Broken Frontier

It’s not all that much of a surprise when Nathan Petrelli is killed off in this week’s episode of Heroes. For real this time.

If you’ve been following the drama behind the scenes, you already knew that actor Adrian Pasdar would be leaving the show this season, and the writers have been pretty clear that the whole “Sylar being brainwashed to think he’s Nathan” scheme was always going to be a temporary fix. Heck, USA Today published a story about Nathan’s death before the episode even aired. Since the death of a character who’s already technically dead shouldn’t be all that shocking to most people, Nathan's inevitable demise needed to be a satisfyingly wrenching moment for longtime fans of this series. And, fortunately, Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia—who plays his baby bro Peter—were up to the task.

In “The Five Stages,” Peter is set on helping his brother win his mental battle against Sylar by any means necessary. Borrowing the Haitian’s power-dampening abilities, Peter squares off against a now-vulnerable Sylar on a rooftop. Instead of one of this series’ typical fight sequences—which all too often devolve into a glorified light show—this intense showdown between Peter and Sylar is all about trading punches. And it works incredibly well. Once he’s subdued Sylar, Peter uses a nail gun to pin his nemesis to a platform and use the Haitian’s mind-wiping ability to suppress Sylar and allow Nathan to emerge as the dominant personality.

However, Nathan has hardly won this battle. On the very same rooftop where Peter confronted him about his powers in the first season, Nathan tells his brother  that he can’t keep fighting against Sylar and jumps over the ledge. Peter grabs hold of Nathan’s hand before he plummets, but after some tearful goodbyes, he lets his brother fall onto a car parked on the street below. With Nathan dead, a healed Sylar gets up and walks away.

While a fitting end for this character, one can’t help but feel that bringing Nathan back to life at the end of last season was pretty pointless if his major plot contributions this season were to act confused, turn into Sylar, find out he’s really dead and then die. If his fall from the rooftop were to kill Sylar in the process, Nathan’s death would mean a whole lot more than a final bow. But, then again, Sylar is one of Heroes’ consistent strong suits. Let’s keep him alive.

Also in this episode, Claire Bennet uses the compass she stole from her dad to locate Samuel Sullivan. She takes Gretchen along with her on the 21-hour trek to Samuel’s carnival and, after meeting up with him, the pair wanders around the fairgrounds and meets some of his makeshift family. Claire learns that the carnies aren’t all that bad. Though the carnies use their powers for capital gain through various games and sideshows, Claire doesn’t view them as exploitive or sleazy in the slightest. On the contrary, despite Gretchen’s protests, Claire grows fond of Samuel and his family pretty quickly and decides to stay with them for a few days. For Claire, this visit to the carnival is all about making choices on her own. But will this grasp for independence lead to her undoing?

When an unhappy carnival patron attacks Samuel, accusing him of rigging his games (he’s right), Samuel doesn’t fight back. Rather, he takes a few punches and waits for the indestructible former cheerleader to come to his aid. The angry customer slashes her face with a broken bottle and watches in horror as she heals.

“You can’t hurt us,” she says assertively.  The man bolts, later turning up dead in the back of a pickup truck (I wonder who did that?). It’s pretty obvious that Claire is being manipulated into joining his flock—with this violent display conveniently painting a simplified “us versus them” picture for the impressionable teenager—but to what end? Samuel tells Lydia (the carnival’s resident tattooed lady) that it’s not Claire he’s after. Huh?

Meanwhile, Claire’s adoptive dad Noah is rekindling his relationship with former Primatech partner Lauren but, in all honesty, their scenes together don’t amount to much. Noah reveals to Lauren that she had her past feelings for him wiped from her memory, which complicates things. Oh, and Samuel sends his replicating man (think Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox of X-Men fame) to steal some Primatech files from Noah’s office. Noah and Lauren’s relationship and those missing files might prove interesting when the series returns in January, but this storyline is easily the weakest link this week.

By killing off one character and aligning another with the season’s primary protagonist, “The Five Stages” gives Heroes fans plenty to think about over the next few weeks.