Heroes: Thanksgiving

By TrinityVixen
I am thankful that this week’s episode, unlike the rest of the commercial world at large, is making an effort to recognize that there is an American holiday between Halloween and Christmas. Time to find out what all these heroes have to be thankful for—aside from, you know, having amazing super powers.

Volume Five, Chapter Ten – “Thanksgiving”

The Bennets are thankful that, despite the fact they’ve gone in different directions and cannot agree on one blessed thing, they can still sit down for a meal together. Everyone brings their new significant others: Sandra (missed her sooo much) brings her obviously gay boyfriend, Doug; Mr. Bennet invites Lady Law & Order, figuring that trying to date her is better than stalking her (oh no, Mr. B, not you too!); and Claire gets Gretchen. Even Mr. Muggles has a date. Everyone gripes, snipes, mocks and demeans one another, which means they’re all family. So even though Sandra is super bitter and baldly talking about Mr. B’s former life and Claire’s carving herself instead of the turkey, everyone leaves with their memories intact. God Bless Us, Every One. (Oops, wrong holiday.) I’m sure this feeling of harmony will last even after Mr. B figures out that Claire stole his Carny compass to take on a road trip with Gretchen. I can’t see how that could end badly.

The Petrellis are thankful they’re still alive at the end of their dinner. Mama P manically demands they celebrate Thanksgiving at Peter’s apartment, as supposedly they do every year. I’d sooner buy the Bennet reunion ending happily than I would the idea that the nest of vipers that is the Petrelli clan sits down to Thanksgiving together ever, much less annually. “Nathan” and Peter are barrels of laughs, too, since the former seems to have drunk himself unconscious the day before (because that is a good plan when Sylar’s loose in your head) and the latter spent the entire time giving “Nathan” the hairy eyeball while he slept. Eventually, Mama P gets her dinner and the boys get the answers they demand. Mama P is contrite and sorrowful, and Christine Rose sells the hell out of her part.

God forbid Zachary Quinto be upstaged by a grande dame like Christine Rose, though. Sylar comes out again, forces Peter and Mama P to sit and watch while he shovels disgusting amounts of food into his face. It’s as physically repulsive as his monologue-ing is metaphorically repulsive. Sylar goes on about how eeeeevil Mama P is because she forced her dead son’s mind into his body and tried to pass “Nathan” off as Nathan. Whatever, dude, Christine Rose rocked the desperate and lonely-in-her-loss attitude and you’re chewing scenery with less grace than you are eating in this scene. Sylar goes to debrain Mama P; Nathan stops him from within and regains control of the body. Because it’s Nathan, he flies off again, horrified—horrified!—by what a monster he’s become! (Again.) He has Manpain! Nobody understands the depths of his sorrows!

Peter stays behind to tend to and to assure his mother that he’ll find his brother, even if he runs the risk of encountering Sylar instead. He wants his brother alive more than anything else. Really, Peter? Did all that thinking in the episodes prior to this and last week burn out the fuses or what? For the last time, Peter, show, universe: Nathan Petrelli is DEAD. Matt couldn’t contain Sylar. Sylar couldn’t contain Sylar. What the hell makes anyone think that Nathan “Super Gitmo Sounds Like A Great Idea” Petrelli is going to fare any better? It’s time to just cut the cord and let Nathan go. And while we’re at it, perhaps we can mercy-kill Sylar? It would be a mercy not only for Zachary Quinto but for the audience as well. Something to be thankful of in advance.

And we give our last thanks for the Carnival. Even though it’s been fairly obvious that Joseph met an untimely end at Samuel’s hands for a while now, we finally see how it all played out. Hiro, despairing that Samuel will not return Charlie as he promised, turns to Lydia to complain. Lydia is confused when Hiro says he fixed the past because she expected that Samuel would only monkey with time in order to bring Joseph back. Here they are, eight weeks later, and Joseph is still pushing up the daisies. Hiro takes Lydia with him as they jump back to eight weeks ago to follow the events that ensued after a Mohinder-wrench was thrown into Joseph’s plans. Samuel doesn’t stop Joseph’s murderer because Samuel is the murderer.

Whatever the predictability of this set up, the performance is still superb, the give-and-take between the brothers generating the kind of delicate drama that makes the Petrelli Thanksgiving seem more suited to a soap opera. Samuel is angry that his brother has lied to him, manipulated him (oh the irony!). Joseph is so, so sad because whether or not Samuel ever sees that blasted film reel (nice going, Mohinder), they can’t keep on as they have. To keep Samuel from learning anything more than he already has, Joseph has committed a deeper betrayal: he has given a compass to the Super Gitmo Action Squad. The compasses appear to be the only means to find the Carnival, and Joseph gave one the SGAS so they can come and take Samuel away. Joseph, to his credit, is sickened with himself for having to resort to this, no less because it imperils his peaceable Carnies (whom the SGAS probably would not spare once they were done with Samuel) than because it would mean he’d lose his brother forever. Samuel strikes out at Joseph in fear as much as anger and utterly dissolves into anguish when he realizes what he’s done. No matter what else happens, I believe that Samuel truly regretted, as Joseph did, harming his brother.

That doesn’t stop Samuel from framing Edgar for the murder. Hiro and Lydia confide in him the truth about Joseph’s death. Edgar, being a hothead, promptly accuses Samuel of the murder at Thanksgiving dinner (how rude!) just as Samuel is throwing a reciprocal accusation right back at him. Hiro freezes time just before Edgar gets a dirt-bullet lodged into his head, too but stops Edgar from killing Samuel. Hiro must protect Samuel because he needs him to find Charlie, and to do that, he needs Edgar to run and leave Samuel alone. For now. Edgar does so, promising to return, which Hiro accepts: when he has what he wants, Edgar can avenge Joseph’s murder. Because Edgar flees, he is guilty. The Carnies immediately close ranks around Samuel.

Samuel, however, is not fooled. He knows Hiro had a hand in a) someone knowing what he’d done, and b) helping Edgar escape. To Hiro’s credit, he refuses to be cowed by Samuel; he recognizes that Samuel needs him, and he tries to gain some leverage by pointing that out. Samuel scoffs at this and has his muscle-memory friend scramble Hiro’s brain. Muscle-memory dude does too good a job. We see flashes of Hiro’s lame quests from this season before he disappears after burbling nonsense. This was not the result Samuel expected, though, as ever, it is hard to tell how much, exactly, this will mess up his plans within plans. My guess: not a lot.

Next week: The last episode of this year. I’ll be giving Heroes its mid-season report card. I’m thinking a parent-teacher conference (or, in this case, a writer-reviewer conference) might be in order.

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.