TV Review: Heroes Season 3, Episode 13 "Dual"

With the third volume of Heroes coming to a close the final episode had to go out with a bang, to whet our appetites for the series' return in the new year. But with the season going around in circles, it was a toss up as to whether the finale, Dual, would please fans or simply frustrate them further.

Sylar replaces Mohinder for the opening speech, babbling on about the character's choices over the series before he unintentionally labels Heroes' plot and characters as the "ultimate cosmic joke". It's nice to see that the pretentious preaching is starting to make some sense.

The bulk of Dual is spent alternating between the two companies, with Peter and Nathan facing off at Pinehearst while Sylar toys with his prey at Primatech.

After incapacitating Nathan, Peter, everyone's favourite combat nurse, forms an uneasy partnership with Knox and Flint, and sets out to destroy the formula, and the cull of characters begins. First there's the random marine, who has so little screen time before his death that it's any wonder he was even introduced in the first place. It's even more mind boggling that the previous episode spent all that time giving him a tragic back story, attempting to highlight the tragedy of soldiers deaths in the Iraq war, but happily kills off this one without any of the characters so much as shedding a tear. In a season full of inconsistency and contradiction, this is possibly one of the most blatant examples of it yet.

Then there's Knox, who's death is brushed over just as quickly as the marine's. Why he's been cut from the show is another confusing move by the writers. Knox's character has masses of potential, not only because of his character but also because of his ability, which not only complimented his character as a villain, but also gave him a weakness and allowed him to be manipulated. He's the perfect character for something like Heroes, and tossing him aside after such a brief stint seems like such a waste.

The cull continues at Primatech, as Sylar puts the building on lock down, and pits the heroes against each other. It's a massive contrast to the fast paced action at Pinehearst, instead going for a more chilling, psychological horror angle. The scenes here make up the best parts of the episode, and at times are superbly done, but it never quite cuts it. It's far too predictable, so no matter what's on show there's never any real horror or excitement, which really takes the edge off what is otherwise a superbly done couple of scenes. At least, apart from one unintentional innuendo, when Claire reveals that she'd like to give Sylar a good spanking. Sometimes you just have to wonder if someone actually proofreads the script before it's sent out.

The rest of the episode is made up of Ando, Daphne and Matt trying to save Hiro, who is trapped in the past. To do this, they give Ando the formula, hoping that he'll end up with the ability to time travel. Instead, he becomes a "super charger", because having two characters with the same ability just doesn't happen (apart from West, but he was always an anomaly in every possible sense). The super charger ability is one that, as well as being conveniently different, just happens to work perfectly, as combined with Daphne's super speed. I'm fairly sure that every Heroes fan is a bona fide nerd at heart, so spotting the link to Einstein's theory of relativity shouldn't have been a difficult task for most of the audience, but instead Heroes decides to mount it's highest horse and patronise us for a little bit, before Matt delivers the least subtle "Hey kids, stay in school" message you'll ever see outside of Saturday morning cartoons. Apart from that blip, and Daphne's hilariously bad description of how she travelled in time (genuinely using "And you were there, and you were there"), it's surprisingly entertaining, and provides some welcome comic relief in what is otherwise a very serious episode.

It's not hard to guess that the end of Dual invariably concludes with the formula being destroyed in the most dramatic fashion possible (clue: it just happens to be highly combustible). But with Arthur dead, Sylar back to his old self, most of the new additions to the cast killed off and now the formula destroyed, it seems that we're right back where we started thirteen episodes ago, with the whole of volume three just going around in a big circle. The plot hasn't progressed, we have no deeper knowledge of the characters - other than the fact that they've all had some sort of weapons training in-between seasons - and it's fair to say that Heroes isn't learning from some of it's mistakes, still insisting on romantic sub plots. All the potential the show had in the first season seems to have slowly ebbed away, and we've been left with a series that doesn't know what to do with itself, and the rare occasion that the quality does shine through hardly seems worth it for all the dithering and backtracking that we have to put up with.

3/5

You know what though, I'll still be watching volume four, just because it gives me something to write about. I'm just that cool.

Would also give Sylar a good spanking - tomdoodle16@live.co.uk