Review: Heroes 4×14 – Close To You

A definite improvement on last week

Close To You

In the US: Monday 11th January, 9pm, NBC
In the UK: April/May probably, BBC2

Well, after last week’s duller than dull affair, things could only get better. And they did. Woo hoo!

Spoilers after the jump.

Plot
H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) recruits Matt (Greg Grunberg) to help him take down Samuel (Robert Knepper), as they use his long-lost love, Vanessa (guest star Kate Vernon), to lure him to them, but Samuel has his own plans for Vanessa in the works. Meanwhile, Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) go to extreme lengths to save Dr. Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy). Elsewhere, Peter’s (Milo Ventimiglia) introduction of Emma (guest star Deanne Bray) to his mother (Cristine Rose) brings forth visions of a very grim future.

Hayden Panettiere also stars. Todd Stashwick and Sasha Pieterse also guest star.

Was it any good?
Although still a little too slow paced and lacking in Tracy (Ali Larter – she’s been gone so long now, you’ve probably forgotten who Tracy is) to be classed as excellent, this was actually pretty good, with a decent balance of powers, heroes, action, character development, fun and drama.

HRG, Matt, Claire and not TracyLauren
Matt’s back and turned himself into a house husband, because he’s all shook up after Sylar. But up pops HRG, following a spat with not TracyLauren, to ask for his help, and he’s soon back in the game, trying to get hold of Samuel’s long lost love, Vanessa (BSG‘s Kate Vernon), before Samuel does. They fail – although, for some reason, Samuel doesn’t kill HRG – and return back to their ‘normal’ lives. Except Matt’s now worried he’s running away from trouble, and HRG is worried he’s running away from a normal life – so tries to patch things up with Claire and seizes the day with Lauren.

Pretty good all round, I thought. Matt was interesting, as was his new family life and cooking skills. HRG worked well, too, as our new hero, given Peter’s moping again. I thought Elisabeth Röhm, much as I love her, was a bit one-note, although given her character’s odd flip-flops, that’s forgivable, since I’d have no idea how to play it if I were her.

We could do without more HRG and Claire bickering though, so fingers crossed it’s all going to be patched up between them properly soon.

Hiro, Ando and Mohinder
Hiro’s brain is temporarily absent, so it’s up to Ando and Mohinder to pick up the slack, which they did very well, I thought – both Ando and Mohinder got well served as characters by the whole episode in fact. Nice too that the writers remembered that Ando has a power and that so does Mohinder, both of which were used well (although I wonder if Ando is ever going to supercharge anyone else again). And fortunately, Hiro’s brain was repaired at the end – kids, don’t try what Ando did at home – so we didn’t have to endure any more episodes of stupid talk.

Mohinder didn’t get the voiceover, this week, you might have noticed, and so it was HRG who sounded like a twat instead. Turns out it’s the voiceover that’s the problem, not the person delivering it.

Peter, Emma and Mrs Petrelli
Oh dear, Mama Petrelli’s been having dreams about Emma (not those kind) and it turns out our Emms is going to kill lots of people. Peter gets to share the dream and ends up smashing Emma’s cello. Despite Peter pointing out that Samuel’s a lying, freaky weirdo who gives people tattoos against their will, Emma thinks he’s a tit and sends him away.

The least satisfying part of the whole episode, since any self-respecting person would have believed Peter, making Emma look like she’s completely new to this whole super-powers thing. This is putting plot before character rather than the other way round.

But still not bad.

Overall
Thankfully low on both Sylar and Claire this week, the other characters finally had a chance to breath and an interesting time was had by all. The whole Vanessa storyline seems to have come out thin air, since she didn’t get mentioned until last week, but they’re doing a good ret-con job and holding things together.

Satisfying to see some actual action this week, but we sorely need some actual fight scenes. Although I can see the reasons for the writers’ reluctance, not least the reduced budget, Peter really needs to have more than one power again. We need the fun back in Heroes. Where’s someone with water powers to fight someone with earth powers when you need her, huh (although it might get a bit muddy, I admit)?

Next week, what looks like a bit of a filler episode, but an interesting one all the same, since we have a few returning characters.