Heroes: Fallout

Spoiler warning...







Man, all I can say is the writers better not be writing checks the production budget can't cash. When precognitive-painter Isaac finally discovers he can illustrate the future without being high, the result is a dramatic painting of Hiro facing off against a Tyrannosaur armed only with his infamous future sword. "I gotta find that sword," (and "What if I step on a bug?" yeah, I missed one on first pass) is Hiro's only response. Priceless!

The episode overall was several notches above last week's lethargic "Six Months Earlier." My only complaint was that the scenes struck me a very choppy and abbreviated--as if there was a whole lot of plot to cram in before the winter hiatus and not enough minutes to fit it all. It was jarring at times, all the quick-cutting to different plot lines, but not enough to derail the episode.

Who else knew it would all end badly for Eden once she suggested to Jack Bennet they go ahead and off Sylar--aka Amazo--in defiance of orders from higher up? 'Tis a pity, though, because Eden was just starting to get interesting as a character. But Sylar's escape does raise a troubling question: If his prison cell was designed to dampen all of his powers, why was he able to use his telekinesis to smash Eden through the window? Were his powers unaffected by the cell, and he was just playing possum to get a crack at Eden and her abilities? Or was this a "chink in the armor" escape, as played out with Magneto in the X-Men 2 movie? I suspect the writers were trying for the latter, because the visual allusions were too obvious to miss, but if there was any logical basis for the escape, that I did miss.

The whole Niki/Jessica thing? Still waiting for real evidence this is actually a power and not some extreme personality disorder. Yeah, her reinterpretation of the Gollum/Smeagol scene from Peter Jackson's The Two Towers was neat, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. Been there, done that. At least in the otherwise mediocre Superman III, Clark Kent and Superman smacked each other around.

So the Haitian actually can talk, and isn't going to ego-boogie the regenerating cheerleader. Obviously, there's another conspiracy going on below the surface--one wonders if he's part of the Secret Society of Super-Villains, looking to recruit Claire as well as Sylar. I don't understand why he hasn't paid a visit to Peter Petrelli yet, however, to wipe his mind. It's implied (at least, that's my take on it) that he already wiped Nathan Petrelli's mind, seeing how Nathan's demeanor toward his brother changed so radically between their first scene together and the last. But I may just be reading more into it than there actually is.

And Peter... wow. The telepathy feedback between him and what's-his-name from Alias was very well played. Very well, indeed. Those are the deft touches that I love about Heroes, that I felt was in short supply last week. And these bizarre dreamtime, prophetic visions Peter's having, what's up with that? They're not the same as Hiro's ability, not the same as Isaac's. It's as if the various powers that Peter's briefly taken on leave behind a remnant that comes into conflict with other remnants. And since Peter's come into conflict with Sylar, who permanently acquires others' powers, one has to wonder if Peter's abilities have developed a bit more permanence. If nothing else, he's got a Harry/Voldemort connection established with Sylar. The biggest bombshell of the episode, however, was his future vision of himself going boom in a nuclear blast. The surreal presentation of the scene makes it clear (at least to me) that it isn't literal, like Hiro's jumps through time, or Isaac's illustrations of certain scenes, but it contains at least a metaphorical or symbolic truth. Peter comes into contact with the unstable Fallout-boy at some point--or perhaps Sylar does and Peter crosses him again--and the ultimate results are very bad for Peter. Or perhaps Peter never gains Fallout-boy's powers, instead suffering a critical overload from all the others' abilities he's absorbed. The only thing I'm sure of is that it's going to suck big-time waiting two months for the next episode to air.

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