Heroes: Season 2, Episode 6 Review: The Line

The Line
Original Airdate: October 29, 2007
Writer: Adam Armus and Kay Foster
Director: Jeannot Szwarc

As the season progresses, “Heroes” finds itself at a crossroads. The current path of the season is leading them towards disaster. While this season is no where as horrible as some believe, the episodes have been mediocre. For every plot that hits the right notes, another plot stands still. All it’ll take to turn around this series is one episode that advances all the stories instead of just featuring them to fill time, but they haven’t gotten there yet.

After too long, Maya, Alejandro and Sylar finally make it to America. Hopefully this means the writers will start incorporating real place locations into the action to give the story some sense of direction. In theory they could’ve stayed in Mexico for a long time since we had no idea where in Mexico they were.

Sylar’s proving to be a bad influence as Alejandro notices, but Maya dismisses it as she appears to be having feelings for him. Because of that, Maya crosses a figurative line where she willingly loses control to kill the minute men waiting for them on the border so they could evade capture. The only thing keeping the top of the twins’ skulls intact is that Sylar has yet to regain his power. Luckily for him Maya, who may be sliding over to the dark side, is overriding Alejandro’s concern. It won’t be long before he regains them, and the twins find themselves in serious danger.

Hiro’s story finally makes some progress (although Ando is still reading!) Having Hiro go for the girl, while I still don’t buy that he’s fallen for her, complicates issues with Kensei. This could be the turning point where he becomes the villain, as Hiro realizes what tampering with time can do. Considering the present storyline features Hiro and Kensei battling as one of Isaac’s final paintings, it wouldn’t be hard to believe Kensei pops up in the present sometime after Hiro gets back.

West has to be a sociopath. Early in the episode, he claims superiority over others who don’t have powers, which doesn’t help his standing with the show’s fan base that hates him. In this episode he threatens to expose both himself and Claire for the sake of “teaching [Debbie] a lesson”. Granted, Debbie is obnoxious and cruel, but West goes too far, where we almost feel sorry for the girl. West’s antics this season have gone far enough where they should either make him a full fledged villain or get rid of him altogether.

Bennet’s scenes interrogating his former mentor were the high point of the episode. While Bennet has switched sides, he crosses that eponymous line again trying to locate the pictures, bring down The Company and save himself. Having The Haitian remove all of Ivan’s happy memories, only to kill him in the end, is stone cold. Ivan’s last words could be foreshadowing Bennet being very dark for the foreseeable future. To revisit this other side in all its ugliness shows the duality that has made him one of the show’s creative high points.

Finally we get a glimpse of the other six paintings in the series and surprisingly, not all of them feature a dead body. This is going to make preventing them trickier as the clues aren’t as obvious as expected. It seems like there may be some type of narrative from one painting to another, although some of the connections between others aren’t as clear.

One, looking at high res screen shots, may be Claire lying on the steps after West dropped her in this episode. If that’s the case, then what does it have to do with the other seven paintings as it pertains to the deaths of the Group of 12? If this has anything to do narratively, would this prank set off a chain reaction much larger than either West or Claire could predict? Perhaps this points to West being Kaito’s killer, which explains the lack of a second body at the crime scene. If this is the case, then it could be argued that West may be the son of one of the Twelve.

In another, a hand is holding a vial. Considering Bob’s work, this could be the “cure” that they’re testing on evolved humans to inhibit the powers. Alternatively, this could be the virus, which could wipe out most of the population according to the future Peter and Caitlin travel to. It’s likely the hand belongs to Bob and he may be killed in the lab, releasing the virus in the process.

A few other paintings follow this possible plague future. The first features two male figures in a jail like setting and a biohazard sign in the background. One of those men looks like Peter, except for a scar resembling that sign. The other guy is too vague; looks a little like Bela Lugosi in Dracula. Niki, as confirmed by producers, is seen in another painting pounding on a door. This could be a quarantine mandated by the releasing of the virus, leaving those with abilities persecuted similarly to the alternate timeline of “Five Years Gone”.

The penultimate painting is Mohinder firing a gun, pointed out towards the viewer of the painting. With the final painting being Bennet lying dead with a presumed bullet hole through one of his lenses, Mohinder could be Bennet’s killer. Considering the conflicts they’ve had over how they should deal with Molly, it could escalate when the conflict reaches a head.

Mohinder’s position as double agent was threatened when he brought Molly to The Company to help her in her comatose state. Now it goes further when faced with the idea of experimenting upon people without their consent. He can either maintain his cover and place Monica and others in danger or take a stand and possibly throw all their work bringing down The Company away. It seems that Mohinder gets lucky with Bob’s 180, but with Niki as his new partner, whose alter ego has no reservations crossing any moral lines, things could become very interesting.

At some point in the episode, Bob’s motivations change significantly. He goes from demanding Mohinder inject Monica with the “cure” to giving her an iPod loaded with action videos to train her and bringing her home. It’s likely this is connected to the threat of the Group of Twelve killer. Perhaps he’s hoping to do some good like Kaito did before his demise.

Hopefully they explain what happened to Peter during the four months in between seasons soon. So many theories have arisen that it is getting hard to keep it all clear. Now it is revealed that a man named Adam was involved with Peter. It’s likely that this Adam is Adam Monroe, whose name showed up on a file Bob had. Supplementary “Heroes” material confirms Adam as one of the twelve (one of the two unidentified men in the picture). Perhaps he is turning against the company to combat the threat of the virus assumedly in a way to make up for past sins like other characters. Adam could’ve been someone powerful enough to control Peter’s steps from a distance, leaving clues along the way. It’s just frustrating more hasn’t been revealed at this point.

The twist at the end certainly warrants some criticism. Peter and Caitlin getting transported to sometime in 2008 is just like Hiro’s first major time-space travel to NYC the day the bomb went off. Considering two characters have this ability, it’s not hard to believe it would happen occasionally. It was an effective method to show us what the stakes were, but to try it again in the second season could be seen as desperate. Not to mention the possibility that they’d spend a whole episode in this possible future reeks of ripping off “Five Years Gone”, which was itself an homage to the X-Men story “Days of Future Past”.

Days after this episode aired, the mini-series/spin-off “Origins” was canceled or at best, put on indefinite hiatus. Considering how much NBC hyped this as part of their 07-08 schedule, one could say that this is another instance of how badly “Heroes” has fallen in its sophomore year. The writers’ strike likely had some effect on this as well, but the diminished ratings for the season have probably more to do with why this project was scrapped. In the media, the lower ratings have been shown side by side with the critical backlash this season has been getting. Although I don’t think these episodes have been as horrible as some think, all these events must be taken seriously, as other viewers aren’t as patient. “Heroes” is going to have to step up in its game if they want to control the damage the first batch of episodes has caused the franchise before it takes the whole series down with it. However, the kind of slump “Heroes” is in can be turned around by one episode.

Overall Score: 7/10