One huge drawback to an excellent Heroes episode: It’s hard to come up with enough spoiler-free material to post before the jump. I suppose I can mention that Peter does NOT appear shirtless in this episode, but it’s a testament to how gripping the plot was that I didn’t even notice until afterwards, when I was working on this recap.
This episode is where the various plotlines that were strung out at the start of the season really start to come together, and the theme is the importance of a father to each Hero. Parkman starts to be able to control the extra abilities his father told him about, but he has to decide how far he’s willing to go in using them. Will he show the restraint his father lacked, even at the expense of tracking down the entire first generation of Heroes? Meanwhile, Hiro can’t face the reality of his father’s death, so he goes back in time to save him, only to have his father refuse. In trying to convince him otherwise, Hiro takes him into the past, where he encounters himself as a boy, and comes to realize that a true Hero knows when to back away and let fate take its course. He does make sure that he has the information he needs to avenge his father by stopping time long enough to identify Adam as his father’s killer. I’m so glad that Hiro is back in the present - he’s really the heart of this show in many ways.
However, the biggest section of the plot revolves around two very complicated father-daughter relationships. Bob, the leader of the Company, believes in his mission so strongly that he sacrificed his own daughter to it. Apparently Elle wasn’t always the sociopathic sex kitten we see today. HRG, on the other hand, took his commitment to protect Claire so seriously that when it started to conflict with the Company’s mission, he chose her. The father-daughter teams face off when the Company decides it needs Claire’s healing powers. It’s nice to see HRG use his badass powers for a good cause again. Unfortunately, Mohinder, who seems to be trying to set a new record for horribly bad choices, shoots HRG to keep him from killing Bob, and Isaac’s final painting is fulfilled. The twist ending, of course, is that Claire’s blood has already been harvested, and it’s put to its first test to revive her dad. But who saved him? And who’s holding him? Is he back to being a Company man?
PG-Rated
