Heroes: Double Your Danko, Double Your Fun

Heroes often claims to be trying to reign in their overstuffed storytelling methods to focus on the characters and the human drama. Once in a blue moon or so, they kinda succeed. This week’s episode occasionally verged on boring, but ultimately emerged as a thoughtful and well structured character piece that gave loads of touching new insights on two of the show’s most central parent/child relationships while opening the book on a third entirely new and chilling relationship that sends the central thread of Danko’s pursuit of the heroic in an extremely scary direction.

With Nathan’s powers exposed, the “free pass” he gave Claire to avoid capture is worth about as much as confederate currency in 1870. So as a way of saying sorry, he wings his cheerleader out of harm’s way to Tijuana, safely free from the reach of the federal government. I don’t really picture Danko as a “respecting international extradition law” kinda guy, but I guess it makes enough sense. I’d never realized this, but Claire & Nathan may have never had this much alone time to just talk out their issues like why he abandoned her or what she always dreamed her father would be like versus the crushing disappointment of reality. Heavy stuff to be sure, but they both do a solid amount of learning and growing. The episode’s funniest moments come when, in a desperate bid for cash, Nate takes on a spring breaking frat boy at doing shots. He goes under the table at around 20, but Claire pulls a total Raiders of the Lost Ark and wins it all when she correctly assumes that she’ll never be able to get drunk thanks to her perpetually regenerating liver.

Over in the lives of an entirely different branch of the Petrelli family, Peter obeys his mother’s request to literally seek sanctuary from their captors in one of NYC’s stately cathedrals. It seems Angela has been suffering from a touch of insomnia, which means no dreams, which means no supernatural guidance for her domineering footsteps. So what better place than the church where she got married, baptized her children, and buried her mother to gain perspective and focus. A little prayer, a little reflection, and all seems right as rain. The feds get close to collaring the duo in a confessional, but fortunately the arresting officer on the case is none other than Noah, so I guess that secret alliance is holding steady.

The final spotlight of the evening falls on an extremely twisted and unlikely partnership between Danko and, drumroll please…. Sylar! Reeling from the disillusionment I can only assume Sy must be feeling after meeting his dad, he’s decided to form a kind of reverse Hannibal & Clarice scenario where the psycho readily volunteers a helping hand to the authorities. But while Hannibal & Sylar might both be after a brain snack for their services, old Lecter wouldn’t be getting more and more powerful with each reward, so Danko’s making one hell of a deal with the devil. They both want to see the death of anyone with powers, but that’s not worth making Sylar into the horrifying god-king that  everyone’s abilities would turn him into. What’s worse, their first target is a shape shifter. Sy makes some quickie deductions that lead to a nightclub where Mr. Shifter gets his jollies impersonating people with power to get chicks. And this time, he’s chosen Danko. Anyone who willingly takes on the appearance of Zeljko Ivanek to pick up women is clearly disturbed. Things get even more interesting when the chameleon turns into Sylar right before his takedown. Never thought I see Sylar begging for his life to himself, and it was definitely weird. Sy takes the brain, Danko parades the corpse around the office to make it look like Sylar’s gone for good, and the scariest allegiance of all time becomes completely concealed. What I enjoy most about this turn of events is that it marks the first instance in a very long time, possibly ever, of Sylar being a truly central villain of the story and not just a cool character for bigger baddies to manipulate. No more grand schemes, nukes, viruses, or formulas, just two very evil men working together to kill every single superhuman. That’s what I call an endgame.

Season 3, Episode 21: Into Asylum (originally aired March 30, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Inisia Lewis‘ review here.

For more on Heroes, click here.

Mondays at 9/8C on NBC

Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Chris Haston