Heroes: Cold Snap

By TrinityVixen
How is it that Bryan Fuller only has to look at a show and suddenly it’s one hundred times more enjoyable? Well, Swoosie Kurtz helped. (I miss her eye patch!)

Volume Four, Chapter Seven – “Cold Snap”

The most welcome change that Mr. Fuller brings is a sense of urgency and consequence to the disparate story lines that have been limping along this season. Instead of leaving Tracy Strauss to fester in her hot seat, he gives her thirty seconds to prove that she’s worth remembering: Tracy, it seems, has been practicing her ability while sitting in solitary. If she can see her frosted breath in her sauna, she can freeze over Hell in an eye-blink. And, in fact, that is exactly what she does.

The best part about this upgrade to Tracy’s ability is that she still fears Mr. Bennet, which is a nice little reminder of how commanding he can be, powers or no powers. After allowing her to escape government lockdown (along with Mohinder, Matt, and Daphne), Bennet catches up to Tracy as she shoplifts her way out of the city. Brooking no argument, Bennet lays down the way things will go: she can kill him and be hounded to death, or she can help him trap Rebel and walk away a free Ice Woman. Tracy goes along with Bennet’s plan, unconvinced that her ice powers will protect her forever, until she discovers that Rebel is really Micah. Because Noah Gray-Cabey is freaking adorable, Tracy has a change of heart and flash-freezes a downpour from some ceiling sprinklers to ensnare Denko and Bennet’s team just long enough for Micah to escape. The resulting ice-scape is gorgeous and ethereal, no less so than Tracy herself. In her haste to drop the temperature in a hurry, she froze herself solid. Denko shoots her and she shatters into ice pieces. On the largest shard from her face, one of her iced eyes blinks, shedding a single tear. I don’t think she’s totally gone, but even if she is, she could have had a worse exit than dying a heroic bad-ass.

Also dying this episode: Daphne. After having been shot by agents while trying to rescue her friends, Daphne’s gone septic from her injury. (So much for Nathan’s high-falutin’ ideas about benevolent control of the supers.) Matt boosts her from Super Gitmo only to have to fight both doctors and Daphne herself to keep her alive and anonymous at the hospital where she is being treated. Daphne scoffs, kindly but sadly, at Matt’s insistence that his spirit walk visions mean that they will be together forever. Some of his desperation, not to mention his new flying ability, clue her in on the fact that they’re not talking in the real world but in her head. He knows she’s dying, but he is keeping her alive because he loves her. Daphne proves herself to be a mature, brave woman by insisting that Matt let her go. If she’d had this much character development from the get-go, I’d have been a sobbing mess at her death. As it is, I’m still a tad sniffly.

We get to be proud of Matt, too, because he acquiesces to Daphne’s wishes. Matt has assumed so much control via his powers that he is unused to not being able to push his way through to the conclusion he wants. However, despite his pain, he lets Daphne fade away. Again, through a juxtaposition of the powerful and the empowered, we know how strong Daphne must have been that she can convince Matt to do the right thing even though it hurts him. I could be mad that Daphne and Tracy are being killed off, but they went to their ends with heads held high. I call that victory.

Bryan Fuller even magics miracles out of a woman who was written off the show. Janice, Matt’s cheating ex-wife, returns to be nothing short of all put together amazing. She catches Hiro and Ando breaking in to kidnap her son (whom she named Matt) because they think they have to protect him. Janice plays them very well, threatening them with the police she would never call because she knows—as Hiro and Ando discover for themselves—that her son has an ability. (Baby Matt is dubbed “Baby Touch and Go” by Hiro when he finds that Baby Matt can power up objects and super powers.) Janice has also been watching the news, so she knows that the government isn’t exactly pleased with Parkmans lately. (Thanks to Denko setting an explosives-laden Matt loose in D.C.) When some G-men come to collect her and her son, she provides a plausible excuse, leaving enough time for Hiro to abscond with Baby Matt; if she can’t escape custody, at least she’ll give her child room to escape. She almost succeeds on her own, but gets a bit of an assist from a Baby Matt-empowered, time-stopping Hiro. He and Ando and Baby Matt are free, and Janice has gone from a shrew to a stalwart.

And I haven’t even gotten into how Mama Petrelli dream-predicts her way out of trouble, eluding every ambush set up by Denko’s men while still passing orders off to Bennet and reuniting with her youngest son. You’d think that after Sylar left him a puppet master in his apartment (I assume it was Sylar, since he’s the last one seen breaking into and entering said apartment), Denko would have other things to worry about than Angela. But Bryan Fuller would like you to know that Mama Petrelli is still sufficiently troublesome to warrant the Super Gitmo Action Squad’s full attention. Awesome.

Bryan Fuller: rescuing your shows at the expense of his own. (Aww.)

Never miss an update. Subscribe to Pink Raygun by Email or subscribe via RSS

About TrinityVixen: There’s an asterisk on TrinityVixen’scollege transcript that assures anyone who reads it that, though there is no specific major, degree, or certificate for it, she did, in fact, complete some kind of creative writing program as an undergrad. Armed with that symbol of irrelevant experience, she has polluted the internet with her opinions and horrible fanworks ever since (and for quite a long while before). Living poor in New York until she finds a means to become independently wealthy, she must subsist on the juicy meat of fandom. Fandom and noodles. And instant soup.