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- TV Series: Heroes
- Episode: The Wall
- Starring: Hayden Panettiere, Masi Oka, Ali Larter, Milo Ventimiglia, Jack Coleman, Leonard Roberts, Greg Grunberg, Zachary Quinto, Robert Knepper
- Written By: Kay Foster, Adam Armus
- Directed By: Allan Arkush
- Network: NBC
- Series: Heroes
Heroes: The Wall Review
The way to clear the walls between us is with a sledge hammer By
Stephen Lackey
February 03, 2010
Heroes Review
© NBC/Bob Trate
Don’t mess with Matt Parkman! He seems like a nice guy but if you mess with him, he’ll lock you up in your worst nightmare and then he’ll wall you up in his basement Edgar Allen Poe style. Sure, if anyone deserves it, Sylar does. The problem is that Peter has seen the future and Sylar is needed to rescue the new “special” I like to call a Dazzler wannabe. So Peter has to leap into the mind of a man that killed his brother and attempted to kill his niece to try and save him from a nightmarish existence that he more than deserves. These sorts of situations can be fascinating. While this episode doesn’t get into the relationship of these two men as much as you may hope it does, it does come up with a clever way to give them the time they need to be able to at least be in each other’s presence. An hour of real time reads as a year inside Sylar’s head so Sylar and Peter get plenty of time to become, not friends but partners. Sylar has been on an odd path over the last two seasons so having him buddy up with Peter doesn’t feel like much of a stretch. Sylar is as awesome villain but he can’t be the big bad guy every season so at least he has something to do while he waits to make his big comeback. If the writers were a little more forward thinking they could just have Sylar in a secondary story arc prepping for his big revenge, or world destruction or something of that sort. You know as great as Samuel has been this season, Sylar could have almost played his role. Sylar can already take abilities from other specials without killing them now. What if he found an ability like Samuel’s and he started his own cult? Of course that could still happen because he could take Samuel’s ability by the end of this season.
Noah Bennett has consistently been one of the most intriguing characters on this show. He has no abilities of his own but he’s been involved with people who do have abilities since the beginning. In this episode, Claire is forced by Samuel to see more of Noah’s past. Samuel hopes that the revelations revealed in these scenes would push Claire more into the carnival family but her reaction is in fact the exact opposite. Seeing Noah’s first involvement with a special does a great job of defining his character and explaining the bitterness he had toward specials in season one and also how having Claire for a daughter softened him and made him more compassionate. The stories were great and the execution of them inside the house of mirrors was really well done. The cliffhanger ending for he and Claire feels like a classic comic book final panel that came off very entertaining. It’ll be interesting to see how he and Claire escape the mess that Samuel left them in at the end of the episode.
The multiplying man is easily one of the greasiest new “specials” of the season. The final moments of the episodes find him being sent by Samuel to face off against an enemy that may be more than he can handle. The final scene is exciting and it hints at what should be a really riveting fight in next week’s season finale. This episode felt like final pieces of a great puzzle falling into place. The pieces all look fantastic so let’s hope the final puzzle was worth the assembly. Along with all of the build up that happens in this episode, there’s still time for interesting character development, a little from Peter and Sylar but mostly from Noah. It’s time for Claire and Noah to stop fighting and just be a family and a team. He has to start trusting her and she has to start understanding her father. The on again, off again relationship between them is starting to get stale. This episode set up an end to those character arcs so hopefully the two of them can start on a new path. Also the wall was a really cool image in this episode both physically and symbolically. The wall between Sylar and the real world has to be broken down as does the one between Claire and Noah and even between the specials and the rest of the world, all good stuff.
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I was wondering if I'd missed the review for this. Lately, they've been posted so quickly I haven't had a chance to see the episode on my DVR and barely get a chance to post anything before people stop reading the review.
Stephen, ya know, I like yous reviews and I hate to nitpick editing(I know I get the occasional typo too), but your line about "revealations revealed..." falls under one of my pet peevs. The "revealed" part is just not necessary.
Was it my imagination or was Milo REALLY overacting this week? I mean, to the point that his character was laughably bad. It still boggles my mind just how stupid his character is. Sylar, the man who killed your brother and countless others, is effectively neutralized by Parkman, but Peter has a vision that shows Sylar helping Emma. Apparently, Peter, given his history of how "accurate his mother's visions are, decides that's good enough reason to unleashed the maniac who has been terrorizing him for 4 years?
Since when have all of Mama Petrelli's visions come true and come true exactly as she saw them? Well, the whole virus turning everyone into specials and then killing everyone on the planet never came true at least for everyone except the Irish chick that Pete left in the future that never happened. She has been far from accurate with her dreams, but Peter's act-first, think-later approach to crime fighting is tiresome at best.
As for the ending with the Multiple Man Vs. Pete and Sylar. Does anyone here think Multiple stands a chance in hell in a fight against these two? I'd bet he's dead within 5 seconds. Maybe Sylar can take his multiplying ability and then he won't have to worry about his "being alone" nightmare and he can be a badass, manical, killer again!
BTW, was I the only person surprised by the teaser for next week when they said "Coming up on season finale of Heroes?" After checking IMDB that's only 19 episodes for a show that (minus the strike season) had seasons of 23 and 25 episodes. I know I complain a lot about the show, but heck I still watch it in the hopes that it gets better just like I do with Smallville. The difference is that Smallville has actually been improving whereas Heroes remains fairly even.