With all the different permutations Heroes has gone through in the last year – It’s time travel sci-fi! It’s 90210 if everyone could fly! It’s a philosophical musing on … uh … something! – the one thing it has never been is a buddy-cop movie. Well, time to check that off the list.
In a way, Heroes last night was an homage to those classic comic books where the hero and the villain must overcome their differences and form an unlikely alliance to take down an even more dangerous villain. In this case, it was Noah/Mr. Bennett/Horn-Rimmed Glasses guy and Super Villain Sylar/Gabriel, joining forces to capture escapees from the Super Secret Super Evil Super Villain prison. (I always expect Dr. Horrible to show up there.) In a masterpiece of timing, the escapees (including the disembodied Peter, we think) decide, upon their exit from prison, to … rob a bank! Of all days! Boy, are they ever in for a surprise when they reach the safe. And their retirement plans are totally screwed now, too.
Anyway, Sylar and Noah easily dispatch the bad guys and even have a couple winking “Oh, you’re such an incorrigible partner, but we sure do make a good team!†moments. It’s disappointing that the villains were all wrapped up and brought back to prison in one episode, but hey: Sylar’s kind of tough. Besides, we can’t get too comfortable with these two as pals; eventually they’re going to have to start killing each other again.
Meanwhile: Brundle Mohinder isn’t seen this episode, though we still get his pointless, nonsensical narration; Claire is having mommy issues; Parkman wanders aimlessly through Africa; Niki/Jessica/Tracy learns she/he/they were born in a lab; Hiru watches a Buster Keaton movie; and, most amusingly, the two Peters, present and future, face off. Because Milo Ventimiglia isn’t the world’s most expressive actor – to say the least – the producers have differentiated between the two by giving the older, “darker†Peter a facial scar and, hilariously, popping the collar on his leather jacket.