Heroes: Luke, Where Is My Father?

Well three out of four ain’t bad.

That’s how many storylines in “Building 26”last night’s episode of “Heroes” worked for me last night. Well actually I thoroughly enjoyed one, thought two ranged from “not too bad” to “promising”, and one was a complete and utter disaster.

Let’s get the horrible one out of the way first — I’m talking about Hiro and Ando’s trek to India to stop a wedding, as foretold by Parkman’s drawing.

I get the idea that Hiro had to learn that he could be a hero without his powers, but did it have to be executed through such an oddly ridiculous plot. Hiro was mad at Ando because Ando took it upon himself to stop the wedding of Anna Poora to a jerky local businessman when it was supposed to be Hiro’s destiny. The jerky businessman knocked Ando out with a pot (offscreen) and carried him away (offscreen!) and held him hostage unless the wedding was back on. (Triple huh!) The whole thing was just bizarre.

In the end, Hiro stopped the wedding anyway, the businessman basically gave a big “whatev” before walking away, and Ando was back from wherever the hell he was carried off to (offscreen). Hiro had become annoyed with Ando about robbing him of his destiny, but the couple made up by the end of the episode, so it doesn’t appear like the eventual showdown where Ando kills Hiro was advanced at all. At the end of the episode, Anna notified the duo that a fax had arrived for them from “Rebel” (now faxing in addition to texting) imploring them to “Save Matt Parkman.”

By the end of the night, Parkman appeared to be in decent shape, as he Peter and Mohinder had a drugged H.R.G. in their grasps.

H.R.G. was at a bar drowning his sorrows after being kicked out of his house for lying one (or 1,800) too many times. How rude of Peter, Parkman and Mohinder to kidnap H.R.G. before he had a chance to grow a big, burly beard that would’ve signified how miserable his character was.

The Bennetts (Mr. Muggles sighting!) began the episode once again trying to lead a relatively normal life in Costa Verde. The problem was that Claire couldn’t let go of the fact that her father was still hunting her friends (she can’t watch the show like we can and see that he probably has a good, ulterior motive) and others like her.

This included Alex, a comic book store employee (another one, “Heroes”?) who was next on H.R.G.’s list and can apparently breathe underwater. (I really hope we get to see that cool effect sometime — and that it doesn’t look stupid.) Claire helped him escape her (non-biological) father’s clutches at his store, and eventually stashed him safely in her closet. Oddly enough, that part wasn’t as weird as that sentence made it sound.

Claire told her (non-biological) mother what H.R.G. had been up to and kicked them out. The scene where Bennett said goodbye to Claire was surprisingly touching. I like that the writers had Claire show some emotion and a bit of regret and sadness for Bennett. He obviously cares about her deeply, so it was nice to see Claire take a break from being over-the-top melodramatic and show some love back. I’ve slammed her in recent weeks, so I should mention that Hayden Panettiere’s acting this week was considerably less atrocious. That’s particularly impressive given that she was playing opposite the best actor on the show in Jack Coleman. (I’m looking forward to the next episode since the previews make it look like it’ll be a mini-showcase for Coleman.)

Meanwhile, in other “Claire’s dad” news, Nathan had to deal with skeptical Abby Collins a new pain in the ass from Homeland Security sent to check in on Nathan’s “heroes collecting” project. Abby is played by Moira Kelly, who I literally hadn’t seen in ten years and is best known (to me) for providing the voice of adult Nala in “The Lion King.” (That’s my bit of daily “Lion King” trivia from me to you.)

Anyway, Abby was ready to shut down the project when she saw a chained Tracy being kept in the tanning room from hell, but Tracy was very conveniently able to escape from her chains and demonstrate her power by killing a random analyst. At first, I thought Abby might have abilities herself, but she seemed genuinely shocked and horrified by Tracy’s demo. The episode also had a nice twist by having Danko (not Nathan) be the one who helped Tracy’s escape attempt. Now Nathan can continue to be conflicted, but not quite evil, while Danko gets to keep hunting heroes. Everybody wins!

However, the biggest winner of the night was the Sylar/Luke (pictured, left) storyline.

The writers still need to be careful not to drag out the whole mentor/apprentice thing too long, but so far I’m kinda loving it. So far, Dan Byrd is striking the right balance between creep and charisma Luke. He’s irritating enough to be interesting, but not so much to annoy you. He’s a combination of the most interesting people with abilities on the show — he has the enthusiasm for discovery that season 1 Hiro had, but the temptation and inclination to not be good that Sylar and other baddies possess. (Leave that boring angst at home.)

He’s also proved the perfect foil for Sylar. Zachary Quinto is at his best when he’s flat out playing a bad guy and not going over the top and trying to be funny (like his “Cake?” like after murdering the lie-detector woman in Volume III). With Luke around to handle most of the comedy, Sylar’s serious badness is funny on its own. The line of the night was Sylar realizing he was a serial killer after Luke pointed out that Sylar has a pattern, collects mementos and goes after certain victims: “Ok, technically I’m a serial killer. Now that we’ve established that, give me one good reason I shouldn’t tear your head open right here.” (However, the use of the "Psycho Killer" song was too much.) Sylar then went on to school Luke on when to use his powers and even went back to rescue him when he got captured. I mean, went back to find out how much the people hunting him knew about him. Right.

So what’d you think of this episode? Is there any significance to the building’s number in the episode title? Is the Sylar/Luke relationship working for you? If Tracy knew she was released on purpose, why did she kill that guy anyway? Finally, after another week, any new thoughts on who “Rebel” might be?