Heroes Episode 13: The Fix

Tagged with: Heroes

One of the problems shows like Heroes tend to develop is the black hole of expectation. A show can promise to thrill and captivate, but simply cannot deliver huge doses on a weekly basis. The first part of the season was so good that after the winter break, we have to ask ourselves what we really want from Heroes if it doesn’t keep delivering in the same way.

The “Save the Cheerleader” arc was clearly about action and discovery. The new “Are You on the List?” arc feels like it’s going to be more about dealing with the everyday reality of superpowers and learning to control them. It’s still worthwhile and will be well done; it just may not be as exciting.

Episode 13: The Fix offered a lot of exposition with the characters we know and not quite as much exposition with the new Invisible Man. Some powers are more interesting than others, and invisibility is definitely more interesting than telepathy because of the temptation to misuse it. I want to know more about the Invisible Man. Is he going to be a reluctant Professor X or more of a Magneto type?

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Part of his purpose as a character may be to contrast with Micah or to show the road Micah may have started walking. The Invisible Man clearly does not always use his powers for good as he walks off with wallets and cell phones just because he can. Micah may have used his technopathic ability to rob an ATM, but he did it to help his dad, which leads to a moral debate. Yeah, it was wrong, but so are those ATM fees. Micah doesn’t seem like the type of kid to use his powers for evil. With that power though, he could grow up to develop the Matrix or the Borg or a Terminator.

The Fix seemed to focus on re-connecting. Claire reconnected with Zach and tried to reconnect with her real family. Nathan tried to reconnect with Peter. DL briefly reconnected with Micah, but that was starting to fall apart because of DL’s inability to cope with the reality of raising a kid alone. Matt reconnected with his wife’s cheatin’ heart. Does anyone else think she’s entirely too calm about Matt’s sudden telepathy?

Since the winter break, it looks like there have been some acting lessons on the Heroes set. Ali Larter is getting much better at switching between her character’s two personalities, and at making Jessica more menacing and nuts. For the first eleven episodes Larter was giving a theater camp worthy performance of Multiple Personality Disorder.

Overall, The Fix left me kind of stale. But, it’s setting up the rest of the arc, so it was a necessary staleness. Next Monday we meet Claire’s nuclear mom and mysterious dad. And George Takei gets to work again!