HEROES: Parasite

After my complaints of a rash of filler episodes, Heroes has really turned it up a notch these past two weeks. I missed last week's episode, "Company Man," but fortunately was able to watch the archived version on the NBC website (yay for that!) and have to say that was probably the best episode of the run thus far. I normally criticize the show mercilessly for aping Lost, but "Company Man" used the flachback-interspersed-plot to perfection, filling the viewer in on a great deal of backstory while actually advancing the narrative. A good number of things that seemed half-assed before from previous episodes suddenly started making a lot more sense (not that I believe all of these elements were introduced with such foresight--I suspect the writers of "Company Man" took great pains to integrate all that had come before, and kudos to them for their efforts).

So normally with Heroes, a really good episode is followed up by one which narratively treads water. Except not this time. "Parasite" moves things forward in impressive fashion, and several subplots come to a head. Hiro finally gets his sword, and is reunited with Ando. Hiro does get his powers back when he obtains the sword, and the duo escape from Linderman's goons into the future, and discover New York City remains a devastated wasteland. Cheerleader Claire, fleeing the X-Files conspiracy front paper company, ditches the Haitian and hightails it to Peter Petrelli's, only to be confronted by Petrelli's mother and the Haitian. Petrelli's mother apparently knows far more about the super powered goings-on than previously suspected. Petrelli, for his part, tries to pull off a sting of Linderman in Las Vegas, but psycho Jessica kills his FBI handlers, leaving him high and dry. Nikki, apparently reasserting her control over her body for brief periods, warns Petrelli off, but Petrelli decides to kill Linderman instead. Linderman himself, played smoothly by Malcolm McDowell (brilliant casting) instead tempts Petrelli with knowledge of all the super power manifestations occurring, plus promises him the vice presidency of the United States within a couple of years. The junkie painter falls off the wagon after killing his former girlfriend, shoots up, and paints himself with his skull sliced open, which ties in with Sylar learning his address earlier in the episode. And as for Sylar, man. Mohinder "Boy Genius" Suresh puzzles out his evil identity, and nails the super-killer big time. But in true overconfident Lex Luthor style, underestimates Sylar and believes he can keep him safely captive (where have we seen this before?). Note to self: If you ever capture a super-powered serial killer, off him the first chance you get rather than use him for experiments. The last we saw of him, he had Mohinder stuck to the ceiling and bleeding profusely, and was busily slicing the top of Nathan Petrelli's skull off.

Nathan, of course, will survive. Cheerleader Claire's regeneration powers with patch up his head and he'll be able to fight Sylar off. Bennet (aka HRG for hornrimmed glasses) has a fate less certain. Although he had the Haitian wipe his memory, the company nailed his complicity fairly easily. What's interesting is that now although he's on the side of the "Good Guys," HRG's conversion didn't come about willingly--only after his daughter was threatened by the company did he stop happily trapping and abusing the supers he tracked down. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that doesn't stop him from being an evil sonofabitch, and I hope the writers keep this in mind and don't start giving us Alias-style personality flip-flops. Hiro's sequence was also sloppy. With the sword just inches away, Hiro gave up when a security officer warned him to stop. WTF!? If the sword was his only means of escape, his only means of accessing his powers to save New York, then why would he give up so easily? That made absolutely no logical sense. Ando's convenient arrival as a security guard made little sense as well. Saying "I've been following you" is a sloppy, hand-waving contrivance to get these two back together. Let's face it: having these two friends bicker and get each other into trouble is a lot more fun than watching Hiro feel sorry for himself. I'm somewhat disappointed that Hiro's powers snapped back on the moment he got the sword--we've seen Hiro still has the use of his abilities, and that the sword is more of a placebo than anything else. "Dumbo's feather," if you will. At least, those are the signals I've picked up along the way, and I just wish there's been some additional hint of that when he finally obtained the sword.

Still, excellent episode. I wish all of them packed this much plot into an hour--the fact that there are only five episodes left in the season, and they'd better get on the stick if they're going to have a resolution might have something to do with it. And I think the whole "exploding New York" storyline will conclude by season's end. Even though series creator Tim Kring claims to be unfamiliar with comic books, his writing staff is obviously well-versed, and the series is structured like a serialized graphic novel (in comics, almost all storylines are six issues long, which facilitates their collection into a single volume reprint for bookstores). Following this premise, a climax and resolution are necessary if the show is being honest with the audience--think the season-long storylines of 24. That's not to say that new plot complications and cliffhangers can't arise from the finale, which is, of course, another tradition of the serialized comic book form. Either way, I'm definitely looking forward to the next five episodes.

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