Heroes: Kindred

The particular human chain we're part of is central to our individual identity.

Elizabeth Stone 

I'll just get this out of the way right up front: this was not my favorite episode. Some characters seemed to lose about 50 IQ points (Candice, I'm looking at you), while others evinced such a complete reversal of their motivations and/or desires I'm still taking painkillers to deal with the resultant whiplash.  All in all, "Kindred" left me feeling more than a little frustrated and disappointed.

However, as I don't want to be one of those reviewers who simply goes to town on something they didn't like without even making an attempt to find something positive about the hour, I'm going to start by noting that all of the plot threads in "Kindred" revolved around two of the most prevalent themes in the series: family and identity.  With one or two exceptions, every scene in the show involved at least two people who were either kindred by blood (Claire and Noah, Niki and Micah, Maya and Alejandro), by choice (The 3 Ms, Peter and the Irish gang), or by virtue of their shared genetic quirk (Hiro and Kensei, Sylar and Candice/Michelle, Claire and West). Indeed, family was a central focus in many of the storylines, with Niki and Micah mourning the loss of one family member even as they sought out another, Peter joining Ricky and Caitlin's little coterie, and Maya risking the possibility of becoming a murderer by intent instead of by accident in order to save her brother. But while those families were coming together, Claire and Noah seemed on the verge of drifting further apart by episode's end; Claire struggled with an abstraction (her knowledge of what her father used to do for a living) suddenly attaining a face and voice she could relate to and empathize with, while Noah got to see not only his own potential demise but that his little girl was apparently kissing someone not far from his bloody corpse.  Given what a hard time fathers tend to have dealing with a daughter's budding sexuality... well, talk about adding insult to fatal injury. 

Meanwhile, the ways in which people struggle to come to terms with their own identity popped up in just about every plot thread as well.  Peter, of course, has no idea who he is both literally and emotionally, constantly wondering where he comes from and what kind of person he is.  Matt points out that Mohinder is more Professor Jones than Indiana, a reality Mohinder at first rejects and then is forced to accept as he begins to realize how deep the waters he's currently swimming in really are. Niki still hasn't come to terms with her inner Jessica, and thus believes removing her ability will make her dark half go away. Sylar has invested so much of himself in becoming special that the loss of his stolen gifts sends him into an emotional tailspin, even as he pot/kettles Candice's corpse for not being more accepting of who she really was. Hiro is torn between returning to his life as Kaito's son and Ando's friend and acting as Jiminy Cricket to the equally identity-conflicted Kensei, not to mention the difficulty of playing history's sidekick while he's falling in love with one of the leads.  And Claire is caught between her head, represented by her father and his insistence that they hide their true selves in order to stay safe, and her heart, as embodied by Zach 2.0 West's impassioned certainty that she needs to accept and embrace who she really is.

However, while the issues explored in this episode might be typical Heroes fare, in my opinion the execution left a little something to be desired. When the episode began, Caitlin and Peter couldn't wait to see what was inside the box; at the end, it appeared neither could care less. Candice struck me as pretty canny last season, and as an employee of the Company she certainly knew what Sylar was capable of, yet took absolutely no precautions to make certain he couldn't attack her? Claire's spent the past two weeks disliking West, and looked like she wanted to smack West after his stunt in science class (or maybe I'm just projecting my own desires), but all he had to do was literally sweep her off her feet and suddenly they're making out on the beach? And then there's Kensei, who went from gloating over how he was going to be "richer than the Pope" to thanking Hiro for setting him on the right path, even though from all our previous experiences with him you'd expect Kensei to at least be a little grumpy about being stranded with 90 pissed-off ronin. I don't generally have a problem turning off most of my logic filters to aid in the willing suspension of disbelief, but I'm afraid this episode demanded too much of it for me to handle.  

I would also humbly submit that so far this season Heroes is juggling too many seemingly-unrelated plot threads—and characters—at the expense of telling a good story. We get dribs and drabs of tales that would seem to have interesting potential, but never are immersed in any long enough to really get drawn into them. More important, these brief glimpses and tastes of what our characters are going through don't give us a chance to become emotionally involved with their struggles; we're watching things happen to them, but not really feeling what they're experiencing. It's a somewhat troubling trend, especially knowing that there are yet more new characters we haven't even met thus far, but I'm willing to continue to wait and see whether these problems are endemic or simply the growing pains most serial dramas seem to experience as they find their balance. 

Other thoughts:

• Peter seriously reminded me of Sylar for a moment as he choked Will; I can't help but wonder if absorbing all those abilities from Sylar included whatever damage Sylar's done to his DNA. Or perhaps having a darker side to one's personality actually is part and parcel of Niki's gift. 

• Speaking of which, I suspect the reveal that Sylar survived might have been as dramatic as the moment was clearly intended to be if NBC hadn't been using the scene in commercials for a solid month now. 

• I noticed a couple of nods to recent superhero movies in this ep; Peter Petrelli tried to get his lightning to work the same way Peter Parker did his web shooters, ie trying to find a magic word, in Spider-man, while West and Claire's flight almost couldn't help but evoke Superman.  And how much did West resemble Tom Welling of Smallville fame at times? 

• Very appropriate that Peter ended up in a pub named "Wandering Rocks," ain't it? 

• I gotta say, that painting of Noah's death was pretty damn creepy.

• When Mohinder and Matt had their conversation in the kitchen, all I could think was "My God, the slash fiction practically writes itself..."

• The car Maya and Alejandro joined their new buddy in was a Nissan with California plates and a "Go Conquistadors" bumper sticker. Since the Conquistadors are indeed the Costa Verde High School mascot, I suspect it's safe to assume it was Claire's car they were driving. 

• How luminous was Nichelle Nichols? I hope I look even half as good as she does when I'm that age. 

• Interesting that the Japanese subtitles are always white, while the Spanish are always yellow.

• Nice knowing you, D. L.  Here's hoping TPTB give your character a more fitting onscreen sendoff in some sort of flashback episode, as it seems like a lame way to let the audience know one of last year's regulars isn't coming back. 

• I know the Irish accents employed by the actors playing Ricky, Caitlin and Will have been ridiculed in most circles, but quite honestly I find Caitlin's eyebrows way more distracting than the way she talks.  

• Gotta say I loved the moment when Ando was busted playing a computer game at work. Not to mention how his stand-up hair really emphasized his surprised expression. I should confess, though, that when Ando put the contents of the sword's hilt into his hand all I could think was "why would Hiro have stashed a bunch of joints there for Ando?"

• Despite my other feelings about the Claire/West developments, I have to admit I really liked the "You can skydive without a parachute/You can skydive without a plane" moment. 

• Having Candice/Michelle's true form be that of an overweight woman (a fact confirmed by the online comic books) has to have been one of the oldest and most offensive clichés in the book. Honestly, I'd have hoped Heroes would be a bit better than to resort to such a tired device. 

• If Peter's skin evicts bullets with disgusting ease, how is it that the ink of the tattoo stayed in place? 

• And on a related front, I'd like to share a fascinating theory raised on one of the sites I visited while checking out reactions to this episode. Could the person targeting folks like Angela and Kaito be none other than Takezo Kensei himself? After all, it appears that his gift is, the same as Claire's: rapid cellular regeneration.  And what is aging but cellular degeneration? If their bodies are constantly healing from any form of physical damage, that should include the aging process. So in theory, Kensei and Claire (and quite likely Peter) should both be immortal—with the added bonus of not showing their years as they begin to pile up. Which means Kensei could have been one of the "group of twelve" Kaito and Angela spoke of, and would have been able to survive the fall that killed the elder Nakamura. If so, and if Kaito and Hiro are Kensei's descendants, then it would also explain why Kaito was so surprised by his killer's identity. 

That's it from me for now.  Tune in to enjoy "The Kindness of Strangers," and then stop back by to see what the always insightful Erin has to say about the episode. Until then, stay heroic.