Broken Frontier

What a waste. While last week’s episode, “The Art of Deception,” hinted at a satisfying conclusion to the troubled fourth season of Heroes, “The Wall” pretty much shatters those hopes of redemption with a sledgehammer (more on sledgehammers later).

What doesn’t work about “The Wall” is that pretty much the entire episode is spent introducing information that’s not necessary for the characters or the audience, particularly a series of flashbacks focused on Noah. In last week’s installment, Samuel captured Noah and used him to galvanize his followers against mankind.

In “The Wall,” Samuel aims to turn Claire against her father by using one of his goons to show her pieces of Noah’s secret past. We see (in cheesy black-and-white fashion) that in 1985, before Claire was born, Noah was a used car salesman/playwright who was married to a woman named Kay. Cool! Oh, wait. No it isn’t. It’s boring.

But things get interesting when Kay is murdered by a “special” who, disguised as a Chinese delivery guy, throws her through a glass coffee table and kills her. Noah, blinded by revenge, starts hunting down people with abilities and even murders one of them. This attracts the attention of Thompson (Eric Roberts), a high-ranking official with the Company. He heard about Noah’s revenge killing and offers him a job.

But when Noah starts killing too many of his targets, Thompson suggests that he get married and calm down. He points out a waitress—Claire’s mom—and says Noah should marry her. So the Company pretty much arranged Noah’s marriage. Or something. Claire later learns that, even recently, Noah has been going behind her back to protect her.

While this is all well and good, why is Heroes introducing this new information now, just one episode away from the season finale? Besides, are we really wondering about Noah’s backstory at this point? Didn’t “Company Man” do a pretty good job fleshing out his background back in the first season? Do we care that Noah liked Chinese food but wasn’t very good at selling cars in the 1980s?

And in the end, the flashbacks fail to convince Claire that her dad’s a bad guy. She already knew that her dad has killed people with abilities, and the Company’s past influence over many of his life decisions shouldn’t have been a revelation. So the flashbacks are pretty much pointless for everyone involved. But when Claire turns her back on Samuel’s offer to join him (again), he buries her and her dad 50 feet underground in a souvenir trailer. Samuel, if you’re trying to win Claire over because she’s vital to your plan, you might be doing it wrong.

The other primary storyline in “The Wall” concerning Peter and Sylar made even less sense. Last week, Matt imprisoned Sylar in his own mind. But, according to Peter’s vision, Sylar is going to save Emma and thousands of other people from certain doom. So Peter does the logical thing: he jumps inside Sylar’s mind to rescue him.

Now they’re both trapped in what appears to be an abandoned city surrounded by a brick wall. Sylar and Peter try to smash through the wall with sledgehammers, but to no avail. They’re trapped for what feels like years (both for them and for the audience), giving them plenty of time to hash out the whole “you killed my brother” thing. It’s not until Peter acknowledges that Sylar is searching for redemption that the pair is able to work together and break through the wall to escape. Metaphors, man.

So, in the end, Peter has come to terms with his brother’s death and no longer harbors his intense hatred for Sylar, who will likely save the world and redeem himself. Couldn’t we have reached this exact same narrative conclusion in a way that isn’t mind-numbingly dull?

“The Wall” is, quite frankly, a giant waste of time and might be the worst episode of Heroes to date. The season (and perhaps series) finale next week will take our characters to New York City (yet again), where Samuel intends to finally have his revenge on society. A cello will be involved. Yep.