Heroes: The Art of Destruction

With only two episodes left of Heroes‘s fourth season, it’s no surprise our favorite characters seemed to be running around with their heads chopped off this week. Samuel had to act fast or lose his following after he committed all those earth-shattering atrocities. (Pun intended!) Peter scrambled to find Sylar and save Emma and possibly a whole lot of other people as well, while Sylar turned to Matt for help. And Noah and Claire attempted to capture Samuel with different approaches. Did a lot of this episode make sense, from a story aspect or a character development standpoint? Not really, but especially after last week’s episode these past few weeks of episodes, I’ve given up on the idea of consistency or continuity when it comes to Heroes. There’s no point fighting it anymore. I’m just going with the flow.

“Why don’t you just try going to class for once? You say you want a normal life, right?” – Gretchen
Claire’s ready to make up with her father, but when she arrives at his doorstep, she finds Lauren, Primatech files and tons of information on the recent “natural” disaster. I guess this is better than catching your dad in flagrante, but even seeing all of Samuel’s destruction doesn’t curb her anger over her father’s return to the work that tore apart her family and that he promised to leave behind. After storming out and not bothering to wait for his return, she returns back to the dorm where she continues to spew venom.

What would you do if you had a regenerative roommate that you had the hots for who only complained and talked about me, me, and me? Well, I’d want to chop off their head and watch it grow back. That’d be interesting, but I’d like to think that I would give them a swift kick in the rear or at least talk to the Housing Board about putting in a transfer; maybe get that sweet single down the hall. But more likely, I’d react like Gretchen, who is visibly annoyed when Claire decides to take it upon herself to save the carnies. She even says no to allowing her to borrow her car, again, but caves. Seriously, Claire would have to do a lot more than some hand holding to budge me.

Back at the carnival, everyone is scared of Samuel, and who wouldn’t be?! He pretty much leveled a town, which I thought last week was the field they were planning on building their carnie utopia, but no. It was an entire town, where 200 people have been found dead and the count’s still rising. Lydia doesn’t understand how Samuel could commit such a crime when they were supposed to want the same things. Then, she throws an even stronger jab by also pointing out that no one respects him, but he sees her power play and raises one vow to win his “family” back because he needs them.

When Claire arrives, Samuel still hasn’t put any plans into action, but you know he’s brewing some kind of redemption plot. He seems completely shaken up about what he’s done, wishing he could take it all back. But Claire believes the only way for Samuel to save his family, if he truly cares, is to turn himself in. Already knowing her father is on the way (if not there already), she calls him.

Noah’s planted on a hill with Lauren, finally glimpsing Samuel and Claire in his sniper rifle scope. (I want to scream at him to take the shot, but it’s more in the hopes of taking down Claire whose flip-flopping gets on my nerves and also always screws things up.) He answers his cell and tells Claire that he’s ready to take Samuel down, but she says, to save as many people as possible, Samuel has agreed to turn himself over. Lauren’s thinks it’s suspect. And she’s right because not soon after Samuel begins to give his farewell speech, he’s shot, though not fatally. And then, all hell breaks loose as carnie after carnie is mowed down. Now, anyone who watches the show would know that Noah would never do something so reckless. He had one main target, and if he’d take the shot, he would not have missed. Also, he wouldn’t have shot Claire in the neck, as much as I was begging him to.

It all comes to light that this was Samuel’s plan all along, and unlike last week’s sappy Samuel, I’m energized to see the baddie we all wanted to emerge take his place. Did he really order Eli to start taking down their own, killing Lydia in the process? Oh, yeah he did! YES! Sure, it makes no sense compared to everything Samuel has ever done, but it’s way scarier than last week’s village annihilation with all the nobodies that we could care less about. (I guess since we don’t even know any of the mute carnies, they’re nobodies too but whatever! He’s going Full Metal Jacket on everyone!)

Lauren takes one in the arm and reveals she’s not as tough as she seems. Sometimes I forget that she’s a normal person who’s probably not used to fatal injuries. And we rarely see Noah get hurt because he’s often too valuable or just that good. Noah is captured by Eli and taken to Samuel, who milks it for all its worth. Samuel puts on a show, cradling a shot and dying Lydia in his arms. But couldn’t he let her go in peace? No! Where’s the nefarious character-building in that! Instead he kisses her and, essentially, transfers the memory that this was his entire plan. She’s too weak to fight back or tell anyone else and so she takes the secret with her. Samuel takes a mournful moment to speak to his congregation about the evil, normal people and how they’ll never let them live in peace alone. Finally, he’s created a villain for them to hate, whose deeds are greater than his own past acts. Plus, Edgar appears right in time to see his lady’s lifeless body and jump on the bandwagon. The fact that Noah also happens to be Claire’s father makes her another perfect representation of everything the carnies now want to destroy. And we are left with the picture of Samuel assembling an army that will no longer stand idly by.

“Are you in my mind again?” – Matt, “Please that’s so two months ago!” – Sylar
Peter is still having visions, though this time they’re becoming clearer. Now, he can see that Sylar is trying to help Emma while Doyle is controlling her. He makes a visit to his mother who’s still grieving over Nathan and unsure of what to put on his headstone. (Don’t focus your continuity on these little points, writers! Let’s maybe focus more on interesting plot points and character choices making sense.) They confer over their shared visions, and she says that it’s too soon after Nathan’s death for Peter to see Sylar and makes it clear that she doesn’t really accept the idea that the psychopath can change so quickly. (Yeah, I’m with you on that, but they’re not paying ME to write the show.) But Peter believes that Sylar is the key.

Elsewhere in Heroes-verse, Sylar seeks out Matt for two interesting reasons. The first is that he wants to see if you can lead a truly normal life as a person with abilities. Sylar seems to feel Matt has accomplished this, and I want to remind him that only two months ago they were doing the brain tango. He asks politely holds a finger up to Matt’s wife’s head and orders him to take away his powers, but Matt can’t no matter how hard he tries. Or so it seems when, in fact, he just has a better plan. That plan is to trap Sylar within his own head within his worst nightmare of being alone forever. He then proceeds to bury the limp, mental trapped psycho behind a wall in his basement. At first I’m thinking, won’t he need nourishment otherwise he’d die and then decay and become all stinky? And even if he won’t, does Matt really want to live with a “sleeping” psychopath in his basement? Last time he tried a mind rearrangement, that didn’t turn out so well. Plus, what if he did want to sell the house and move. Who’d want that shoddy brick work?

In the end, Peter shows up, takes Matt’s power and realizes that his visions are true, and Sylar is there. He heads to the basement and is shocked to find out what Matt’s done. Though Matt argues with Peter to stay the course, Peter truly believes he’ll need Sylar to save Emma and all the others who may get hurt, and he jumps into Sylar’s head without heeding Matt’s warnings. (I smell an impending showdown.)

WRAP IT UP
Though it pains me to say, Tracy did make an appearance at the end of the episode. Apparently, she’s the one person Noah trusts when things go bad, and he gave Lauren instructions to call her if things went south. I was about as excited to see her as she looked to receive that phone call.

It’s great (infuse sarcasm) that it took almost all season for something truly exciting to happen at the carnival. It was supposed to be the main storyline, right? I imagined that putting this large group of abilities-ladled people in one place would have meant a whole lot of cool, new powers to check out. Unfortunately, Edgar hasn’t had very much to do lately and Lydia’s power was just like all the other vision powers we’ve had, except they just dressed it up with tattoos and called it empathy. Eli is one of the most predicable villains ever. Anytime you need someone to eavesdrop on a conversation or hold someone hostage, he’s there. Hopefully now, with a real fight a-brewing, we’ll get to see some real action.

QUOTABLES
”I love them. I need them. I just have to prove my worth.” – Samuel

“You don’t have to worry about me.” – Noah,  “That’s not an option anymore.” – Lauren

“You’re going to be normal? I’m sorry, that ship sailed 50 murders ago.” – Matt

“You will purge me of these powers, Parkman, or I will use them. Use them all.” – Sylar

“I know your secret. I know you’re afraid of living forever alone. Welcome to Hell.” – Matt

“It’s time to show the world what we are…and what we can do.” – Samuel

Season 4, Episodes 17: The Art of Deception (originally aired January 25, 2010)

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Photographs courtesy of NBC Universal, Adam Taylor and Chris Haston.