The Heroes Review: I Am Become Death - Episode 3.4

Posted by Jason Chamberlain on 10.07.2008

Heroes throws another "What If?" at us this week, as Peter lives, Peter Dies and Sylar cooks waffles?! 411's Jason Chamberlain has the full review of "I Am Become Death"!

Okay Heroes, enough is enough. Stop screwing with my head!

3.4 I Am Become Death
Written by: Aron Coleite
Directed by: Adam Kane

Where do I even start?

Heroes is certainly not the only show to play with time. Lost does it all the time. But with Lost, the past and future is set in stone, it happened (or will happen) and is part of the narrative of the show. When we see Sawyer kill a man before he gets on the plane in Australia, we know it actually happened. When we see Hurley in a mental institution after he is rescued, we know it will happen.

But Heroes, they just throw the time rulebook right out the window!

In the first season we got ‘Five Years Gone’, a look at a possible future if Peter had blown up New York. It was pretty shitty, all things considered, with special people hiding from the government, led by Sylar in Nathan drag.

This season we have seen a different version of the future, also pretty shitty. This time abilities are sold to the highest bidder, Peter is considered a bad guy, Sylar is a stay at home dad (WTF?), Claire is a dominatrix who loves guns and black dudes who feed on fear, the hot thief married Pac-Man, and Nathan is President (but really this time).

All in all, I don’t think I like this future!

We saw this future in two different ways; Future “Bad, but who really knows” Peter took Today Peter there to show him the badness that must be stopped. Meanwhile, New Isaac sent Pac-Man on his spirit journey, which also took him to the future, where he’s raising Molly and has a baby with the hot thief.

Problem #1 – Okay Parkman, back up off Hiro’s Kool-Aid! That’s his hot thief, he saw her first, and they’ve got a great hero/villain banter going on that will soon turn into sexual tension. At least I hope it does, for Hiro’s sake. Either way, it was quite disconcerting seeing our selfish, carefree thief turn all Mother Hen. Hiro wouldn’t have domesticated her, I’ll tell you that!

Problem #2 – Angry Claire tries to kill Peter again, and this time succeeds, at least half way. What’s wrong with this girl? What possible reason/excuse does she have to get this f’ed up? Is this the result of her quest to gain power to “make him pay for what he did to me”? Is she still stuck on Sylar’s Horror Show? Is that why she’s popping caps in her uncle? Couldn’t she try the self help section at the local Indigo?

Problem #3 – What do you mean Peter’s ‘evil’? I don’t buy that for a second. Gravelly voiced, strangely scarred, sure, but not evil. It’ll take more than the words of leather clad Claire to make me think the younger Petrelli has embraced the lower path. We all know she flip flops on loving/hating her awesome Dad about 2,736 times a day. Before lunch.

So for those reasons, and maybe a few more I’ll remember later, I hope that this future gets deep sixed. That said, there are a few things I did like about this future. Starting with...

... nice guy Sylar!!!

Okay, you know last week, when I said I’d never buy Sylar as a good guy? Forget about that. I don’t know what that was about. There could have been alcohol involved. Good guy Sylar rules!

I guess I never fully understood his original power. I knew that it was about understanding how things work, but I didn’t realize the hunger for more was part of it. I figured that was just Gabriel being an evil, psycho douche, with a capital 'bag'. But if that’s part of his power, and it exerts control over him, I suppose my perceptions of the character need to be re-evaluated.

Should I consider Gabriel and Sylar two different individuals, like say, Angel and Angelus on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? One a human, one a demon, or at least, one a human and one a human under the influence of a super power? Does that make “Gabriel” redeemable?

I didn’t think so, but then I saw him with a son (named Noah!), feeding Mr. Muggles and cooking waffles! Plus, he accepts magic words as payment for maple syrup. What a guy! Maybe there’s hope for the Big Bad yet. Maybe he really can change. Maybe he can be a force for good?

What can I say, I’m a sucker for redemption stories and happy endings.

So then we see Present Peter (in the future, the one that may not happen...) receive Sylar’s power/hunger, and he is so intent on learning President Nathan’s intentions that he slices his head off! Good Lord!

Could Sylar truly become the hero, Peter the villain, as he once insisted? I hope not. I think, I hope, Peter has the nobility to withstand the hunger of this new power, but as we see, it already made him kill his own brother, albeit in the future. But if Sylar can turn away from it, so can Peter.

The other thing I found strangely cool about this weird future was Hermit Mohinder. I was expecting something a little more elaborate, like him scurrying across the ceiling as a spider, but I guess robed, frog skinned and weird voiced Mohinder is also cool. Still smart, more than a little cracked at this point and deeply regretful of his choices. Who perfected the “POWERade” (get it? Ah, ah? That’s good stuff) if not him? Did you notice that when Peter read his thoughts, it was his old, normal voice as opposed to his new, strange one? Great touch! It's all in the details.

As for present Mohinder, he’s getting more bug like with sticky hands. He’s also angry, and (sorry, I have to) you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. He gets all noble and stops domestic violence, is what he does. Only to have beaten wives scold him for being so rude as to save them. Ah, that’s some good down home Stockholm Syndrome right there!

He also chases off Maya, who is continuing to look very good in low cut shirts. I think the writers have found the perfect dosage of this character. That being, short bursts once or twice a show, and apparently having the actress skip wardrobe. Whatever works.

So in this future, you can buy powers? I’m saving my pennies, starting now. Gonna do some flying!

On Level Two (I thought it was Five?) Hiro and Ando plot to get out of their cell, and reconcile in the process. Eventually they’re dragged to see the Scary Grandma, who gives Hiro crap about being a disappointment to his father, which Ando strongly refutes. Unfortunately Hiro doesn’t seem so sure. With the formula in the wrong hands, they must now find the “key”, which is apparently the buried Adam/Kensei. David Anders is back, awesome! “Hiro, you son of a b----!” I guess I’d be mad in that situation too, but he did kill the man’s dad and attempt to wipe out most of humanity.

Nathan continues to struggle with the machinations of Linderman. I hope he takes the noble path, and he seems to via our brief glimpse of the future, but I don’t know. Linderman is one slippery fox. He also saves Tracy, who finds out she, Niki and Barbara (? What about Jessica) were triplets that were experimented on by weird doctors. Given powers! Man, Niki got the short end of that stick. I’ll take the Iceman stuff any day. Tracy resurfaces long enough to compliment Nathan’s taste in office furnishings before flinging herself off a bridge. A job for a flying man, of course, who saves her at Linderman’s behest. Then they share their power secrets and Nathan stumbles on a strangely effective pick up line “Your hands aren’t even cold.” Never tried that one!

Oh, and that poor Haitian. He’s always somebody’s pawn!

Heroes may be screwing with my head, but I've got to say I want this roller coaster to continue!

The 411: Another great episode as the show keeps cranking out the hits in this third season. Just ease up on the "what if future's" and get back to basic, present day story telling, okay? For the sake of my sanity, please!

Final Score:  8.8   [ Very Good ]