Heroes season 4 episode 10 review

I never thought that bringing back Mohinder to the series would actually improve Heroes, but there can be no doubt – his appearance has driven the series forwards in leaps and bounds that make the first eight episodes of the series seem like baby steps by comparison.

Finally, after weeks of dithering, we have an explanation (or at least, the beginnings of one) for Edgar’s role in the story. And could it be that they’re actually going to explain how, exactly, all those premonitions of the planet splitting in two came to pass? Exponentially amplifying the powers of a man with soil-moving ability could arguably lead to that level of disaster, after all. I’m just glad that, finally, we understand our villain’s agenda.

Not only that, but after treading water for weeks in various ways, the Nylar/Sykman plots finally converge and lead, inexplicably, to the actual next logical point in the story. And that even involves a cover-story explanation of where Nathan had been after disappearing for the last week. It’s a remarkable step towards coherence. Are we still watching the same show?

That said, Heroes isn’t exactly back on the logic train. Having relied, yet again, on time travel to get stuff accomplished, it also has Hiro making a completely bizarre decision to ‘disappear’ Mohinder by…shoving him in an asylum. Call me a killjoy, but if I had time travelling powers and wanted someone to disappear for eight weeks, I’d just dump them, well… eight weeks in the future. Or, what the hell, nine or ten weeks just to be on the safe side.

The asylum image made for an oddly disturbing one, given the usual tone of the show, but it didn’t worry too much about making sense.

Although Claire’s role in the story felt a little shoe-horned in on Tracy’s side, it did, at least, make sense for Claire to finally have a friend she can talk openly with, given her trials over the last few weeks.

One has to wonder, though, whether the writers who wrote her scenes with Gretchen noticed that there was more chemistry in her appearances with Tracy than any of the supposed ‘lesbian’ moments they wrote.

Well done, Heroes writers. By trying to write a lesbian relationship, you actually managed to get the level of gayness lower than the series’ baseline. If nothing else, this proves that Hayden Panettiere should not be allowed to suggest her own storylines.

Of course, the thing about all of this coming to a head is that it looks like the series is about to go on hiatus. So if there were any hope of sustaining this interest into future episodes, an indeterminate gap of five or more weeks will probably stop us from caring. Ho hum. Still, if it isn’t on TV, at least we can be sure of one thing: it won’t get any worse.

Check out our review of episode 9 here.