Heroes Volume Five: Chapter Seventeen

417 – The Wall

Two equally interesting storylines battle it out for supremacy this week. In the blue corner, Peter Petrelli steps inside Sylar’s damaged mind to find that he can’t get them both back out. While Sylar has only been in his comatose state for three hours, inside his mind three years have passed.

In the red corner, Samuel gets his magic voodoo man Damien to make yet another head intrusion, this time on Bennett, exposing all his deepest, darkest secrets in front of Claire.

It’s a two-tier episode, with one part focussing on arch enemies putting aside their differences in order to work together to escape the hell they’ve been confined to. Unfortunately, just as it seems like dramatic sparks are going to fly (mortal enemies confined to the same space! Tension! Drama! Action!) Peter decides to just get along with Sylar and figure out their escape route, which involves a metaphysical wall like the one in Parkman’s basement.

The second part of the episode is yet another series of flashbacks into Bennett’s past, exploring his character and how he got to be the man he became. Samuel reveals all of Bennett’s former horrors to Claire, seemingly in the hope that she’ll finally turn on him for good. Sadly, it backfires (duuur!), forcing Samuel to bury them both in a tiny caravan underneath the earth.

Both parts of the story are reasonably interesting, but the real problem is that they are just padding before the final showdown. Samuel could have unleashed his plan at any point this series, seeing as how he hasn’t actually needed Claire, Sylar or Hiro for any part of this.

Overall, it’s average, but not unwatchable. Here’s hoping the ending is what they’ve been saving the budget for, because it’s not gone into the rest of the show.

3 stars