Long-time reader and contributor Creed left this comment in regards to last week’s episode:

Well said, though I think they are completely missing the boat with Ali Larter. Her original character had an interesting duality, though it became less interesting once the personality split was resolved, but Tracy is as interesting as a block of ice. However, when Tracy found the Doctor responsible for her creation, he said there were THREE of them. They could have left Tracy dead at the end of last season and moved onto the third, doing whatever they want with her.

I could be mistaken, but I had always assumed that the triplets were Niki, Jessica, and Tracy. That was my interpretation, anyway.

By the way, a couple of weeks ago I wrote an exclusive piece on my blog about how Heroes should model True Blood’s second season story arc. The popular HBO series reminded me a great deal of the first season of Heroes, as virtually all of the characters had their own stories, which culminated in a single climax. Click here to give it a read.

Moving onto this week’s episode. I spent a lot of last season talking about how this show really needs to distance themselves from the whole time travel thing. However, that was mostly aimed at characters going into the future, realizing something dire is going to happen, and then attempting to prevent it in the present. My issue with this formula – which they relied on for pretty much every single season – was that at a point I began saying to myself, “Why should I care if they stop THIS catastrophe? There’s only going to be a different one taking its place.”

So I was a bit surprised to discover that I actually really did enjoy this episode – especially since it focused heavily on two characters I’ve been extremely critical of this season (Hiro and Sylar). Sure,
Charlie’s “Wikipedia” reference was a little forced, but I actually liked watching the typically selfless and childish Hiro making a series of selfish and in turn adult decisions. Hiro could have killed Sylar and prevented a whole lot of misery, but he felt he had to preserve the timeline. Yet as Charlie rightly pointed out, he already mucked that up by allowing her to live (oh, and apparently Sylar now has the ability to cure brain aneurisms? That was just a tad on the weak side).

Actually, now that I think about it, shouldn’t Sylar’s super memory (which he originally acquired through Charlie) have made it exceptionally difficult for Parkman to wipe his memory clean? But on a lighter note, I do have to admit that the “where’s your sword?” response to “I’m Future-Hiro” did make me laugh after the second time it was said.

This may surprise people, given my typical lauding of the character, but HRG’s portion of the story was my least favorite. By a rather large margin as well. In my opinion, HRG was the breakout star of season one, and a big reason for that was the complexity of his character. Here was a guy who was willing to do bad things – but he did it all out of this perverse desire to protect his family. And that’s what made Noah Bennet so wonderfully complicated: Despite being the consummate “Company Man,” in reality he was nothing more than a family guy. Above all else, it was about his wife, son, and daughter.

These flashbacks, however, seemed to completely dilute this aspect of his character in order to make sense of where he is now and where they want him to go. Honestly, his desired redemption doesn’t make as much sense if we learn that his motives were always altruistic and that his fight was always a noble one. Along with that, the intriguing duality of his character – that despite his “badness,” he was devoted to his family – is severely hindered if we discover that he was emotionally cheating on his wife, and had come THIS CLOSE to physically cheating as well.

So no, I didn’t care for this part of the show. It felt cheap and it didn’t really mesh with what we already know about the character and the Company’s infrastructure, for that matter. And essentially rewriting the character, and “softening” his past self, really damages the personal growth he’s made over the past few seasons.

We finally learned a bit more about the Carnival, but not much. And while I’m not eager to see Mohinder again, I did find the final reveal pretty neat. Turns out, the guy was presumably murdered eight weeks ago. Is anybody else hoping that Hiro doesn’t so much succeed in saving him?

But, at the very least, Hiro and Samuel appear to be following the “Redemption” theme. And that’s a good thing, I suppose.

Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. You can visit his blog at [a case of the blog].