“Send in the Clones”

Heroes Reborn returns for the final 3 episodes of the season and after watching this I think it really shouldn’t have bothered coming back. Things are still lurching towards what promises to be a fairly predictable endgame.

I’ll confess that I completely forgot what the cliffhanger was and didn’t have the time -or the strength- to rewatch it so I actually relied on the “previously on…” blurb at the start to catch me up. I’m sure that the show wasn’t constructed with such a long break in mind after episode 10 otherwise I suspect there would have been more of an attempt to make it somewhat memorable. The ending of this episode showing the solar flare heading for Earth was a really striking image that would have been perfect to end and episode before a long hiatus.

Alas, the situation is what it is and I guess the show has to make do with what it’s got which really isn’t much. the trouble with the long break is that any momentum the show had built has been lost and I’m struggling to motivate myself to be interested in anything that’s going on. I don’t really care about the characters and the story is so weak that it has almost totally outstayed its welcome.

There are some good moments here such as Miko and Tommy/Nathan teaming up to teleport around the future together. Nothing much happens here but the interactions between these two characters was fun to watch. Seeing Miko slowly fade away manages to be somewhat tragic but since she has come back from “death” before then it’s hard to feel like there’s any sort of permanence to it.

Miko’s “death” in this episode was pretty well done but it could have been better. When she confronted the original Harris it felt like it was building up to a really exciting fight sequence but it was pretty flat when it was all over and done with. It’s a shame as Harris has been one of the more interesting characters in this show so giving him such an underwhelming death is a bit of a disservice. Miko did conduct herself well and this “death” is significant as it removed a major element from the show. Now that Harris has been killed it means that his clones can’t just show up whenever the plot needs them to. I’m sure another contrivance is on its way but at least this one has been removed as the show was leaning on it far too much.

Erica was definitely the strongest element of this episode. I feel like Rya Kihlstedt has managed to get into this character to make her feel as if she has more depth than the scripts actually give her. It’s down to the way she says things rather than what she’s saying. Erica always comes across as someone who really believes in what she’s doing and is fighting with herself to push the morality aside because she feels it’s necessary to get the best outcome. If humanity is doomed and a fraction of them can be saved with her project then it completely makes sense to stop caring about people because that would get in the way of actually saving the human race as a whole. It’s pretty cold but I can completely understand why someone would feel that they had to distance themselves like that. Rya Kihlstedt really does a great job of bringing forward the more villainous aspects of Erica while still having an objective that people can relate to. Even her desire to kill certain people can be understood since they represent a threat to her plan. As far as Erica is concerned her way is the only way and it’s hard to disagree some of the time. I could see season 1 of Heroes Noah making the same sort of decisions.

Another thing I liked was Phoebe who has become a pretty over the top villain in a good way. Aislinn Paul is really charismatic in this role and watching her attempt to chew scenery as a more over the top version of Phoebe is entertaining. It will be a temporary thing as her brother Quentin is sure to bring her back but for now she is standing out among the blandness. There’s very little to her character at this point which is a shame as I liked what was done with her in the Dark Matters web series.

Beyond that there’s not an awful lot worth talking about. Carlos and Farah save Micah who reveals the truth about Renautas to the world and shows that the Mohinder that was threatening people was actually a shape changing Evo. I guess it was supposed to be a surprise reveal but -like most things on this show- it fell flat as it came too late in the episode to create the impact it really needed to. It doesn’t really help that it was largely glossed over as a reveal as well. Maybe the impact of this will be dealt with in more detail in the next two episodes but I certainly won’t hold my breath. There’s nothing to say about Carlos and Farah either as all they do is move the plot forward without really feeling like characters in their own right.

Luke and Malina serve a similar function. Their entire narrative this week exists so that they can get a hold of Phoebe and Quentin then move along. It’s not bad by itself but far too much time is devoted to it without the characters ever becoming interesting. Luke coming up against Phoebe should have had so much dramatic weight since she was at least partly responsible for the death of his son but it really didn’t. The episode paid lip service to this but it should really underpin everything they say to one another. Having her acting against her will as a tool to be used by Erica should bring an extra dimension to this relationship but it really doesn’t.

Matt Parkman was one of my favourite characters in Heroes but I don’t think he has a place in this show. His current role in the overall story certainly doesn’t suit him and Greg Grunberg comes across as campy when he tries to be sinister. He just seems like too much of an overall nice guy to be believable in a villainous role. Matt’s scenes with Taylor were sometimes painful to watch and provide nothing new for either of those characters. Fair enough Matt now knows about Taylor’s Evo boyfriend and the baby but what else can we take from that? As with Luke and Malina there are too many scenes spent to get to this pretty simple development. The audience learns nothing new about these characters in the process so why spend so much time on it?

I really don’t hate this show but that’s mostly because it doesn’t do enough to be hated. The biggest crime that Heroes Reborn is guilty of is being consistently dull. It meanders along without managing to provoke strong feelings one way or another. If the show did enough to make me actively hate it then that would be something I could respect because at least then it would be doing something. That would be preferable to watching the whole thing largely kill time week on week and slowly build up to an end point that will almost certainly be disappointing. I enjoy this show more when it embraces the more ludicrous elements like living virtual constructs but there’s not enough of that to keep it interesting. I actually think the best ending for this season would be for the solar flare to hit and have a second season where all of the characters live in the future. That would at least have some potential for some insane storytelling that might be entertaining but I doubt that’ll happen. I can’t see myself watching a second season at this rate.