Heroes Volume 5: Redemption

By TrinityVixen

Double-headers for season premieres are hit or miss. Two hours gives you plenty of room to make a run at something spectacular, but the audience expects a pay-off. That means if you blow your wad on the first hour and return to business as usual for the second, you pretty much kill all the interest you worked so hard to earn. In other words, the new faces are, for once, most welcome additions, but Heroes’ greatest weakness continues to be itself. Welcome back.

Volume Five – “Redemption”

Chapters 1 and 2: “Orientation” and “Jump, Push, Fall”

It should surprise no one watching at this point that no matter what twist Heroes pretends to roll out, it will, because of contractual and imaginary obligations, always return to the Petrellis, the Bennets, and Sylar. In fact, when the faces of the most important people are revealed to the new manipulative super on the block, no one should be surprised that those faces belong to Hiro, Claire, Sylar, and Peter. In case, you know, you’d forgotten about the quartet of ungodly powerful super-beings who have between them dominated fully ninety-nine percent of the story so far.

But let’s start with Samuel, because hot damn, Samuel. Samuel, the malevolent carny ringmaster, looks like an undead glam rocker; speaks with a voice smoother than silk; and can perpetrate finessed naughtiness with an ease Satan would envy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Robert Knepper. Who, curiously enough, was attached to another show about a circus that was not what it seemed. If you are skeptical about the impact he can have on a failing show, I would point out that this would not even be the first time that he loaned his not inconsiderable talents to a show that was beneath his ability. There’s no denying that he’s an odd-looking cat, but that hasn’t stopped Michael Emerson from winning an Emmy, has it? And it adds to his inner magnetism, that seething power he unleashes from within without ever scaling the wall of “over the top” in his performances. (Love you, Zachary Quinto, but you could use some lessons.) You want to pay attention to what Robert Knepper can do with his character.

Samuel comes to us at a time of mourning, of death and rebirth. He has lost his brother, Joseph, but found his purpose. (And there’s a compass spinning in his hand just in case you didn’t get the metaphor.) I had to watch this scene several times through just to be able to do more than fall into a sighing heap listening to Robert Knepper purr words of self-comfort and reassurance. He wants to bring the rest of the supers to the sort of poor man’s peace that he and his assembled freaks enjoy. Because it’s Robert Knepper and because he is too slick by half to be for real, this is obviously him staking his claim on the title of Magnificent Bastard of Volume Five. Samuel drops the compass in with his brother (in the crowd of mourners, another man strokes a similar compass while a woman wipes at genuine tears) and closes the ground over the coffin with a wave of his hand. Samuel is an earthmover. Boy, is he ever.

Alas, we miss out on some fabulous crazy eyes that belie his tender speech about the need for family and unity when we cut away to scenes of the heroes in their glory and misery, most of which are from season one. There are a couple of new flashes which we’ll investigate in the two hours ahead—Mr. Bennet playing with his wedding ring as he is now swinging single; Claire toting a box of stuff to college; Peter riding shotgun in an ambulance as an EMT; Matt Parkman playing with his son—and one I couldn’t place for the life of me: if anyone knows what the scene of a bearded, bedraggled, bemused Sylar, emerging from the woods in a dirty gray sweatshirt, shot full of holes, is about, please let me know. (Is it a dramatic re-envisioning of Sylar being ripped apart and buried inside of Nathan during the last volume’s finale?)

We say goodbye to Samuel and his ominous promise of togetherness (no matter what) to follow after one of those flashes as Claire finds her dorm at college. She’s carrying a box that wouldn’t fit my leavings at my desk, much less all she’ll need for a year of school as she steps inside her new digs. Her roommate is Annie, a girl who measures out the creases in her bed sheets with a ruler. Annie is ready to be insta-BFFs with Claire until Claire mentions she got into Unknown University with a GED and a good essay. Annie’s plans for Annie’s Future do not include going to a school that let such riff-raff in; only when Claire tells her a comforting half-truth (Mr. Bennet did work for the government, to be fair) does Annie delay her oncoming psychotic break by dismissing Claire as a charity case. Unknown University: still exclusive enough for Annie. Off they go to try to get into Linear Algebra even though Claire hasn’t taken a lick of Calculus. Guess how well that goes!

The only real dead-fish plot thread of the first hour involves Hiro and Ando’s “Dial a Hero” plotline, wherein Hiro has learned exactly nothing about not running face first into the brick wall of his desire to be a comic book hero. Kimiko, his long-suffering, business-competent sister seems to be nominally in charge (even though Kaito Nakamura left his company to his son) while Hiro plays the professional idiot. She shows up, as most women do on this show, to be the bully and the love interest; she only shows up to tell Hiro off for wasting time and money and so that Ando can bemoan the fact that one freak accident when they were pre-teens caused her to hate him forever. Even though he loooooves her. Previously, Ando had a slight crush on Kimiko. Two-three seasons ago. When last they interacted at all. So obviously it’s love. Isn’t that how it was for Peter and what’s-her-face? The dead girlfriend in season one?

Speaking of Peter, he’s…not sucking? (I know. I’m scared, too.) Some time during the hiatus, Peter borrowed Mohinder’s superfly ability in order to be a better, more life-saving EMT. His obsession with saving people is both desperate and sad—he’s keeping track of the people he’s rescued without ever talking to them so they can thank him in person. His partner’s obsession with Peter’s heroism issues is very sweetly and overtly homoerotic; pity the poor man, he doesn’t know about (pseudo-) Nathan.

“Nathan” is having issues and causing them left, right and center. Mr. Bennet and Angela Petrelli are at each other’s throats over their dirty deed, and Matt Parkman is having nothing to do with either of them, or his ability to read and manipulate minds, because of what he helped them to do. That’s three people miserable—four, if you count the Sylar lurking in Matt’s head, driving him crazy and demanding his body back—all because of “Nathan.” For his part, “Nathan” feels awesome, thank-you-so-much. He’s riding the high of Sylar’s innate “I can be a better, different person—why is that freaking you out?” self-love. Of course, because he is partially Nathan, self-loathing and self-doubt resurfaces in a hurry when he discovers a few powers that he couldn’t possibly have. Plus, Peter won’t return his calls. (They’re on a time-out.)

It’s just one problem after another for the heroes. Tracy is trying to kill Mr. Bennet, which leads to Emil Danko, her other target, reappearing and proposing they hunt her down together. Claire’s only friend, Gretchen, has stalkerish tendencies that read as a slow-burn version of her roommate’s high-pitched desperation to be liked. Hiro gets himself frozen in time when he uses his powers on a Dial a Hero run, which leads him to confess to Ando that he is dying. Matt is back with Janice and being a jealous creep and did I mention the Bennets divorced? My God, the world is ending.

Quick, back to the Carnival! A too-skinny-to-be-believed, fancifully tattooed woman removes her shirt to sit for Samuel. He pokes her back with a needle and the ink forms into the least flattering portrait of Danko ever. As Samuel absorbs the information from the woman, who appears to be clairvoyant (she gives Samuel Danko’s name), Ray Park sidles up to Samuel’s tent. Ray Park is infamous for his non-speaking roles such as Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and, more recently, as Snake Eyes in the lamentable G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra. So it is with great joy that he is allowed to speak, in his natural English accent (so cute!) for this series. Much is the love. Give Ray Park your love, nerds!

Ray Park is Edgar, the reluctant assassin, the tool that Samuel will use to extract revenge on Emil Danko. (Can’t imagine what Danko could have done to deserve that.) Edgar mewls about how he wants the redemption Samuel promised in his eulogy. Samuel, in the style of great manipulators everywhere, attempts to rally Edgar’s spirits with platitudes about the outrages that Danko perpetrated on their kind, but Edgar is unenthused about killing outside of absolute necessity. It doesn’t help that Samuel’s argument boils down to “They started it.”

In addition to killing Danko, Edgar is to retrieve yet another compass. It’s what poor, dead, Joseph would have wanted, to which Edgar, rightfully, says, “Sucks for him that he’s dead then, huh?” Samuel breaks, only slightly, jamming the tattoo ink-stick into Edgar’s skin and watching as the ink forms into a hand that moves to Edgar’s throat and strangles him. Not sure if the tattoo clairvoyant (Lydia) is physically responsible for this display of power (she did seem to be the one in charge of the image at first), but whether the choking happens by her hand or not, the orders are coming from Samuel whom she unreservedly supports. With an honest (and yet simultaneously non-remorseful) apology, Samuel releases Edgar with a promise never to force him to kill again. I am sure he is as good as his word.

That makes two people gunning for Emil Danko’s head (which the Haitian erases on Mr. Bennet’s orders). Just as Tracy comes to collect, Edgar shows up to slice Danko apart. Edgar, a super-speeder like Daphne, makes short work of Danko but has some trouble with Tracy who is not only intangible as necessary but able to fight back with some ice. Edgar makes a strategic retreat, which is a mercy because his CGI-assisted assault on Tracy was for the birds. Seriously, show, you have Ray Park and that’s the best you could do with his crazy skillz of a ninja!? Edgar’s ability means they fudge a lot of the action, showing more than we saw of Daphne speeding, but less than we’d see if Edgar moved in real time. Ray Park can be awesome in real time. LET HIM.

Oh well, at least that’s the end of Danko. And Annie! Claire returns from the party (where she brutally snubbed her roommate’s superior gaming ability to rock out, badly, with Gretchen) to find the windows open. Because Annie stepped off that ledge, my friends. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer Stepford child. (She actually uttered the words “I’m solid at Guitar Hero 3, so consider yourself served.” She had it coming.) Annie’s death is significant for two things: one, it’s taken out a superfluous caricature who was better parodied on Buffy; and two, it marks the turning point of this premiere from the promising to the predictably overwrought.

Hiro, fresh from making his anvil-laden comments about never changing the past again, is sucked back in time to that fateful evening where Ando’s chances of scoring with his sister were ruined forever. He’s in the Carnival, fourteen years ago, when the Carnival apparently had the deep pockets to pay to transport all the performers and their gear to Japan. As Hiro stumbles around the past trying not to alter the future, Lydia reveals his face via a tattoo to Samuel in the present. Samuel enlists the ability of a sickly, old Carnival denizen to jump back in time to meet up with Hiro and tempt him into sinning, just this one last time.

Samuel should just show up in everybody’s weak-ass story lines to tempt them into doing the things they’d end up doing out of stupidity or narrative necessity anyway. Hiro is hyperventilating about not crushing any butterflies, and along comes Samuel to be his beeeeeeest friend. Samuel listens as Hiro twists himself into anxious knots about how you can’t change the past, it’s wrong, wrong, wrong, and immediately counters with, “Actually, you can.” We enjoy another visual reaffirmation of the heady philosophy being discussed when Samuel knocks a milk bottle out from the middle of a pyramid without toppling the others. I would think that would prove only that the Carnival’s games are rigged, not that altering the past doesn’t have to change everything in the future, but that’s just me, I guess. To really prove his point, Samuel shoves Hiro into position so that he might rescue his teenage sister from the unfortunate accident that left her forever after allergic to Ando. Hiro returns to the future where his best friend and his sister are romantically entangled, yet everything else is the same. Meaning he’s still dying. Yatta?

It’s all downhill from here. Everyone returns to form. Matt Parkman, who had no right to barge back in on his ex-wife’s life last season, has made her home his own, right down to being jealous and possessive of her and his son. Wait, wasn’t he on the national news as a terrorist? How did he just go back to a normal life? Whatever, Matt’s story is so disgustingly, transparently about his insecurities about Janice. He’s threatened by her having a friendship with her deliveryman to the point where he demands that she be known as “Mrs. Parkman” not “Janice” to the help. Yeah, that’s not controlling or anything, Matt.

True, he’s being egged on by mind-Sylar, whose antics provoke Matt such that he starts shouting at the invisible serial killer in his head. His coworkers start giving him the hairy eyeball even more than they have a right to do because he’s in some group for addict cops. Mind-Sylar taunts Matt about how he will, inevitably, slip up and use his ability to manipulate someone. How does Matt eventually slip up? By mind-bending the too-attractive-and-friendly-for-his-own-good delivery boy into staying away from his wife. He could actually use his power for good, to do his job (in fact, that’s exactly what mind-Sylar suggests that he do), but in the end it’s all about marking territory and keeping competing males away from the once-unfaithful Janice. And mind-Sylar triumphing over the weak, inferior Matt.

Wait, mind-Sylar manipulates Matt into being bad and cackles evilly about it? Get out of town! Next, I’m going to say that Claire does something stupid to expose her ability to a total stranger. Oh, wait, she does. When her roommate’s heretofore absent suicide note just pops into a detective’s hands, Claire smells a cover-up. Bestest-bud Gretchen is ready to solve the case—with science! It should really embarrass Mohinder that Gretchen’s ghoulish forensics hobby has more grounding in scientific reality than any of his “research.” She provides Claire with a three-point test to determine how Annie went out the window: you can tell if she jumped, was pushed, or simply fell by how far her body was from the window. Psyched that Claire is impressed by this information (didn’t call the cops to have her questioned about her whereabouts on the night Annie was definitely not okay), Gretchen proposes that they get a corpse and try recreating the fall. Claire dismisses that idea as nuts and then promptly makes an experimental fall out of her dorm window to test Gretchen’s theory. Just as she determines that Annie was a suicide (and thus making her a dead-end plot and the suicide note of questionable provenance a red herring), Claire looks up to see Gretchen waving at her from the window. You better believe she saw Claire shove those ribs back under her skin. Oh noes! Gretchen knows her secret! So much for that normal life Claire wanted! (Again!)

Then I’m forced to watch Peter Petrelli out badass Ray Park. As if. Mr. Bennet recruits Peter to protect him as he goes to retrieve the compass from Emil Danko’s safety deposit box. Edgar had left the key behind when Tracy interrupted him murdering Danko. So not only did Edgar not secure the key, but Peter fights him to a standstill. Peter’s absorption of the super-speed ability somehow enables him to compete with a guy who juggles knives for a living. Right.

It’s irrelevant as this is all a waste of time, stretched out to fill the hour. Peter can’t protect Bennet all the time and doesn’t even care to try. Interfering with Edgar’s mission got more people stabbed, so Peter figures, why not just let him have the stupid compass? I agree with Peter. Is the sky falling yet? Peter was only there to steal Edgar’s ability for use in his EMT work. As soon as Peter’s out of the picture, Edgar picks off Bennet and reclaims the compass for Samuel. Waste. Of. Time.

Tracy shows up to visit Bennet in the hospital and reiterates the idea that maybe Bennet has no goddamned idea what the compass is all about and maybe Edgar and his folk are just desperate but not necessarily bad people. She is, of course, rewriting this story to be all about her. Tracy talks a lot about how she only brutally murdered Danko’s men because she was “trying to get her life back.” Murder or no, there was no way she was getting her life back. She still chose murder, and she enjoyed it. She has none of the class, self-awareness, or guile to state the uncomfortable truth as Samuel does: this is about revenge. You don’t get to delight in killing a person and taking revenge and then get to pretend you’re just a confused soul, crying out for help. (Unless you’re any character played by Ali Larter on this show.)

Whatever. Tracy and Bennet mutually agree to forget that Edgar tried to murder both of them and write off Danko as no big loss anyhow and decide they should try and help the poor, misunderstood super-speed assassin and his Carnival kin. No really, that’s what they work out. Tracy is number one of the Company 2.0’s Most Wanted List, who was, until she and Bennet both had matching aneurysms, targeted for removal to wherever they’re building the new Level Five. Now, she and Bennet are ready to start an outreach program with the Carnival crowd even though their sole interaction with Edgar involved him murdering up the joint. Because that makes sense. For this show, it does.

In the closing scene, Samuel and Edgar trade stories about their respective adventures messing around with the clueless heroes. Edgar is a bit testy, justifiably considering the errand Samuel sent him on, and he tries to provoke Samuel by asking derisive questions about the new recruit to the Carnival, calling Hiro a “replacement” for the ailing super who sent Samuel to the past and mistaking Hiro as Chinese. Samuel refuses to be baited, tut-tutting about how he would never replace a family member. He does not subtract from his second family, he adds to it. Case in point, Samuel is keen to learn more about the empath (Peter) that tussled with Edgar, perhaps because Peter’s face is among the three that resolve on Lydia’s tattoos, along with Claire and Sylar. Yeah, I mentioned this was coming, right? It’s still powerfully lame.

And there you have it. Despite the captivating performances of Robert Knepper and Ray Park and the innovative idea to introduce people with abilities who can use their powers openly (who are nonetheless protected against discovery by dint of working in a career premised on illusion), Heroes remains lodged in the tropes it fashioned into ruts. What little good will the Carnival, Samuel, and Edgar bought the show in the first hour was squandered on the lather, rinse, repeat antics of volumes past. I hold out hope only that I might continue to be entertained by Samuel and Edgar and the burgeoning rivalry between them, but I remain unconvinced, after three volumes of trying to get back to square (and season) one, that Heroes is going anywhere worth visiting this time around.

(Also? Way to let the entire “Nathan” plotline twist in the wind for the entire second half of the premiere, show. For all we know, he’s reverted entirely to Sylar while we were busy watching Matt Parkman be an insecure, sexist bastard. Who on this show has it in for Adrian Pasdar? Give the man some screen time!)

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.