Heores: Season 2, Episode 4 Review: The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers

Original Airdate: October 15, 2007

Writer: Tim Kring
Director: Adam Kane

One of the major problems of the first three episodes was its pacing. Catching up with the large ensemble wouldn’t be easy and unfortunately the cast didn’t get much for individual screen time. Few shows can manage to do this in forty-two minutes. Ultimately, its best to let some of the subplots sit out so those covered get enough. By doing so, several stories make major advancements, with big reveals for the Group of 12 and the Nightmare Man, which converge in an expected, but interesting manner.

Angela’s reason for confessing to Kaito’s murder could point to the motivation of the Group of 12 Killer. By targeting some of the highest profile evolved humans on the planet, the killer may want to expose them to the public for some unknown result, maybe the widespread persecution we saw in “Five Years Gone”. Maybe the killer has some remorse for what he or she has done and purging the founders is his or her way of atoning, as well as exposing the sins of the rest. It’s likely Angela knows a lot about the killer, even if she doesn’t know which one it is. Hopefully they’ll keep her around long enough so she can tell that story.

The glimpse of the complete photo of The Group of 12 is certainly one for the high definition screen capture crowd. This shot confirms Bob as one of them, which should prove interesting to Mohinder’s story when the killer targets him, assuming it isn’t him. Some have theorized that the man who is identified as Mr. Petrelli is actually Takezo Kensei, which would be interesting. He is the only person in the photo not looking at the camera and he is out of focus. Other than that, no major reveals until Matt recognizes his father.

One major surprise is that the Nightmare Man tormenting Molly is Matt’s father who abandoned him when he was a kid. Since he is a character we’ve never seen or heard about, and he isn’t played by someone like Malcolm McDowell, it’s good that we didn’t wait for a long time to find out that. Matt’s role in the main storyline was tenuous at best, and those subplots tended to be the weaker elements of the first season. Now that his role in the main plot line has been solidified in the past few episodes, his story should get more interesting.

It personalizes the threat against Molly further, as he wants her to use her ability to find him, regardless of the risk. The end result puts the little girl in a state of comatose shock, where she begs for help. If this is one of Mr. Parkman’s powers, it adds to why we should be scared of him. Turning someone’s external responses off completely is very scary.

Unless West is going to be a villain, they’ve done a bad job handling his character. His stalker like behavior “courting” Claire was unsettling to watch and her falling for him hard to swallow. This is amplified from the assumption that Claire is going to turn against her dad for this guy. Perhaps if they waited a few more episodes instead of having the change be so drastic might’ve made it easier to swallow. Claire is a bit naïve to trust her new beau than her father considering what he’s done for her, but she is a teenager and that can make rational thought difficult. However, it seems unreasonable to believe that she would go against her father: she knows of her father’s past, so what he did to West would’ve, if anything, increased the guilt of past sins.

Naïveté certainly explains why Claire thinks she can somehow keep her relationship secret from her father, who was practically a secret agent. Even if he hadn’t seen the painting foretelling his doom, he would’ve picked up on something. It’ll be interesting to see how he balances finding the paintings while keeping the final one from occurring.

Nathan takes a few steps towards getting his life back in order, down to shaving that Rock Bottom Beard (Copyright NBC, All Rights Reserved). However, he’s still haunted by his actions with Peter and the image of his face covered in burn marks. Peter’s eventual return should make Nathan’s course very interesting regardless of where he goes.

Micah living with his grandmother and cousins is the odd subplot out this week, as it has nothing to do with the main storylines yet. Considering their relation, it’s no surprise that at least one of them has a power. Turns out Monica is able to replicate anything she sees (whether this is only stuff on TV is unknown). This power has most popularly been done with the Marvel supervillain Taskmaster (I don’t know much aside from that, so character connections won’t be explored here). It could send Monica on a dark path, as her mimicry to help her city may ultimately corrupt her. This is rather impressive and would be one Sylar would love to have.

Before her power is revealed, an odd hint of another side of her occurs when Micah tries to comfort her after being overwhelmed trying to keep her family together. For an unusual length, the camera stays on Micah’s hand when he hugs her. Considering her talent and his, it would make sense that Monica is some robot. Micah uses his technopathy to get some inner machinations to manifest and Monica uses a machine-like ability to watch and duplicate.

Monica’s ambitions mirror Peter’s, in that she hopes to salvage her city, still devastated by Katrina. This connection to topical events is reminiscent of the unaired pilot, which contained scenes of a character with radioactivity (later retooled into Ted) with ties to an Islamic terrorist group. Personally I’m wary of such direct connections to real life situations, since “Heroes” is primarily an escapist fantasy show and any coverage they’d give to a real issue may be superficial and take us out of the fantasy. However, I’m willing to withhold harsh judgment until later.

Maya and Alejandro’s story gets kicked into gear with them meeting Sylar. It’s a safe guess that Candace’s organization was keeping him in Mexico, but to have him wake up in the desert rather than the tropical setting we last saw him in shows a strong tenacity for him to keep going, although that contradicts his condition in the previous episode. While they aren’t in America yet, having Sylar meet with them must reduce some of the criticism fans have had towards their storyline being randomly in the mix. Also considering that Maya is a lead character and her brother isn’t, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sylar kills him, steals his power and uses that as leverage so the heroes he meets in future episodes can’t touch him, unless they want to ooze the black gunk of death too.

This episode benefits highly from focusing only on a few storylines instead of cramming a dozen or so character arcs in one episode. While those not connected with the main storyline (ie Monica) may have been lackluster, the potential they have to connect make up for that. Also the advancement of several major stories offers some hope to those who are still skeptical about the season’s direction.

Overall Score: 8/10