Heroes Volume Five: Chapter 2

So it turns out that last week’s opener was one long episode, not two as originally thought. I done fixed it.

402 – Ink

Chapter two brings four smaller storylines into sharper focus, in a notably Hiro-free episode. The main bulk focuses on Samuel getting to know Peter, apparently making sure he’s up to whatever task the circus folk have in mind for the rest of the arc – the previously-glimpsed tattoos of Sylar, Peter and Claire are the only hints we currently have. It’s interesting and well staged, with Robert Knepper’s Samuel slowly becoming an insidious force who corrupts whatever he comes into contact with.

Less interesting is the Claire-Gretchen romance arc, which seems to be taking forever to go in a direction that’s immediately obvious from the off. Claire seems to have gotten over the suicide of her roommate with remarkable speed and spends her time onscreen eating curries with Bennett and wearing skimpy shorts.

Excitingly, there’s also the introduction of a new character, Emma, a deaf woman who seems sound waves as beautiful bursts of colour. It’s had to see how this will tie in with anything and precisely what use it is that she can play a cello and see lovely CGI notes taking to the air. Whatever – she’s an addition to an already overstuffed cast, so perhaps some older characters are about to be shuffled off?

The best scenes this episode are, in sharp contrast to last time, the battle of wills taking place between Matt and Sylar as Parkman tries to find evidence of drug smuggling in a man’s house. Zachary Quinto’s casual delivery pretty much saves the entire episode from slipping into the realms of sub-par, and the set-up seems to suggest that we will have an ‘evil Parkman’ story before the run is out.

A fairly clunky episode reliant on character development over superheroics. Not great, the cliffhanger is a duff one, but a brave episode nonetheless.

3 stars