Heroes: Five Years Gone:

by Erin

A Soulful Spike Society Review
www.soulfulspike.com

 

 

It's Linderman's World, We're Just Living In It

 

"The common people will let it go. Oh yes, they'll sell liberty for a quieter life. That is why they must be led, sir, driven, pushed!"

--Mr. Alexander, A Clockwork Orange

 

"Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and what I had wanted to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off for ever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever."

--Alex, A Clockwork Orange

 

I'm nothing if I'm not a girl with a theme. In my last review, I talked about how competition and the myth of the lone hero is a dangerous notion. In this episode, we see that the reliance on those modes accomplishes nothing. Not that there isn't teamwork, but the teams, at least initially, serve two purposes: shelter or power consolidation. Sometimes they serve both purposes at once. Who are the teams we see? There is Nathan, Matt, and Mohinder; Bennet and Hana; and Peter and Niki. Hiro and Claire are on their own. Who is missing? Micah, DL, Candace, and Ted, at the very least. Whereas three of those heroes are mentioned, no reference to Ted is made throughout the episode. An oversight of the part of the continuity editor, or is this significant? More importantly, it underlines the differences between real communication and spin, between cooperation and competition.

 

In some ways, this episode is frustrating to watch. Hiro's web of the past and its potential consequences reminds me of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that were popular when I was a kid. You would get to the end of a chapter in which, for instance, you could choose tunnel A or tunnel B to get to the treasure. One tunnel inevitable led to death by bog, dragon, or big hole. It was hard not to cheat and read both descriptions to avoid boggy dragon-y hole death. Hiro is doing the same in reverse: one string means New York is saved, one string means that everyone dies, including him. He is flipping the chapters backwards to see which wrong turn was made. Yet the real answer is communication. We can see, throughout this episode, that there were numerous points at which information should have been shared and wasn't. The biggest breakthrough actually occurs when Future!Hiro goes back to October to talk to Peter. But stronger than that one victory for communication are the gaps in Hiro's knowledge, the connections between the strings that he can't make. He doesn't know that Claire has been saved, he doesn't know that Peter was the one who caused the explosion in New York, and he thinks that DL and Candace are still alive. Mostly on his own, he is trying to piece together a puzzle with large parts missing; he ends up getting tangled in his own web until he connects with his past.

 

Having Sylar impersonate Nathan is an intriguing choice. Over and over again we've had the connection between Sylar and Peter underlined; however, to connect Sylar and Nathan is to send shudders down the spine. Nathan has occupied the grey area for a good portion of this first season, whereas Sylar has been painted in the darkest colors. Yet both are hungry for power, to be "special." Sylar has killed to gain power; Nathan, for all Linderman's spin about uniting the country through the destruction of New York, is contemplating taking the same path on a far wider scale. Sylar himself (and I don't disbelieve him), tells Peter during their showdown that Nathan was already corrupted by the time Sylar killed him. Sylar, in the guise of Nathan, takes over not only Nathan's flying ability, but his masterful ability to "spin." He draws a broken Matt, a Mohinder prizing research and intellect over humanity, and the Haitian, using the three of them to play the ultimate long game: gaining Claire's ability and by extension, "eliminating the competition."

 

Without getting overly political, a country's leader represents a key signifier of that country's mood, direction, and policy. Having Sylar as the leader of the free world means that 2012 America is paranoid, power-hungry, and prizes self-interest over basic human rights. (So, not everything changes 5 years in the future, then.) The corruption at the very top corrupts everyone below. Matt and Mr. Bennet make Faustian deals to save their own children above everyone else's children, although Mr. Bennet does try to balance it out by saving "non-threatening" superpowered individuals. Hana, from whom no digitized information is safe, is killed; her death serves a metaphor for lack of communication and information that haunts this version of the future. Mohinder trades his conscience for billions in research money. Hiro goes against his own moral code against taking human life to such an extent that he is labeled as a terrorist. Niki retreats to Las Vegas after losing DL, Micah, and Jessica. Claire is sent away to the Burnt Toast Diner to live out her life under an assumed name (her mother's name, actually). Even Peter, empathetic and concerned about saving the world above saving himself, allows Nathan to hide his responsibility for the destruction of New York and retreats with Niki to Las Vegas. Worse, he lets Sylar take the responsibility for the explosion. These bits of fiction: Claire's death, Sylar's explosion, give Sylar more power than he could have ever imagined. Each have allowed their individual losses to isolate them from each other. Isolated, they can be manipulated, captured, and killed.

 

It is when they connect: Mohinder, Past and Future Hiro, Ando, and Peter, that Sylar's web starts to unravel, that he is unmasked. Future!Hiro is able to communicate to himself what needs to be done to avert this future. Mohinder kills the one man who doesn't speak and has the power to block communication: The Haitian. Future!Hiro is given the reward of seeing again the one whose death brought him to this obsessive, lonely quest: Ando. And Peter and Sylar, twinned through this season, are both finally unmasked and facing one another. Peter fights with fire, and Sylar with ice, both in the literal senses of those words and the metaphorical. Sylar brings cold and death, whether he's masked or unmasked; Peter, in finally taking responsibility for the destruction of New York, is able to stand and fight; he's got the fire back, if you will. These collective actions allow Hiro and Ando enough time to teleport back to the present day, and start the hard work of making sure that future never happens. Step one: Seeking out Isaac. Hiro has come full circle, not only to his original time jump, but to his search for others like him, to communicate what he knows and save the world.

 

Other Observations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for Sara's review of "The Hard Part," which I'm sure will be easy to take!

 


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