Musings of a Glasses-Wearing Man
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Normally, I might be a little bummed about an episode of Heroes that confined itself to just a couple of regulars and an equally small number of sets. Not so much tonight, though.
I'm really in a bit of a fanboyish swoon about this episode, so let me get this out of the way and then try to discuss things a little more clearly:
Dude! HRG and Claude! And Hiro's dad, and little Hiro, sweet! And Ted went boom, kinda! And the double-crossing -- whoa.
Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system.
The episode, "Company Man," walked a pretty fine line between revealing big stuff about HRG and the people he works for and keeping at least some air of mystery about him. And I think it worked for the most part -- we have a pretty good sense of why he's been so protective of Claire, for instance, but there's still a lot left in the dark about the activities at Primatech Paper (although, would anyone at this point be too shocked to find out that Primatech is a subsidiary of the Linderman Group, or whatever?).
In the present, as we first saw last week, Parkman and Radioactive Ted have broken into the Bennet home, with Ted especially believing that HRG is somehow responsible for their strange abilities (Parkman should know better, since he started hearing people's thoughts before he was bagged and tagged). While the standoff in the Bennet home had a nice, tense air about it, the real meat of the episode was in the flashback to HRG's career with Primatech.
It began 15 years ago, with a not-yet-bespectacled Mr. Bennet meeting creepy Eric Roberts (does no one at this company have names?) and being extremely enthusiastic about his new job locating and tracking people with some extra genetic juice. Roberts explains that he'll be working with such a person as his partner -- and it's Claude (cool!).
Cut to: a year later, with Bennet and Claude meeting Roberts on the roof of the Deveaux building in New York, where they're discussing the recent fire that left baby Claire a supposed orphan. Oh, and Hiro's dad is there too, working with Roberts (awesome!) and telling Bennet that he will adopt the baby -- "it's not a request" -- but that he will only be her "surrogate father. She belongs to us."
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we now understand why Mr. Bennet has been so eager to keep his family in the dark about Claire's true nature, and to keep her sheltered from the outside world. He may be an overprotective dad, but he has better reason than most.
Early on, Roberts makes reference to the company working in a "gray area," but some of the stuff that's alluded to sounds charcoal, at best. Claude mentions vivisection in his car ride to nowhere with HRG, not long before HRG shoots him for "acting against the interests of the company." Yipe. Guess we know now why Claude is so bitter, if not how he survived getting plugged four times.
One thing I'm a little unclear on: The Haitian tells Bennet that he answers to someone above Bennet when it comes to Claire. I was assuming he meant Roberts, but given how the two of them collaborated to wipe HRG's memory of Claire at episode's end, I'm now not entirely sure. If they were working a con on Roberts, why would they make a show of their argument about it just for Parkman's sake? Anyone want to chime in on that?
A few other bits from this standout episode:
- Liked how Claire tried to cover when Parkman first read her mind, as if she was afraid her dad would find out her memory wasn't wiped. Justifiably angry as she was with her dad at that point, she's still his girl.
- Claire's mom's explanation of her faith was interesting too. Heroes hasn't dealt much with that aspect of things, but it's certainly a ripe topic in this context: Are these genetic advances a gift from God, proof of evolution, both?
- How cute was young Hiro, banging away at his video game?
- Who do we figure Claude was protecting when he took HRG's bullets?
- Nice FX work on the Ted-hulking-out sequence, and Matthew John Armstrong got to act out a classically tragic arc for his character. I almost feel bad for Ted that Claire managed to sedate him, because whatever's in store for him cannot be pleasant.
For all that, though, there are still some substantial questions about the nature of HRG's work -- not least, why does the company do what it does? -- which is as it should be for a show this early in its life. The show and HRG need an air of mystery, and given the writers' willingness to pay off things from time to time, I'm willing to ride with it for a while.
Your thoughts on tonight's Heroes? Sweet flashbacks, huh?
I too thought that it was an very good episode. I too liked that it focused the entire episode on that 1 group of characters rather than just making it the 'a' storyline of the show and using the other characters (Hiro, Nathan, Peter, Nikki etc.) as filling.
I'm going to speculate on a couple of the points that you mentioned in the recap:
1) I think the Haitian was talking about Linderman - not convinced, but am definitely leaning in that direction. At this point, Linderman is the only sort of introduced character that would make sense. Of course, it could be someone who we haven't been introduced to thus far (and by that I mean at all as while we haven't seen Linderman, we have clearly been introduced to him/her).
2) I'm speculating here completely, that the person that the Invisible Man/Claude was protecting was Hana (Stana Katic) the wireless girl. I suppose it could be Missy Peregrym's character (Mary something) also but in either case we have no idea how they would have been separated from Claude and captured/re-captured by Primatech.
I'm going to by interested to see if HRG's memories of Claire are all that get removed or if everything about Primatech gets removed, because that is one thing about the Haitian's memory wipe I've been looking forward to finding out about - i.e. can he control what memories you lose or just the amount to time you lose memories of.
Did anybody else notice that the pendant worn by the haitian when he was young is the same symbol on Nikki/Jessica's back when she's in Jessica mode? Or am I just really late noticing this?
The BEST episode of the season so far (for me)!! I don't care what you say, it was an Emmy worthy episode. We learned so much! Hello - Hiro's father! Loved it! I can't wait for next week. I bet HRG isn't dead; right? :-)
the symbol and tatttoo were first introduced earlier i believe in the episode where hiro steals the swprd, the sword has the symbol as well, something to do wit power i believe.
not only the best episode of Heroes, but this was my favorite tv episode of anything i've seen this year! I noticed the symbol on the Haitian too, so now i'm really curious as to what the tattoo on Jessica's back is. The interaction between Claire and Bennett actually got me choked up and that's not something that usually happens to me! Loved seeing that Sulu knows more about what his son is talking about after all and now we see that he may have been trying to keep Hiro's ability secret from the "Organization". And Claire apparently can practically be burned to a skeleton and still keep on ticking! Truly awesome! Was that Static girl in the background at the end in room where Parkman was? I can't wait to see what happens next. Although, Ted's got to find a way to escape i would think if Peter's vision is true, because i don't think that Peter has even met Ted yet has he?
The symbol was first seen when Mohinder Suresh
(Sendhil Ramamurthy) found his fathers computer running. The symbol appeared while the data was running across the screen.
I think Claude was protecting Claire's mother. His "betrayl" came not long after they got Claire, and she was on the run after that.
I wonder if Hiro's father knows about his power, or if his constant disregard of his son has made him miss it. but excellent twist...
The Haitian said he answers to a higher authority, and HRG said in this company? and he replied, no in your daughters life... or something like that, which makes me wonder if maybe Nathan isn't a little more involved than we were led to believe.
I think the Haitian can only wipe out time, like when Claire's mom forgot she was going to the museum. Why would she need to forget that? I think it was more about making her forget since that morning, because they didn't know when Sylar showed up.
Not sure I trust this Hana character...
I loved the special effects in this episode, haven't seen anything this good since Claire's autopsy. Best episode so far.
1. How did the sedative survive the radiation?
2. Any one taking bets Linderman is Mohinder Suresh's father who cheated death somehow?
3. Looked like chibi-Hiro was playing Tetris on a Gameboy Cl***ic; sweet!
4. What will HRG be like without whatever memories the Hatian took? (are his powers radiation-based too?)
5. What's with Eden 1.2? (Hana)
6. What's the connection between Linderman and Hiro's father?
So glad Mr. Muggles survived the radiation roast. Mrs. Bennet had the forethought to grab the little guy before they bolted out the door.
Did you see Mr. Muggles in the first scenes. Cl***ic dog acting. So fierce when he barks. It's like he's really channeling a doberman. If there were an Emmy for dogs, he'd win it.
I think the Haitian was talking about God. He appears from the conversation with Claire in an earlier episode to be very religious. Though I would not be surprised if there was more too it.