Heroes: The Great Escape

“I’ve had just about enough of your nonsense, Hiro.”

“Listen, the Sylar thing was a TERRIBLE idea – we all admit that.”

These are both quotes from the latest episode of “Heroes.” More importantly, they appear to be evidence that the show has finally become self-aware enough to acknowledge how downright brutal it has been at times.

Either way, “Close to You” was one of the funniest (on purpose) and downright enjoyable episodes of “Heroes” in a long time. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – this show would be served well if it came to grips with its own awfulness and embraced it.

Take the “Great Asylum Escape”, for instance. Not only is this entire sequence of events entirely unnecessary, but we’ve already seen how it turns out. (We’d glimpsed Hiro, Ando and Mohinder running through the swamp.) So why not have a little fun with it.

The episode’s MVP is undoubtedly James Kyson Lee simply for the line “I work in a cart factory” as a way of explaining why he was hanging around the cart with all the meds. Hiro and Ando had deduced that Mohinder was being drugged, which was preventing him from using his super strength to bust out. Since this show appears to now (officially) be a comedy, Ando had swallowed Mohinder’s drugs by accident and was tripping during the escape. Still, he was able to use his “red lightning” to bust open the door and, later, to fix Hiro’s pop culture-scrambled brain. (I guess it’s too much to hope that the show will make up its mind as to what Ando’s power is – is he an amplifier or does he blast people? Wait, I know – whichever’s more convenient!)

In fact, this storyline was such a triumph that I even found Mohinder bearable, although that’s probably because he was standing in for the audience (he was the one who complained about Hiro’s nonsense). The trio teleported out of Florida and into HRG’s living room for a perfectly-timed cock block.

Unfortunately, this brings us to the least successful part of the episode.

Now, I’ve said time and time again that Jack Coleman is the best actor on this show, but last night he was just bad. Maybe it’s because this feels like the 100th time he’s had to play some variation of “I’m so obsessed with my job that I’ve alienated all those around me”, but I found him to be distractingly over-the-top in this episode.

He’s still obsessed with finding the carnival and he enlisted Parkman’s help in tracking down Vanessa (Kate Vernon of “Battlestar Galactica), Samuel’s love. Parkman had settled into a comfortable life of watching Pixar movies (“Ratatouille” shout out) with his kid and the wife who barely seems like she can stand him.

As you can imagine, it didn’t take much for Bennett to convince Parkman to come along on a side mission. They got SOME info from Vanessa (she’d grown up with Samuel in the house he sinkholed into the ground and I’m assuming the cello Samuel gave Emma belonged to Vanessa) before Samuel and his replicating henchman showed up and whisked her away. For some reason, Vanessa was less than charmed by Samuel’s kidnapping, but he still thinks he can win her over. (In a related story, I’m doubtful he can win me over this season.)

Meanwhile, Parkman told Bennett to go home and try being a dad. He stopped by Claire’s dorm to make up with her and went home to make out with Lauren right before the Three Amigos popped in. At least it’s nice to see some of our core characters getting together again.

In the episode’s other storyline, the new best actor on the show (Milo Ventimiglia) had to deal with some hideously awesome dialogue. It looks like Peter will soon be drawn into the carnival. The compass tattoo appeared on his arm after Lydia once again expressed her desire for new leadership. Peter was later drawn to Emma after she played her magic cello and brought him to her apartment. (Booty call?)

While in Emma’s apartment (which magically turned into Peter’s apartment because Angela showed up a few moments later), Ventimiglia had to say things like, “My friend almost died because of a compass Just. Like. This.” Actually, my personal favorite was later on – after borrowing his mom’s power and seeing that Emma’s cello playing in the hall of mirrors was going to lead to about a 1,000 deaths – he went over to Emma’s place, said “Hi” and smashed the cello. (Just terrific.)

So now it appears like Emma will hook up again with Samuel in the carnival and that he’ll hook her up with another cello so that he can, um, kill 1,000 people. (If I actually cared about what Samuel was doing, I’d be even more frustrated.) Meanwhile, it appears Peter will be recruited to lead the carnie folk, while Sylar may be positioned as the only person who can save the world.

Whether or not you agree with the direction of the show at least this season is going…somewhere. Hopefully, there’ll be more fun episodes like this one along the way.

So what’d you think of this episode? Is Hiro’s brain tumor supposed to be gone? (I didn’t totally get that impression.) Is Matt Parkman a coward? (“Coward” is strong – I think of him more as wimpy than cowardly.) Finally, where the heck is Tracy? (Not that I miss her or anything – just asking.)