Hi friends, welcome back to another TV Tuesday! This week I’ll be diving into season four – the final season, of the show Heroes.
Talk about time travel, I don’t think past seasons have gone back and forth as much as we have this season. It really takes the viewer on a rollercoaster ride.
This season starts with new players, as it always kinda seems to; we’re dropped into something completely new and we have to work backwards to try and put all the pieces together.
So we’ve got a carnival of people with abilities, no idea where they came from or who they really are, all we know is they have abilities. There’s the leader of the “family” Samuel who is looking for someone to join their family after the death of his brother Joseph… well we learn later on (and it’s not very shocking after we learn more about Samuel) that he killed his brother from keeping the true worth of his powers from him his entire life.
Joseph knew how powerful his brother could become and didn’t want that for him because he knew he’d destroy the world if he could. We see Samuel use his powers throughout the show and when he doesn’t like something or it doesn’t go his way, he completely destroys it… imagine if he was using his full potential… yikes!
So, one of the girls has the ability to show people what they seek and Samuel has been using her. She keeps showing him different people we’ve met throughout the show… Peter, Hiro, Claire, Tracy, Noah etc. So one by one he tries to corner them, knowing that they all feel vulnerable about their abilities so he plays to that trying to lure them in. He leaves them all with a compass that will point them to his carnival….
I honestly don’t remember who he starts to go after first but I’m going to start with Peter.
Peter is living alone, working as a paramedic. He works all these crazy hours using his new healing ability to try and save every possible person, ever. This new ability he got to save Hiro… as Hiro’s ability is slowly killing him, but Hiro is so destined to make everything right that he keeps going back in time to fix and change everything. He ends up time traveling to Peter and Peter wants to help him, but by the time Peter comes back with the ability… Hiro is gone.
Peter starts getting attacked by Samuel’s friends and he turns to Noah for help… well Noah says he’s out of the business and says he can’t help Peter… but then changes his mind when he almost gets killed by the same men. They find a key that leads to a box, which leads to compass… the very same compass that Peter finds tattooed on his arm… well guess who put that there… Samuel.
Before they can go looking for where or what this compass may mean they have a few other things they need to take care of with their own respected families.
Nathan… who is Sylar’s body, but with Nathan’s memories is starting to remember all kinds of things that he doesn’t remember, but he assumes must have happened to him.
The shows goes into quite a bit of detail into different things he remembers. It isn’t until a little later that Rene (he FINALLY gets a name, this poor man… they’ve been calling him “The Haitian” for 3 seasons and it’s bothered me!) tells Peter if they want to know the truth, goes to this storage locker. They go and find Nathan’s dead body.
I completely forgot that Peter wasn’t around when they did the whole switch so I was confused for a second; I was like ‘doesn’t Peter know what his mother did?’ No, he does not. At first they believe that dead body to be Sylar, but you can see the doubt on both of their faces. When Nathan touches the body he sees flashes of the past, which then leads them to Matt.
Oh Matt… this poor guy has just not had a good time at all. From the start of this series to now. So the guy is trying to live a normal life, not use his powers and be normal… but guess who lives in his mind… Sylar. Sylar is pissed… he wants his body back and he knows that Matt knows where it is and what happened to him, but he won’t say. So Sylar starts killing people to get Matt to start talking.
It works until Matt is ready to sacrifice his own life to get rid of Sylar and he gets shot by the cops. Matt finds himself in the hospital and that’s where Nathan and Peter find him. Peter is able to heal him and they find out the truth, but they’re still not sure… as they don’t know if it’s Matt talking or Sylar. In the end Peter doesn’t think Nathan should take Matt’s hand (Sylar can then switch bodies) but Nathan does it.
Matt is set free, but Nathan is now burdened.
At Thanksgiving Peter and Nathan try to corner their mother, and she is SO not willing to talk about it, but when Sylar starts to appear… she has no choice but to tell them. Messed up man, so totally messed up. All she wanted was her son to stay alive so she risked using the most dangerous person on the planet to keep him alive. A mother’s love, she really wanted to risk it.
In the end Nathan ends up dying, for real this time – I know how many times he’s fake died, but this one is real. He tells Peter to let him go, that there’s nothing left of him… it was truly a sad scene to watch Peter literally let Nathan go off the side of a building. Obviously Sylar is still alive and walks away.
Now Noah, I’m so not into him this season. I loved his weird grey character habits and now the show is trying to set him up with women and I’m like… no thanks. He and Sandra get divorced and so now they’ve tried to hook him up with Tracy and then someone from his past, Lauren, who we’ve never heard of but apparently used to work together and they had a thing for each other… not a fan of this plot.
But when Gretchen almost gets killed by one of their classmates, Becky, Gretchen is scared for her life and leaves.
Sidebar: I do like that her dad invites Gretchen for Thanksgiving dinner because they realize how much they missed each other.
We find out Becky has history with Mr. Bennett. Apparently Noah killed her father, as she has abilities, and now she wants revenge. Enter Samuel. He goes to Claire telling anything that could persuade her to join their carnival, but she’s not having it.
It’s later when she finds out that her father is back in business tracking down people with abilities that she steals the compass.
Samuel is still after everyone. When Tracy mysteriously comes back, as I thought she died last season, but apparently her ability brought her back. But now she’s having a hard time controlling her abilities and fitting in. Samuel approaches her and gives her the compass. She thinks about it, but I think in the end she’s going to use it.
Samuel tries to get Hiro too, and he does sink his teeth into Hiro by holding Charlie over his head. I forgot who Charlie was for a moment until we’re back to season 1 when he met her in a diner. Hiro claims she’s the love of his life and he needs to go back in time to save her from everything, from her tumour, from Sylar… and he does… but in the future Samuel won’t tell Hiro where she is.
It’s so sad to see Hiro so heartbroken trying to do what Samuel asks… although he calls him “Butterfly Man” which I love.
Samuel says he won’t let HIro know where Charlie is until he does this favour for him… going back to eight weeks ago to save a tape.
So I totally thought Mohinder wasn’t going to be in this season… but here he is… dead. Mohinder tries to again leave the world again… but he just can’t leave his father’s studies alone. When he finds out about this discovery he goes to the carnival to find Samuel. His brother, Joseph tries to stop Mohinder from pursuing the matter, but when Samuel finds out… well Joseph dies and when Mohinder goes to burn the tape, he kills Mohinder.
When Hiro goes back in time he saves Mohinder… but has to hide that he saved him and gives the Butterfly Man what he wants.
When Hiro goes back to save Mohinder for real as he’s been placed in a physic ward, Hiro is speaking in riddles that you’d think he’d need to be in the hospital. It was confusing because you were to think he was joking around to just save Mohinder, but really Hiro’s brain is malfunctioning and Ando has to use his powers to zap him so he can teleport them out of danger… to Noah Bennet.
As soon as they arrive at Bennet’s, Hiro passes out. Then we have this whole episode where he’s at court trying to prove his innocence in using his powers. It’s such a strange episode, but he’s got to fight his way back. In the end he battles it out with Adam or Kensi (blast from the past) and with his skill he wins, so does that mean his tumour is gone?
Noah and his new partner Lauren are trying to track Samuel because he fears Claire is in danger. He knows she took the compass and he’s desperate.
I have to say Samuel and his family confuse the heck out of me. We see that he just wants to gather all the people with abilities and create a safe home for them, Claire sees that too. But when she realizes he’s stolen her father’s papers and that Samuel’s “family” are actually just scared of him so they are compliant towards him she knows she must leave.
And when Samuel doesn’t get what he wants, well he causes a scene. He tries to track down a girl from his past, the girl he loves, but when she doesn’t want what he wants, he buries a small town.
Samuel then goes to a new character, Emma because he thinks he can win her over, but not if Peter has anything to say about it. Emma, who is deaf, has the power to see colour as sound; make enough and it really shakes things up. She knows Peter as they work together and when Peter has a dream … I’d just like to sidebar here for one second, I love the fact that whenever Peter needs an ability he just grabs it, it does make for some progressive storytelling … Peter sees that Emma is going to join forces with Samuel to create a lot of destruction with her power and of all people Sylar can save her.
That’s going to be a little difficult when Matt takes Sylar’s powers away. Peter shows up at Matt’s house after Sylar begs Matt to get rid of his powers… not really sure who Sylar is trying to be this season. One minute he’s trying to kill everyone for power, the next he doesn’t want it anymore because he doesn’t want to be alone… he’s very complex and I think that’s why I like Sylar; even though he’s a terrible murderer with no regard for human life, he still has these human moments that really shake you.
So Matt uses his power to trap him in a nightmare and Peter goes after him. I have to say, the two of them, after everything they’ve been through, it was interesting to see them work together to try and get out. Peter knows he doesn’t want to forgive Sylar, but he also knows Sylar isn’t the same person… complexity.
It takes time, but they break out of the nightmare on route to save Emma…
This show! With only one episode left I still have SO many unanswered questions. HOW are they going to wrap this series up in 45 minutes?!
That was so not the ending I was expecting, plus they left it as “To be continued…” like excuse me!
So Samuel is ready to make his big move. He’s used Emma’s power to lure everyone to Central Park in New York. He wants to expose everyone with abilities and he’s gotten rid of anyone (or tried to) who’s tried to stop him.
He buries Claire and her father, but with the help of Tracy who can turn everything into water, she saves them. Claire tries to tell everyone who is part of Samuel’s “family” who he truly is. Without his “family” Samuel is useless, as he needs them to fuel his power. So Claire gets them all to leave; it isn’t easy at first, but as some of his minions come out of the works to say what Samuel has made them do, they all start to turn on him.
I’ve never like Samuel’s character so to watch his demise was fun.
They need Hiro to teleport the large crowd away from the carnival.
Aw, poor Hiro. We find out he did save Charlie. Samuel ended up placing her back in time, so when he met up with her… she was old getting ready to die. She thanked Hiro for saving her life and for giving her a new one with a family. Of course Hiro wants to go back in time so he can be with her, but after seeing her with her family, Hiro knows he must let her go.
Now, he must save everyone from Samuel’s destruction, and he does just that, which enables Samuel to completely sink everyone into the ground.
Sylar and Peter also show up, Sylar is able to save Emma, but gets tripped up by one of the carnival guys. Sylar truly has changed because he even says it, he could have easily killed that guy, but he didn’t.
The ending is a little anti-climactic. They save everyone, Samuel gets arrested and Noah wants everyone to go into hiding, but instead Claire jumps off a Ferris wheel to prove she’s different and all the characters we’ve come to love just stare and say “she’s going to change everything”.
I’m glad there’s a Heroes Reborn because that ending felt like a new beginning that I need to know what happens after that. What’s going to happen to all these characters now.
This show has been engaging and ruthless and fun to watch all at the same time.
Bony's Whimsical Explorations & Reviews
One thought on “Let’s Talk About… Heroes Season Four”