops the bomb: Samuel needs the other carnies to amplify his power, and he killed Joseph. I thought they knew that part already. It’s her word against his, and then… HRG shows up for backup, with Edgar in tow. And… Copy Boy is on the good guys’ side now too! Thanks, Parkman! Most of the carnies are swayed now. The smart ones anyway.


Us peons not so sure yet.

The carnies disperse, leaving Samuel to rant all by his lonesome. You’ll never get far enough away, he says, and goes out to tell Mr. DeMille he’s ready for his closeup. “You want a show?”

I think we’ve all been waiting long enough.

Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth, he says. Can they say that? I smell a lawsuit. The ground starts to shake. I don’t know where Peter’s been hiding for the last half hour, but he flies in and tackles Samuel, grabbing his power in the process. Time for an earthquake tug o’war. It’s on!

So, who hasn’t showed up on the scene yet?

You boys are the only ones who can get there instantaneously and yet you’re the last to arrive. I don’t get it.

HRG tells Hiro to teleport everyone, I mean everyone out of there stat to pull the plug on Samuel’s power trip. Hey, the kid just recovered from a brain tumor. Maybe a few warmups first? Besides, there’s no way he can teleport that many people at once and-what’s that? Ando can supercharge him? Oh, THAT’S RIGHT! Who forgot he could do that? Raise your hand. Good thing Samuel never found out about that, huh? So everyone huddles up, Ando does his red lightning thing, and BANG everyone’s gone. T-Sam’s power dries up just like that. “How’s it feel to be ordinary?” taunts Peter. So now it’s down to good old Batman-style fisticuffs.

Crisis averted, bitch.

Peter leaves a humilated T-Sam to have a nervous breakdown alone. Well, except for HRG. “I never liked carnivals,” he says.

Peter and Ems have a nice happy reunion. Sylar didn’t kill Doyle, he just tied him up. Good Sylar is here to stay, at least until next fall! HRG tells Claire they can blame the earthquake on a gas line rupture or something, and keep the superpowers secret a bit longer. And the carnival that appeared in the middle of Central Park? How you gonna explain that? Claire is not happy staying in the closet, though, and gets all the TV cameras to roll while she climbs up the nearest Ferris wheel. “What’s she doing?” “Breaking my heart.”

That’s not all she’s breaking.

“My name is Claire Bennet. This is attempt number… I guess I’ve kinda lost count.”

To Be Continued. (we hope)

I gotta say the Samuel stuff was kinda weak, but they sure picked a money closing shot. Did they jump the shark by coming out of the closet, mixaphorically speaking? They’ve teased us with exposing the Heroes for four seasons now, and nothing’s irreversible as long as the Haitian is around. He could just walk in and lean up against the door and wipe out a hundred memories, right? And what happens to Samuel since he’s not dead? And Mohinder, and Tracy, and all the other characters Not Appearing In This Episode? Lots of loose ends left. We’ll see what happens next season. If there is a next season.

Thanks a lot, Olympics