A lot of people seem to want to slag the current season of Heroes, but as far as I'm concerned, while it's not perfect, it certainly hasn't lost any of its ability to keep you on the edge of your seat. This whole season started off very intense and has only gotten more so, with this episode by far the hardest-hitting so far.
I don't want to include any spoilers here, but there are so many revelations and genuinely shocking and upsetting developments in this episode that it's hard to know what to say without giving anything away.
I will just say that some of the things other people seem to dislike about Heroes, and particularly the way it's evolved over season 2 and this one, are exactly the things I do like about it: incredibly complex plot lines full of weird twists and turns, and characters who can't be pinned down as simply good or evil. The latter is especially evident in this episode - while the previous episodes of this season were already escalating the sense of moral greyness that was already present, this episode takes it new heights, or depths, with several previously likable characters doing horrific things, as well as characters thought to be villains showing unexpected redeeming qualities.
This seems to be frustrating to people who expect that because of the series comic-book inspiration, it's going to follow a typically simplistic comic-book moral code where heroes and villains are clearly defined, with the good guys being always good and the bad guys always bad. But if anything the series has become the antithesis of that - in retrospect, Mohinder's anguished cry from last season of "I don't know who's right or wrong any more!" seems like foreshadowing - in this season, not only is it increasingly hard to know who's right and who's wrong, but it seems increasingly evident that there *is* no clearly defined right and wrong, and that the difference between a hero and villain is sometimes only a matter of perspective.
The people complaining that "But (character) wouldn't do (good/bad thing)!" are missing the point - the central idea here is that there's an angel and a monster inside of everyone. And that idea has rarely been as clearly and disturbingly shown anywhere as it has in this episode.
I don't want to include any spoilers here, but there are so many revelations and genuinely shocking and upsetting developments in this episode that it's hard to know what to say without giving anything away.
I will just say that some of the things other people seem to dislike about Heroes, and particularly the way it's evolved over season 2 and this one, are exactly the things I do like about it: incredibly complex plot lines full of weird twists and turns, and characters who can't be pinned down as simply good or evil. The latter is especially evident in this episode - while the previous episodes of this season were already escalating the sense of moral greyness that was already present, this episode takes it new heights, or depths, with several previously likable characters doing horrific things, as well as characters thought to be villains showing unexpected redeeming qualities.
This seems to be frustrating to people who expect that because of the series comic-book inspiration, it's going to follow a typically simplistic comic-book moral code where heroes and villains are clearly defined, with the good guys being always good and the bad guys always bad. But if anything the series has become the antithesis of that - in retrospect, Mohinder's anguished cry from last season of "I don't know who's right or wrong any more!" seems like foreshadowing - in this season, not only is it increasingly hard to know who's right and who's wrong, but it seems increasingly evident that there *is* no clearly defined right and wrong, and that the difference between a hero and villain is sometimes only a matter of perspective.
The people complaining that "But (character) wouldn't do (good/bad thing)!" are missing the point - the central idea here is that there's an angel and a monster inside of everyone. And that idea has rarely been as clearly and disturbingly shown anywhere as it has in this episode.