Heroes: Tabula Rasa

By TrinityVixen

Okay, so there is some limit to Robert Knepper’s skills: he can’t read the hyperbolic opening monologue convincingly. To be fair, not even the unparalleled Patrick Stewart, with his dulcet British inflections, could possibly make any of this drivel easier to stomach. At least it’s not Mohinder talking about “science.” Samuel muses on identity, the search for truth, good versus evil—you know, the little things. He also name-drops the episode title. Color me surprised that “Tabula Rasa” hadn’t come up during one of the many do-overs of the last two volumes.

Volume Five, Chapter Five – “Tabula Rasa”

Anyway, blank slates. Samuel is cutely disappointed that the Big Bad Sylar…isn’t. He and Lydia observe Sylar moping about the Carnival, both of them equally in lust—Samuel with the idea of having Sylar in his posse, Lydia just wanting to jump his bones. Lydia and Samuel switch off shepherding Sylar through the Carnival’s commune lifestyle, trying to jog his memories. Unfortunately, only Nathan’s memories pop up; Sylar even wants to be addressed as “Nathan.” Samuel pisses all over every Nathan-memory that Sylar comes up with. Samuel’s preference for Sylar over Nathan, personality-wise, must be inversely proportionate to how much he actually knows about Sylar. He knows enough of rumors to understand that Sylar is fearsome and powerful, but I’m guessing he glossed over the bits about how not-well he plays with other supers.

Edgar, to his credit, isn’t fooled. Perhaps he has a separate source for intel on Sylar, but he is justifiably hostile about Sylar becoming one of the Carnival folk. Okay, okay, a lot of that stems from petty jealousy; Sylar seems to be monopolizing Lydia’s affections and he can also kick Edgar’s ass. Ever the manipulator, Samuel indulges Edgar’s possessive posturing, hoping that Edgar’s bravado might awaken Sylar’s baser nature. When that also fails to override Sylar’s reprogramming, Samuel decides that more dramatic means are necessary.

Alas, this leads us to more of Zachary Quinto’s dinner-theater overacting. One of the Carnival folk has an ability to waken the memories of the body. To be fair, humans do have a proprioceptive sense that operates independently of memory that might be what Samuel is talking about. Of course, give this show an inch, and it’ll circle the globe, so the end result looks nothing like the actual biological concept. (Quel surprise.) The “memory retrieval” amounts to sticking Sylar in a house of mirrors where he envisions all the murders he committed in that life he still cannot remember. This confrontation with Sylar of old is neither inventive nor well executed (the CGI that plays the memories on the mirrors is some of the worst yet for this show), to say nothing of the acting. No, really, the less you say about it, the better.

Sylar emerges from the funhouse gagging and whining, at which point Samuel all but loses his s***, which is oh-so-much fun to watch. Samuel wants fierce Sylar, and he wants him now. Like Angela and Arthur Petrelli before him, Samuel accuses the wicked world of having created a monster like Sylar. Maybe he picked up on that from his muscle memory, but Sylar calls BS on this excuse. “That makes it okay?” Sylar scoffs. “It makes it the TRUTH,” Samuel counters, AWESOMELY. Are you going to cry for the rest of your life about your mommy? Huh? Like a little baby? Or are you going to own your badass self and your mighty repertoire of abilities and refuse to be sorry that it makes you better than the world that doesn’t like you very much? I can hardly follow where Samuel is going with this, which is probably the point. Sylar looks so utterly perplexed but entirely sold on the redemptive idea of being a murderer for good. Samuel promises he can be a murdering bastard and still have a home in the Carnival—so long as that murdering is to protect the Carnival folk against the outsiders. “Family accepts. Family forgives.” To a boy bounced between no less than three families in his short lifetime, Samuel’s promise of eyes-open, faults-embracing familial loyalty must seem like heaven.

Samuel’s speech is so deftly puzzling in its twisted logic that Sylar goes from vomiting with horror over a few dozen murders to tacitly agreeing to perform another by the time it’s over. If Sylar wants to be a member of the family and to protect it, he has to deal with Detective Ernie Hudson. Not that Samuel would be as crass as to say as much directly. He’s just laid out the one hitch in Sylar’s otherwise smooth course to becoming one of the Carnival folk. He also happens to have invited Detective Ernie Hudson to the Carnival. What a crazy coincidence! Everything’s a test with Samuel. I absolutely adore that about him. In bed with monsters and madmen, but so particular about making sure they wipe their feet before coming inside. Love it.

Know what I don’t love? This show’s abysmal record when it comes to its non-white characters. Lisa covered some of this already, but I have to add my two cents. I was looking at the cover of the newly released Heroes: An Insider’s Guide to the Award-Winning Show today. What immediately struck me was how many non-white characters there were in season one, from whence the front cover picture dates. Simone Deveaux, Isaac Mendez, D.L. Hawkins, Micah Sanders, Mohinder Suresh, Hiro Nakamura—all of them influenced the plot and were significant in their own right. To date, two are even still alive, and one of them (Mohinder) is still M.I.A. six episodes into this volume. (Note that despite Nathan dying—twice—and both Niki and Jessica being written out, both Adrian Pasdar and Ali Larter are still on this show, as are all the white characters from that same picture.) It gets more depressing when you consider the plethora of supporting/leading non-white characters that’ve been killed/written off the show since. Maya and Alejandro, Micah’s cousin Monica, supervillain Knox, supervictim Vortex-guy, Kaito Nakamura…the list goes on and on. And now, Detective Ernie Hudson. Heroes, you are so far beyond being on notice, you’re making Supernatural look good when it comes to not immediately vilifying or killing off your characters of color.

Ahem. Back to the Sylar story. Although Sylar edges up to the line, he fails to dispatch Detective Ernie Hudson. Edgar, having caught character continuity amnesia (typical for any character stuck on this show longer than one episode), seems to have forgotten that he wants to stop murdering people on Samuel’s orders. Perhaps he wishes to embarrass Samuel by proving his new sheep isn’t a worthy addition. Whatever Edgar’s reason, it is he, not Sylar, who kills Detective Ernie Hudson. There go my dreams of his being a repeat guest star for the season (sigh).

Despite the fact that Detective Ernie Hudson didn’t come to the Carnival alone and that he’s a police officer, his death somehow means that Sylar is now no longer being hunted. No one will ever come looking for Detective Ernie Hudson and no investigation will be launched into the Carnival over his disappearance. Nope. Heroes does not understand our Earth logic. Sylar is literally baptized as being one of the family even though Edgar did his one and only chore so far. Edgar voices his doubts about Sylar’s usefulness to get Samuel’s goat. Samuel shrugs this off with a smile directed at Lydia, who needs no prompting to dance away with Sylar at her heels. Samuel always gets what he wants, Edgar, not so much. I come out about even—this entire plot line allowed Samuel to be fabulous, but to get that much, I had to endure a lot of sub-drama-club acting and yet another woman throwing herself at Sylar. (If the previews for next week are any indication, she won’t be the only one. Joy.)

I wish I could say as much for the rest of the episode. Peter brings Hiro to the hospital, where he can be adorable as he dies. Because there’s nothing infantilizing at all about a man teaching a hysterical woman into controlling herself, we must endure a plotline wherein in Hiro teaches Emma to loosen up and enjoy her ability. Lo and behold, once she has a man’s permission to do so, she totally can! Flush off this success, Hiro (and, presumably, the writers) remember Charlie, his season one crush who also had an inoperable deadly brain tumor. What Hiro fails to remember is the thousand-odd attempts he made to save her life back in season one. Why can’t he remember how heartbroken he was about that? Must be the tumor. Tumor did it! Tabula rasa! This had better lead to Hiro discovering that tumors are a not-infrequent side-effect of having superpowers or so help me….

Hiro pops out to save Charlie just as Peter returns with a healing power to save his life. I hope Peter chews his chipmunk ass off when he gets back. To get a healing power, Peter had to borrow Hiro’s teleportation, pick up Noah Bennet, and track down a teenaged super that Mr. B tagged and released a long time ago. That’s a lot of work before you consider that said teenaged healer punches a hole in Peter’s chest with a shotgun in the process.

Healer-teen’s power has its dark side, giving lie to Hiro’s line to Emma about how “there are no bad powers.” (This is an amazing statement to make given the existence of Radioactive Ted from Volume One or X-Files Eyes Maya from Volume Two. To say nothing of Sylar’s “the hunger made me do it” ability.) Turns out what powers giveth they can also taketh away; Healer-teen becomes Reaper-teen with a single mood swing. Though thoroughly traumatized after killing his parents by accident, the kid only wants to keep other people away (and thus safe from his power), hence the shotgun. His otherwise admirable instinct to preserve life as best he can is, of course, thwarted by Peter’s misguided attempt at heroism. Peter teleports in to prevent a shooting that wasn’t going to happen otherwise. For all that Peter’s an idiot here, it is a genius bit of staging. Peter thinks he’s saved Mr. Bennet but after a second he recognizes that he froze the scene too late: there’s a huge chunk of his chest flying away from his body, frozen in time only until Peter collapses. Healer-teen needs a confidence boost from Mr. Bennet before he believes he can save Peter’s life. He does, Peter steals his power, and legs it back to New York only to find that Hiro’s run out on him, making that whole almost dying thing a complete waste of his time in addition to being needlessly traumatic. I guess the upside for Peter is that his new ability makes him officially the best paramedic ever, even if he can’t cover three shifts at once any more.

Next week, stay tuned for some Sorority Row antics with Claire and her new sisters and some exceedingly disturbing sex scenes wherein Zachary Quinto will be forced to pretend he has chemistry with women as he takes over Matt’s body mid-making-out with Janice. I remember falling for Quinto in season one when he was drooling megalomaniacal psychopath. So how is it that when he’s naked and making with the sex he’s less appealing? It boggles. (It also makes me want to blow chunks.)

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.

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