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Cast of Heroes
© NBC

Mania Grade: A
Episode: .07%
Stars: Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka, Ali Larter, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Milo Ventimiglia, Jack Coleman, Leonard Roberts, Greg Grunberg, Adrian Pasdar
Produced By: Adam Armus, Jeph Loeb, Tim King

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"Heroes: .07%"

It really seems like this series has been gone forever.  I’m starting to like the idea that LOST and BSG won’t be back until January but when they come back they’ll run to completion with no weird breaks or winter hiatus.  I’d like to see this happen for Heroes too because like LOST the series week to week build up works much better if it’s consistently airing.  Anyway Heroes is back and I fell right back into the groove of the series.  There’s a nice recap of the story so far at the beginning not to mention all the stuff on the website if you need to catch up.  If you’ve DVR’d this and haven’t watched it yet step lightly because we’ll definitely be getting into spoiler territory here. 

When last we left the series Eric Robert’s character had played a nice trick on HRG by having his shape shifting assistant Candice form into HRG’s wife just as he was about to set out on a journey to find his daughter and to bring down the company.  They used Matt’s mind reading abilities to try and find out from HRG where Claire is hiding with no luck so they even send Candice into HRG’s prison cell pretending to be Claire.  HRG didn’t buy it and I really don’t think they expected him too.  I feel like they were just trying to play with his emotions a bit in hopes of getting some useful information from him.  Once left alone HRG connects telepathically with Matt who is also being held in the facility.  He gives Matt instructions on what to do to escape and how to not only break himself and HRG out but also Ted, the radioactive man.  He helps Ted use his abilities to create an EMP which shuts down all the power in the facility allowing them to easily escape.  Now the three of them set out to New York to destroy a tracking station used by the company to track people with special abilities.  We learn that Linderman is in fact the true leader of the company and HRG is little more than middle management.  HRG is like Professor X to Linderman’s Magneto if we were comparing to X-Men comics.  Apparently, even though HRG was middle management he must have shared some of Linderman’s goals, he just no longer supports the process Linderman is choosing to reach those goals, especially in relation to Claire.   

Speaking of Linderman his meeting with Nathan finally culminates with the reveal of Linderman’s own ability to heal living things as he revives a dead flower.  Linderman has a plan to bring the world together under Nathan’s control with him pulling the strings in the background of course.  It’ll be done by fear.  After the nuclear explosion in New York which kills .07% of the world’s population, all in New York of course, Nathan will be there to pick up the pieces and bring the world together after the devastation and will be elected President.  Linderman knows this to be true because he ahs one of Isaac’s paintings, or someone who can paint the future, that shows Nathan as the President.  Nathan seems disgusted with the offer because his brother will have to explode in the city to make this happen so he storms out of Linderman’s office. 

Nathan’s brother Peter finally gives us a taste of what we’ve been, or at least what I’ve been looking forward to, a showdown between him and Sylar.  They’ve both been collecting powers from other heroes and they’re now two sides of the same coin.  I’ve been eagerly anticipating this fight and as short as it was it hints to a cool final showdown.  They trade some punches as only heroes can with Peter taking the worst of it, a shard of glass to the back of his head that kills him.  Before Sylar can suck the power from him Mohinder brings the pain and knocks Sylar out.  What’s completely bizarre to me is that Mohinder is able to take Peter’s corpse in a cab to the Patrelli house.  What is this Weekend at Bernie’s?  Nathan and Peter’s mother sends Mohinder away so she can be with her dead son.  She only seems mildly upset.  She had just previously revealed to Claire that she too has a special ability, so it runs in the family from her to her sons and down to her granddaughter.  We still don’t know exactly what her ability is though.  It seems obvious that she is connected with Linderman and his plan in some way because she tells Nathan that they should hide Peter’s death until after the election.  She has always valued that election over anything that’s happened to Peter in the series.  Claire is still in the house from a previous episode where she showed up to visit her father.  Nathan and his mother give Claire a few minutes alone with Peter and Claire discovers the shard of glass still imbedded in the back of his head.  When she removes it he awakens, same as what has happened to her.  There wasn’t really ever any suspense regarding Peter’s death here so it felt a little drawn out to me.  I knew watching it exactly how Peter would be brought back to life and when it finally happened it felt like a long time coming.  What’s also interesting in these scenes is the switch that Nathan makes.  When he learns that Peter has this healing ability and could survive the nuclear blast his mind seems to flip suddenly in support of Linderman’s plan.  He stares at the painting Linderman sent him and when he talks to Claire he tells her that agrees with his mother that she should go to Paris until all of this blows over and he is elected. 

Now to the most climactic moment of the episode centered on Isaac.  Isaac is a character I never really cared for until the final moments of his appearance in this episode.  It’s interesting early on when a currier that’s a big fan of Isaac’s work shows up to pick up the latest installment of the Hiro saga and Isaac gives him his sketchbook and tells him to hold on to it because it might be valuable someday.  This is great foreshadowing for questions that remain unanswered after the episode ends.  Will it be more valuable because Isaac will be dead, or will it be more valuable because some important bit of information is hidden inside?  Both are still possibilities at the end of the episode.  Sylar shows up at Isaac’s studio, expected by the way by Isaac who has already painted the events that will transpire.  Knowing what will happen to him Isaac has taken precautions to let the other heroes know what he knows about how to kill Sylar.  He tells Sylar he doesn’t care what he does to him because for once he can actually be the hero.  After a bit of torture Sylar does in fact kill Isaac and take his power.  He paints ferociously until he’s created a skewed more twisted version of the Nathan as President painting.  Isaac was always a tragic character on the series and his he couldn’t have hoped for a better death.  Knowing that he will be killed Isaac was able to make decisions that will impact the heroes throughout the rest of this adventure. 

Isaac isn’t the only one trying to influence the future and change things to better fit his image of what is right.  Linderman is doing the same thing.  He says to Jessica/Nikki that a plan he had been working on was unraveling but new opportunities have him hopeful.  Was he talking about Nathan’s disinterest in his plan?  At any rate Linderman tells Jessica that he needs to “borrow” her son Micah and his special talents for the good of the plan.  Jessica is a badass b*@ch but she still actually has a small soft spot for Micah and she refuses to give him up.  Linderman tells her that his request was just an attempt to be polite.  He sends Candice, who uses her shape changing abilities to disguise herself as Jessica and picks up Micah from school delivering him to Linderman. 

A lot of stuff happened in this episode, more than in multiple episodes of most other series and it’s all done balanced and fast paced without feeling rushed.  I haven’t heard if the series will end with a cliffhanger or if this story will be told to completion by the end of the season.  Most times I’d lean toward the cliffhanger but the story ahs been progressed ahead so far that I don’t see how it could be drug out over another season.  There are dramatic elements that could go on longer of course but the heroes versus the villains portion of the storyline seems to be building really quickly.  That said next week’s episode is total filler, showing what will happen in five years if the heroes aren’t successful.  Now I’m sure there will be some important information displayed here and there but overall it’s going to be filler.  I have faith in this series though that it can deliver good quality filler, filler that I won’t regret taking the time to watch.  .07% didn’t rank as high as an episode like Company Man but it was a strong return for the series and it has me extremely excited to see what the story will go next.