In September 2006, a young senator from Illinois met with aides about a presumably quixotic run for the presidency, an ambitious attorney general discussed running up the gubernatorial vote total to secure his power in Albany, and Axl Rose promised his album would be delivered “by the end of the year.†And, in the then-fascinating alternative universe of Heroes, an eclipse spanned the Earth and caused a bunch of otherwise dull, ordinary humans to realize they could fly/read minds/bend space and time/shoot lightning out of their fingers. For a while, this was cool. It was a long time ago. We were so young.
Heroes now seems ready to truly start over. At the end of this episode, all the major characters, along with Arthur Petrelli (who we’ve learned was supposedly controlling everything the whole time), have gathered in a couple of rooms to wait for another eclipse. After nine episodes this year, nothing major has happened, and supposedly, once this eclipse comes, everyone’s going to lose their powers. That’s exactly what we need: a bunch of boring people who can’t fly/read minds/bend space and time/shoot lightning out of their fingers.
The finale of this “volume†comes December 15. Apparently they’re doing a full reboot, which, when fewer people are watching your show and grumps like us can’t stop ripping on it, is probably not the worst idea. More characters, though, could stand to die — the bloat is compounded by the fact that almost everyone now has a future alternate persona — and even then it may be too late.
This episode mostly runs in place. We learn that Sylar is turning into an odd superhero life coach, even evil magnates like Arthur Petrelli need competent public-relations professionals, the show should never again try a David Lynch–ian dream sequence, and the 10-year-old Hiro acts exactly like the adult Hiro. (Heroes has always treated its Japanese characters like overcaffeinated adolescents anyway.) But yes: Next week everybody loses their powers. And then we suppose we’ll have the Gilmore Girls with less sex.