Heroes: Clean Slate

There’s hope yet.

Not so much for “Heroes.” There are still too many repetitive storylines involving characters that should’ve moved on a long time ago and ridiculous twists that exist only to advance the plot and create conflict rather than because they make sense. (Don’t get me wrong: I’m actually enjoying this season, but I don’t see how it can ever go back to being a seriously good show.)

What I’m saying is that there’s hope for Hiro. The character has been so misused and wasted over the last couple of seasons that I’m a little tired of making the joke about how Masi Oka could’ve sued the producers for defamation of character.

However, in “Tabula Rasa” (which G4’s intrusive and occasionally helpful on-screen graphic informed me means “clean slate”) we saw the traits that made us kinda fall in love with the character in the first place.

Despite the fact that he’s dying (yeah, right) Hiro was optimistic and grateful to have his powers. While Peter teleported off to recruit Noah and find a healer, Hiro helped Emma come to terms with her abilities. All Emma wanted to do was learn how to turn her power off, but Hiro taught her about the responsibility of having an ability and accepting what life throws at you.

Which reminded him of what the lovely diner waitress Charlie had taught him in season 1. With a newly rejuvenated (and non-annoying) Hiro, I’m really looking forward to the Hiro/Charlie reunion. (We got a glimpse at Jayma Mays’ stand-in at the end of this ep.)

While Masi Oka had been floundering until this episode, I’ve been immensely enjoying Milo Ventimiglia this season. Peter has a clear (slightly misguided) purpose this year, which is to save as many people as possible with as little fanfare as he can manage. He and Noah went out to Georgia to recruit Jeremy, a kid healer HRG knew from his company days.

I liked how eager Noah was eager to spring back into action after his failed job search. Unfortunately, Jeremy’s power had changed from healing to killing and he had accidentally caused his parents’ death.

If you think about it, there really was no reason for Peter to allow himself to get shot, other than the fact that Jeremy would be forced to go back from Death Dealer to Healer. That being said, the brief sequence where he froze Jeremy’s shotgun blast was great if only for Ventimiglia’s “that was cool” smile after Peter stopped time.

After Jeremy came though, Peter took his power and rushed off (in a truck) to try to save Hiro. HRG stayed behind to help Jeremy deal with his issues and Jack Coleman confirmed the fact that he’s the best actor on the show by delivering the line, “My power is understanding people like you” and NOT making me vomit. (In case you think Noah is being a little too earnest, he still helped Jeremy engineer a carbon-monoxide poisoning cover-up to explain the death of his parents.)

If wish I had any sort of enthusiasm for the umpteenth “Sylar is trying to discover himself” storyline. After joining the Sullivan Bros. carnival, Sylar still had no memories, but appeared to believe he was Nathan. (Credit should go to Zachary Quinto, who is good at playing many different things, including clueless.) At least the brief Quinto/Adrian Pasdar face-meld when Sylar saw the planes fly above was cool.

In the leading candidate for “Decision You’re Going to Regret in Three Weeks” Samuel decided that the true Sylar needed to be unleashed. He had Sylar ushered into a House of Mirrors where he got to relieve his Greatest Hits/Murders. This sequence was very effective and would’ve been even better without Quinto’s slightly hammy acting.

Later, he ran into the dick of a detective who was pursuing him (Ernie Hudson was basically cast to play “Dead Meat”, so I’m not going to look up the character’s name) in the same House of Mirrors. (What the hell was the detective doing in there by himself anyway?) Though Sylar stopped himself from killing Dead Meat (yawn) the increasingly jealous Edgar swooped in and finished the job.

Now it appears Sylar will stay with the Sullivan Bros. (and, specifically, super-skinny chick Lydia) for the time being.

So what’d you think of this episode? How do you like Samuel taking over Mohinder’s narration duties? (Say what you will about Mohinder, but at least his accent was consistent.) If it wasn’t Peter, who sent the cello to Emma’s apartment? (Could it be Samuel?) Finally, what’s Samuel’s ultimate plan for Sylar?