Heroes season 3 episode 9 review

If episode 9, ‘It’s Coming’, had any answers to the ongoing problems of Heroes, they got effectively buried under a torrent of strange but generally unrelated, and mostly implausible happenings.

Arthur Petrelli is still wearing his ‘masters of the universe’ underwear, and smug expression, yet he lets Ando and Hiro get away when Ando unbelievably operates his power by squeezing Hiro’s face. The worst aspect of this season has been the utter rubbish they’ve given these two to do, and it doesn’t get any better here. Arthur’s grip on Hiro has taken him back to being a 10 year old, although at least they’re now transported far away to a bowling alley. It’s exactly this dumb stuff that’s really grinding. Why do they give it to them to do. Why?

Meanwhile, Claire and Peter are on the run from Flint and Knox, but it’s Claire they’re actually after, even if Peter thinks it’s him. Nathan goes to see his father for the first time since he found out he’s alive. They exchange niceties, and then Arthur tells him that he’s going to give half the world’s super powers and make him president! Some of us just never had fathers that giving, I guess.

I hope you like spoilers because the big one of this episode is right up next. This is the story where bad Sylar becomes the good Gabriel again, as he’s been threatening to do for at least five episodes. Arthur puts him in cell with Elle, who’s none too pleased to see the person who killed her father. But her anger and sparks won’t kill this hero, because he’s got Claire’s power. Eventually he learns ‘empathy’, and gets her power without killing her. They bond, but not in a biblical sense, yet.

Parkman went to Primatech, which is empty apart from  the bed that Angela Petrelli is occupying, so with only cute Daphne there to talk to, he decides to go inside Angela’s head to see if it’s occupied. That’s a big mistake, because it’s rush hour in there! He finds Angela chained to a wheelchair, and then a psychotic Daphne stabs him! Which curiously causes him to bleed for real.

Then the good Daphne comes in, and so does Arthur. He should have made a bigger location in Angela’s mind, but then he might not have expected so many gate crashers. Parkman needs to get out of there quick. Can Daphne convince him to leave? This is then where Heroes goes all smoochy on us. Daphne tells Parkman she loves him, and Angela springboards from that thought into getting Arthur to let them all go, the all super-powered softy that he is. Ah…

The end of the episode is a big set-up slow motion segment where you see the sides of good and evil taking their positions, ready to fight for what comes next – the eclipse – whatever that actually signifies. It’s revealed that, along with the two formula pieces Arthur has, there’s a third component needed to make it work, a human catalyst that might be Claire, possibly. Whatever happens now ‘It’s coming’…

On the upside, this story wasn’t as bad as the utter hogwash that episode 8 represented, but I get the distinct feeling that we’re about to see everything thrown at the wall in the possibly fruitless attempt to see what sticks and thus try to keep this show running. The problem is that however imaginative they get from here on, it’s going to look like something interesting tacked onto what was complete junk.

I wish they’d stop using Hiro and Ando in such annoying fashion – right now, I have to fight the temptation to fast forward through their scenes. And, many of the entirely duff characters like Suresh and Nathan need to be killed off soon, please. Maybe what the eclipse symbolises is the show being cut, which, if it doesn’t do something drastic, will come.

Check out our review of episode 8 here.