TV Review: Heroes 3.12 – Our Father

Posted by Adam Sweeney (adam@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 10, 2008

Heroes, NBC, Airs Mondays 9/8c

Synopsis: Hiro (Masi Oka) and Claire (Hayden Pannetiere) change the course of the catalyst 16 years ago, while Nathan (Adrian Pasdar) experiments with it in the present.

Review: I have finally realized I have a super-power. It’s only been triggered during this season of Heroes. The ability to roll my eyes very quickly at bad lines won’t save the world but it will physically indicate how I feel about scenes like Sylar (Zachary Quinto) getting happy about cake after brain fucking a girl. And let’s be honest, Sylar is basically a rapist. There is a disturbing response I get when I see him backing a girl into a corner, and I’m starting to think it’s best that we just keep Sylar as a villain. Not only is the show better for it, but I also don’t have to wonder whether it’s right for a show to essentially defend his actions. Just keep him bad and we don’t have to walk the moral tightrope.

I was split down the middle on how I felt about the “Our Father” story. Part of me enjoyed seeing Hiro get to spend one last moment with his mother, the other part kept asking, “Haven’t these people seen Back to the Future? You can’t personally come into contact with yourself or you will change everything that takes place in the future.” So why didn’t we see concrete changes in the future? Do people have to die for this to happen?

An interesting thing happened with about six minutes to go in the episode. For whatever reason I began to have faith that Heroes was going to find a way to be worth watching again. Lo and behold, The Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) shows up with Peter (Milo Ventimiglia) and Arthur Pertrelli (Robert Forster) takes a bullet to the brain. Please please please do not bring him back. The death of Arthur Pertrelli is the only truly shocking moment we have seen this season. The sound you will hear if you resurrect him … again … will be a million man march of fanboys and fangirls walking away from your show.

In spite of the last six minutes of the show, I am still wondering why every episode I see triggers images of other stories I have seen before. For example, the clone army reminds me of well, Attack of the Clones. Then we see Hiro thrown out into the street Mace Windu style. Thank God he catches onto a light pole like Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back. If only Samuel L. had been so lucky.

Intelligent Design is a concept discussed in the episode and it probably should have been explained more thoroughly for those unfamiliar to it (Thank goodness I took a Philosophy of Religions class). It’s not like teleological arguments are something brought up daily at the water cooler.

“Hey Jim, did you watch the Bucs-Panthers game last night?”

“Yep, it was a great match-up, almost as good as the one between creation and evolution. Alright Steve, good talk. See ya at lunch.”

The question of whether it is right to play God is at the center of the Heroes story right now and has the chance to turn this thing around. Pinehearst might not be cloning sheep but it appears the sheep are making the clones. Nathan Pertrelli has no clue what he is getting himself into. On the bright side, if Heroes ever wanted to do a cross-promotion with the forthcoming Captain America film they have their chance.

What I think would really help Heroes is to show some scaled down battles between characters. Not every fight has to be to save the world. Sometimes we just have to see Spiderman face off against Doc Oc or Batman face off The Joker. It’s these fights that make us gravitate towards the characters so that when they finally do try to save the world for the millionth time, or third time as Heroes is trying to do, we really buy into it. Still, there is now a reason to believe Heroes can save the day, which is more than I felt last week.

Up Next Week: In the aftermath of the showdown against Arthur Petrelli, his sons find themselves at war, with Nathan making a gambit that will have global repercussions. Meanwhile, Sylar captures Claire, H.R.G., Meredith, and Angela at Primatech — igniting a tense face-off. Elsewhere, Ando, Matt and Daphne try to rescue Hiro — and Dr. Suresh may be their only hope.

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JMoney

Not sure I agree Nevernude, Hiro is a work in progress, he had his failures in the first season too, he couldn't save the waitress remember.

As for this episode, thank God they killed off Arthur, he was not a compelling character at all, for some reason the writers were able to give Peter and Sylar all those powers and still keep them interesting but with Arthur he seemed he did anything he wanted, and knew exactly what was happening everwhere at everytime. I mean, how the hell did he know Hiro and Claire were in the past and how the hell did he get there. I really hated how they spent all that time with Claire and Hiro getting the catalyst and then POP here's Arthur snagging it away. If he knew the catalyst was in Hiro's mom, and then Claire in the past and he has the ability to travel through time, why didn't he just go get it himself in the first place? Anyway, I guess that's why long winded way of saying I'm happy they killed off his character, he had too many powers and seemd unbeatable. But most likely he won't be dead, because he has Peter's powers so he can heal, so no doubt Nathan will dig the bullet from his brain and he'll be back and I will hate Heroes a little more.

Leonkennedy

i kind of disagree with your review, i can see that you might be over heroes yet still watch it but for me, This last episode has finally a strong point and direction to the show, everything has built up toward this point

at first it was just a mess, heroes were turning to villians and villians to heroes, everything was mixed up like we threw our show into a giant bowl and mixed them around, but now, there is purpose to the show. Just like how everyone was asking, that simple formula save the cheer leader save the world, jsut like in season one

theres many things that are important to this episode, the fact that peter is finally realizing he can do without his powers, shows that he is really a hero with or without his powers, and when he gets them back ( he damn well better) then he will be a smart hero for once and not the naive one that he use to be.

not only that but the main villian was pushed aside, and a real villian is put infront of us, what better then Brother vs brother

it only makes sense that the true villian has been nathan, and even though he thinks hes doing good he really isnt, hes creating a very villianous plot with super soldiers.

i could go on and on but you get the point
this episode shed a lot of light on this season, and is by far the better episode and the most meaningful one thus far

Nevernude

I agree this has been the best episode this season so far, even though by Heroes standard in the first season, this episode is pretty average. However, my one concern is that the previous storylines had f**k all to do with this episode. The eclipse was quite a pointless plotline. Sylar/Gabriel is a villian once again, so exactly what was the point of turning him into a good guy?... Hiro is constantly being potrayed as irresponsible and a scapecoat. Not only was he responsible for losing the formula, he also lost his memories and now, the catalyst... Time was when Hiro was the only guy who accepted his powers and his role as a superhero... shame.

P.S: is Peter the most useless person on this show, after Mohinder?

xSilencio

I was sad to see Elle's fine ass go.

TV Review: Heroes 3.12 – Our Father

Heroes, NBC, Airs Mondays 9/8c

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