Broken Frontier

In Heroes, Episode 21: The Hard Part, we’re back from the dystopian future set forth in the previous episode, but that’s not to say everything.

I’m going to spell out the most relevant plot spoilers as a haiku, that way if you don’t want your experience to be spoiled, skip the poem and you should be fairly okay.

Hiro: no hero.
Conflicted, Sylar loves, kills.
Healed, is Molly key?

Or maybe this one:

Who does Nathan serve?
Micah: the mystery grows.
Mo is Molly’s cure.

There, spoilers are done … well, for the most part.

But talking about this excellent episode is not finished by any means.

As I alluded to in the blurb on the main B.F. page, family takes center stage in Episode 21: The Hard Part. Working with Molly (Adair Tishler), a little girl with powerful abilities, Mohinder Suresh examines his scientist father’s work and the death of his sister, an event that occurred before he was born. What is the relationship between his sister and the girl he’s hoping to save? Is there one?

Claire, the cheerleader who isn’t leading many cheers by this point of the story, is forced to confront the shifting forces that surround the many facets of her family and the destiny that awaits her as the cheerleader who will save the world (if, in fact, that’s what happens). 

Also, for once we get a little behind the scenes look at what motivates Sylar when, in a very memorable scene, he visits his mother. The dialogue immediately sets up the dynamic between mother and son. True to Heroes form, the characters don’t address it out in the open, but rather by using an inanimate object that has some special history.

Looking past his mother, Sylar notices an old clock on the wall, one that has stopped working.

Sylar: The clock’s broken

Sylar’s Mom: That old thing? I should have thrown it away years ago.

Sylar: It was dads.

Sylar’s Mom: It’s junk

Sylar: It’s a beautiful piece. It just needs a little attention.

Is the clock a metaphor for Sylar at this cusp in the storyline? As Sylar fixes the clock he really gets into it with his mother, but we also get the feeling that with a little of the right attention, Sylar himself could find a measure of beauty, wholeness, and fulfillment.

But that isn’t to be.

I’m going to digress for a moment to compare this scene with an unlikely source: Statler and Waldorf, the two grumpy old men sitting in the balcony of The Muppet Show. They often began their vignettes going one direction and ended it going the opposite (and the sweep was usually as abrupt as it was giddy and wonderful). Here’s an example:

Statler: That was wonderful!

Waldorf: Bravo!

Statler: I loved that!

Waldorf: Ah, that was great!

Statler: Well, it was pretty good.

Waldorf: Well, it wasn't bad ...

Statler: Uh, there were parts of it that weren't very good though.

Waldorf: It could have been a lot better.

Statler: I didn't really like it.

Waldorf: It was pretty terrible.

Statler: It was bad.

Waldorf: It was awful!

Statler: It was terrible!

Waldorf: Take 'em away!

Statler: Bah, boo!

Waldorf: Boo!

All comedic references aside, Sylar and his mother begin the scene on a positive note, but begin to talk at cross purposes and the mood between them quickly grows tense and dark. Sylar is compelled to display powers his mother never knew existed, but instead of bringing her closer to him, the demonstration drives a wedge between the two with disastrous results.

The scene highlights to the extreme what Heroes does better than almost any show on television: it shows far more than it tells. For instance, at the beginning of the scene Sylar’s mother wants to make him a tuna sandwich (what mother doesn’t when her son drops by on short notice?), but Sylar orders her not to. She persists and he gets angry about it; there’s a spike in tension. Later, after rejoining the scene we see that, in fact, the sandwich not only did get made, but Sylar has eaten a portion of it.

These are the kind of surface and subsurface details that exceedingly clever writers and directors introduce into a scene, for it is details like these that make a show worth watching more than once.

I didn’t catch the sandwich until the second time through.

What else might I have missed on first pass?

Interstitial to this scene is another between Ando and Hiro that is very telling and sets up action later in the episode. Watching Sylar and his mother from outside of the building, the two men discuss what it is to kill or not to kill:

Hiro: He’s so sad.

Ando: He’s distracted. Go on. Do it.

Hiro: I can’t kill a man who is asking for forgiveness. It’s not the Bushido code. Everyone deserves a second chance.

Ando: No, Hiro. Not everyone.

Hiro: You don’t understand. You’re not ending another person’s life …

Ando: Future Hiro would not hesitate to chop his head off.

Hiro: I’m not Future Hiro. I don’t want to be him!

So much like Hiro … and considering that we all know that if nothing changes in the present, Ando will die in the blast that destroys a large portion of New York. If I were Ando, I’d be getting all over my friend to go Bass-o-matic on Sylar, too.

Much of the remainder of the episode deals with Mohinder working to save Molly, a new character who has the power to locate anyone wherever they may be on the planet, simply by thinking about them. Again, if I were a conniver, I would imagine that Molly is the Heroes version of Professor Xavier’s Cerebro, but I’m just not going to go there this week. As far as I’m concerned, except for the odd mention now and then, that mother lode of controversy has played out.

Last, but not least, everyone is still very, very concerned about where Micah is and who is controlling him. Smart kid, but what don’t we know about him.

I’d guess plenty.

This review only catches the big beats of the episode, though I must say that Episode 21: The Hard Part is aptly named. For the Heroes creative team, this must truly be the hardest part, getting the characters, their motivations, and their actions all lined up so everything makes sense as the series careens toward the conclusion to its initial story arc.

TWO …

Save the cheerleader, save the world.

… WEEKS …

The network is urging everyone to email in their ideas as to how Heroes will end.

… TO GO …

I’m not a rocket scientist, and I’m certainly not a putz …

… but I’ll be damned if I know.

Heroes has me right where it wants me.

Damn …