Still Kind of Heroic

It’s still amazing that this show wasn’t canceled after last season. Seriously, season three of Heroes was quite possibly the worst season of television ever. Coming back after an uneven, strike shortened second season, everyone was hoping for a return to the wonderful writing of the first season that made Heroes one of the most exciting show of all time. Instead, they turned every single character into a whiny, unlikable bitch or arrogant asshole. The stories in both halves of season three, Volume Three: Villians and Volume Four: Fugitives, were so mind numbingly idiotic it’s still hard to make sense out of what even happened. Still, NBC somehow green lit a season four, probably hoping like everyone else that the show could once again captivate audiences and give the struggling network a hit series it so desperately needs.

Given a shortened order of 18 episodes, season four gave us Volume Five: Redemption, a name that was as much a promise to the fans that this year would be better than last, as it’s relevance to the actual storyline.

Like everyone else who saw all 25 episodes of season three, it was obvious from the beginning that the people behind Heroes wanted to get away from those failed story lines quickly. All the characters are pretty much settled into a new, or at least normal life. Claire’s (Hayden Panetteire, Remeber the Titans) starting college, Peter (Milo Ventimiglia, Armored) has returned to being a hero paramedic, Hiro (Masi Oka, Get Smart) has taken over his deceased father’s business as well as his “Dial-A-Hero” business with Ando (James Kyson Lee, CSI) and so on.

The only storyline that carried over to this season was Nathan’s (Adrian Pasdar, Profit) death and Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg, Alias) using his ability to put Nathan’s personality in Sylar’s (Zachary Quinto, Star Trek) body. Damn, season three sucked.

So with most of the old crap out of the way, Heroes was able to introduce a new set of characters including Gretchen (Madeline Zima, The Nanny) Claire’s new friend and love interest at college, a deaf woman named Emma Coolidge (Deanne Bray, Sue Thomas: F.B. Eye) who worked at a hospital alongside Peter and had the ability to see sound and use it as a force, the speedster Edgar (Ray Park, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace) and Lydia (Dawn Olivieri, HYDRA) who is able to see what is most important to a person.

The biggest, and best addition to the cast though was Robert Knepper. Famous for playing the maniacal Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell on Prison Break, Knepper was brought in to play the head of the Sullivan Brothers Carnival, Samuel Sullivan who had the ability to control the ground we walk on. Samuel’s the driving force behind the main events of Redemption, his goal is to amass an army of people with abilities. For every person with abilities he recruits to live with him, his power gets that much stronger. Once he had enough people, Samuel would show to the world that there are people with powers and that the people with powers should be feared and respected by those without, so in that regard, he’s basically Magneto.

Knepper is fantastic and takes to playing the bad guy. Though Samuel isn’t always evil the way Sylar had been in years past, Knepper seamlessly transitions himself from the false sincerity of a manipulative villain, to the one who uses brute force to show his anger.

So as the season started, things were pretty clearly laid out. Samuel would be the main villain of the season, Matt would have to deal with the repercussions of putting Nathan’s mind in Sylar’s body, and the last one developed a little later in the season would be Hiro’s quest to be united with his love interest from season one, Charlie (Jayma Mays, Glee). All of the characters would find their way into one or more of these stories, and almost everyone would come into some sort of contact with Samuel.

The strange happenings begin with the appearance of compasses scattered amongst the “heroes.” Noah (Jack Coleman, Dynasty) who is lost with the loss of The Company last season, finds a new purpose in finding out what the compass is meant for and his eventual goal of stopping Samuel. At the same time, he is also trying to be a better father to Claire, who finally has a chance at the normal life she’s wanted since we first met her.

As everything progresses, Samuel reaches out to more and more of the character’s we know, fooling some into believing that all he wants is a paradise for those with powers and making enemies with other ones. Of course as the more secrets come out about Samuel, the angrier he becomes and his actions follow suit. He has a direct tie in with Hiro’s quest as Hiro tries to save Charlie from Samuel whom he calls, “The Butterfly Man.”

The worst part of the season was definitely Parkman’s mind battles with Sylar. The whole thing was so corny with Sylar’s consciousness being stuck in Matt’s head from last year. Heroes redeemed (see what I did there?) almost all of the characters from last year to a point where you didn’t want literally every single one of them to be killed off except with this storyline. At one point there was a clear opportunity to kill off Matt, but of course they didn’t.

For most part though, Heroes actually had a decent season. Everything made sense, save for a few minor plot holes here and there that were mostly powers related anyway, and that’s a huge step up from last year. Most of the character’s were well-developed this year, Claire went from being a whiny little runt to someone who was actually enjoyable to watch, Peter and Emma’s relationship was done very well, and Hiro was back to the fun-loving child at heart hero again. Of course there were some questionable moments, especially Sylar’s actions towards the end. There may an explanation for why he does what he does, but for the sake of keeping this spoiler free, we’ll pass over it.

This wasn’t the return to excellence fans were hoping for, but it was certainly an enjoyable hour most weeks. Where these characters are at this point leaves very little room for individual mystery and that’s a challenge the writers haven’t been able to overcome. While in the first season we didn’t know things like which side Noah was on, what Sylar was going to do next, how these people with new found powers were going to “save the world,” etc., there isn’t much mystery left in that sense. They scaled back the villainous ambition this year which is was good start, and reworked some of the characters so they would ready for next season’s story.

This was a solid year for Heroes. It’s not the show it was when it premiered, but it proved to be one that still has the potential to be great. Volume six will be a Brave New World, but if not, at least this year Heroes found some Redemption.