Broken Frontier

Great Caesar’s ghost!

How do you review a show like Heroes, Episode 22: Landslide?

After all, next week is the series finale.

One … week … to … go.

This week’s episode seemed to be all about the push and pull of destiny, tying up some loose ends while making others so tangled that they may never get straightened out enough to bind together, and, lastly, a close shave and a haircut (just a little off the sides and neaten up that bullet hole while you’re at it!).

The challenge this week: review the Landslide episode without giving away any spoilers.

How will it happen?

By using enough writer’s tricks to be entertaining and engaging, yet so general enough with the details that only those who have shacked up to watch the actual episode on Monday night (or who righteously scurried over to their TiVo with bleary eyes, a box of Tastykakes, and a carton of milk) will truly understand them.

How does that sound?

Well, we’ll find out.

After watching the episode, its title, Landslide, evokes so many metaphors. Naturally, Nathan’s election is center stage at various times, as is the clever way in which the outcome is manipulated so that his winning is never in doubt. But really, what is a landslide? The dictionary describes one as, “The collapse of part of a mountainside or cliff so that it descends in a disintegrating mass of rocks and earth.” Isn’t that what is happening in this episode. Regardless of the good heroes’ best attempts to stop the bad guys, it seems like their efforts aren’t enough. Linderman, Nathan, and, of course, Sylar are corrupting “truth, justice, and the American way,” and causing it to hurtle out of control until it explodes in a purging fireball of death and destruction.

Of course, Landslide also a somewhat dated song by Fleetwood Mac: “I took my love, I took it down. I climbed a mountain and I turned around.”

But I digress.

Writing this “no spoiler” review should be as easy as one, two, three … or perhaps it’s better to say: three, two, one.

Three times as many cocked Glocks and spent cartridges as any previous single episode of Heroes (though it seemed like a lot more than that if you take the time to actually count the shoot-‘em-up scenes);

Two samurai swords, one out of order, the other out of sight (until next week, that is); and

One headache so gnarly (both in its creative conception, immediate timing, and fatal distraction) that Excedrin the size of Manhattan wouldn’t even begin to ease the pain.

Not necessarily in this order, the Landslide episode brings together a kid who talks to chips, Niki’s curvy hips, and a van that drives by and flips. Three characters appear to have lost their mortal grip … oh, and it appears (at least for the moment) that Claire and Peter have given everyone the slip.

All kidding aside – and believe me, this episode was decidedly short on giggles except for the perfectly timed acerbic rejoinders that Parkman lobs in Bennett’s direction as they try to find the mysterious (to no one but them) “tracking system” – this episode is really mostly about three people. First, there is Hiro, who failed to kill Sylar last week when he had the chance and got his precious samurai sword busted in the process. Then there’s Nathan, who appears to have won the Presidential election by the slimmest of margins, say … 250 million billion votes.

And last, but never least, there’s Sylar, who is just one sick little puppy.

Hiro lacks courage and he finds a most unlikely ally to reinvigorate his fighting spirit. No, it isn’t a Red Bull machine in the conveniently located “Samurai-R-Us” sword shop. It was, in fact, a figure from his past, someone very important to him growing up. It was his … no! This is a no spoiler review. You’ll have to find out on your own, little dragon.

Unlike Hiro, Nathan has confidence aplenty, even though he is blithely indifferent to the ramifications of his confident actions. Early in the episode he has ample opportunity to do the right thing in a carefully choreographed meeting with a frayed and frazzled looking Hiro, but he has other things on his mind, dark things. On the eve of the finale, he’s as dry as a basilisk, yet slippery as an eel.

But it is Sylar who seems to be moving inexorably toward the destiny that awaits him at ground zero, Manhattan, New York, USA. It is Sylar who pulls the trigger on xxx (in amazing fashion, since he is the only one not carrying a gun), stealing even more power and now, seemingly, in line to unleash his fiery destiny on a city full of innocents. Is he finally prepared to set in motion next week’s climactic and cataclysmic conclusion?

And who, if anyone, can stop him?

Save the cheerleader, save the world.

Yowzah.

All good things come to an end. If we are to believe everything we’ve heard, that ending will come next week. Like scythes hurtling in tightly calculated arcs, the destinies of all the Heroes will come together, clanging in incalculably intricate ways, producing a music of harmony and discord. Who among the heroes will rise? Who will fall?

Tune in.

While this review was bereft of spoilers, destiny tells me the same won’t happen in seven days.