After Sylar abandoned his rehabilitation and pissed a whole season of character development up the wall for no obvious reason in The Eclipse, Part Two it was difficult to see the last two episodes of Heroes going anywhere except circles. Hopefully episode twelve, Our Father, could silence any doubts.
Most of the episode takes place in the past, with Hiro trying to regain his memory, and Claire trying to prevent herself becoming the catalyst. After discovering that his mother can convenient heal after watching her nurse a dove back to health (that's some subtle symbolism you've got there, Heroes), Hiro tries to convince his mother to heal his mind, although not before being forced to cook her a meal - he ends up serving her waffles, as if that joke wasn't old already - and doing the obligatory simultaneous glasses adjustment with his younger self. It's trying to be cute more than anything, which ten year old Hiro is more than capable of, and while the scenes lack any real substance (aside from a fairly potent final scene between Hiro and his mother) it's fairly enjoyable.
Claire, meanwhile, is babysitting for her younger self after immediately securing the trust of her mother. Now I don't know many new mothers, but I'm fairly sure that no matter how overwhelmed you are, handing over your new adopted baby to a complete stranger is not the done thing? Masquerading as a neighbour's niece, Claire is easily caught out by Noah, but after she successfully persuades him she is trust worthy (although it's not clear why the incredibly sceptical and wary Noah trusts her so easily), she convinces him not to answer the call from the Company, preventing her from becoming the catalyst. Again, like the Hiro scenes it's going for a cuter theme than Heroes usually goes for, but since there's a baby involved it gets away with it. But there's still the issue of why two new parents would immediately trust a random girl with their child so readily. Come on Heroes, at least the social, real life aspect of the show has to be slightly believable.
Ando, Matt and Daphne continue to search for the last story of 9th Wonders in New York. After chasing down the reluctant bike messenger, they finally get their hands on Isaac Mendez's sketchbook, which seems to have miraculously changed colour from red to black over the course of the series. In it, they find the last story of 9th Wonders, depicting Hiro "lost in time". Which doesn't so much pose the question "how does Hiro get lost in time?", as "how does Isaac Mendez manage to paint the past?". Isaac Mendez paints the future, so how is he managing to accurately depict events fifteen years before his death in season one, when he wasn't present? Still, at least this is the last 9th Wonders and they can't refer back to it. It's not as if they're making it up as they go along, or anything like that, right? Oh...
With Elle's phone giving him a whole new list of people with abilities, Sylar goes after Sue Landers, a human lie detector. In rediscovering his hunger, Sylar also seems to have found a sense of humour, and the dark lines he utters make for some of the funniest moments in the show.
Peter, gun in hand (seriously, when did a nurse learn to fire a gun?), sets off with the Haitian to kill Arthur. After breaking through the robust Pinehearst security, consisting of one man asking for ID, they confront Arthur, who realises they're hunting him through an unintentionally hilarious "I sense a disturbance in the Force" moment. Father and son spend the next five minutes chatting until Peter finally pulls the trigger, only for the bullet to stop, spinning in the air, which was an effortlessly cool effect, and Sylar reappears.
The motivation behind Sylar stealing the power of lie detection was to undo a lot of this season's plot - haven't I written that line before? - and reveal that Sylar is, in fact, not a a Petrelli, which helps explain why the "I am your mother" line in the third episode was so brushed over and unconvincing. Then this just raises another question; how did Sylar randomly get empathetic mimicry, without being related to Peter? Now, two characters having the same power isn't unheard of, that's not the problem. Sylar showed no signs of having mimicry before the link to Peter and Arthur, and without that link even the piss weak explanation given for the ability ("Yeah, you always had it, duh") doesn't help to explain anything. It's a classic case of Heroes tripping over it's own feet and falling flat on it's face in the pile of shit it's laid for itself.
Finally, there's the catalyst, and it's possibly the most ridiculous element of the episode. The whole focus of this season has been on the far-fetched scientific element, and so, quite reasonably, you'd expect the catalyst to be something scientific too, right? Wrong. As it turns out, the catalyst is a magical light, passed on from one person or another through touch, it's about as scientific as Merlin joyriding Pegasus around Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The scientific side of Heroes has always been weakly reinforced, but the random addition of magic robs it completely of the credibility it never had, and is a dick move of the highest order.
The plot holes are growing larger and more numerous, and the potential Heroes had is slipping away. There's just no direction any more, and it's almost killed my enthusiasm for the series. If the final episode flops, it might be time to give up.
2/5
The sob story for the Pinehearst marine was rubbish, too. He sounded like he was from a bad Tom Clancy game.
Jesus Christ, these are getting long - tomdoodle16@live.co.uk
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