I am – Hercules!!


After tonight, only five more new episodes left, and you can be pretty certain at least three of those will air in May.

1.18, airing Monday night in the United States, aired in Canada Sunday night. Great White North inhabitant “L-Prime” has the review:

What’s it called?
“Parasite”

Who’s responsible?
Written by Christopher Zatta, Kevin Bray directs.

What does TV Guide say?
“Nathan meets Linderman in person just before the election; Hiro goes for the sword again with dire consequences; Suresh makes a breakthrough on “the list”; another person with powers, Candice Wilmer (Missy Peregrym), shows up.”

TV Guide leaving anything out?
Hmm. Peter and Isaac deal with the fallout of shooting Simone, which spins off in a couple different directions. Niki/Jessica shows up a little, gets entwined in a little something else.

HRG seemed to be in a bit of a pickle last week — are we left hanging to get resolution with him?
Nope. As the previews basically gave away, he is alive and well. Minus some memory of course, but an update comes from a surprising source.

HRG start moving forward trying to find Claire?
He does.

And?
He hits a snag.

How do we get the Linderman reveal?
We start with a casually dropped bombshell (so to speak), creating a pretty huge shift in a couple storylines before the credits stop rolling. His eventual appearance (open secret, Malcolm McDowell) is pretty damn good too.

Is Linderman running ‘the company’?
Not as far as I can tell.

Are there any more hints on who’s behind HRG’s company?
Nope, and we only get a moment or two of Eric Roberts, nothing too mind-boggling.

Malcolm McDowell. Cool.
He really was. Nicely nuanced (to use an overused cliché) performance as well. Where the character could have come across as, well, some sort of comic supervillain, the writing and performance show us that Linderman may be just another fascinating player in this game, rather than an all-powerful architect.

Parkman was unconscious at the end of last week, stretched out on a biobed.
He is no longer out of it, but we only get a few seconds of Mr. Grunberg.

Those pesky trailers show Simone up and about, albeit a tad perforated — what’s up?
Let’s just say it has to do with Missy Peregrym’s newly introduced ability.

Hiro goes for the sword?
He does. Takes a couple tries, and he runs into Ian Gomez (of “Felicity” and many other JJ Abrams projects) in the meantime.

Suresh and Sylar?
Suresh finally starts really earning his reputation as a smartypants, but not all goes to plan.

Niki, DL and Micah?
Niki/Jessica get taken out of the house and into someone else’s story, leaving the tyke and the man behind.

Being the last episode before a decent hiatus, do we depart gently, or are we left hanging?
Boy are we. No fewer than six separate story points are left dangling, with at least four lives directly in the balance.

What’s good?
“You told me.”; “No one. I already have you.”; “Fr!!—” “Not here.”; “Isaac, what’s going on?”; “My, you’re very useful.”; pitch perfect torture of Sylar; “Now, who’s the real parasite here?”; Suresh turns it up to eleven; “I knew you’d set off an alarm eventually.”; “You are your father’s son.”; “Yes, he is going to be a problem. Why don’t we do it right now?”; “I failed.”; “You may as well come inside Claire.”; who the Haitian ended up working for; where we end up meeting Linderman; so many cliffhangers — April cannot bring the last run of the first season soon enough.

What’s no good?
The Niki/Jessica soap opera is present, but mercifully abrupt; some of the cliffhangers are so hangy that you’ll wish you got a few more seconds with each ending, just to absorb more of where each is potentially heading.

How does it end?
“I’d like to see how that works.”

Rating for Heroes 1.18 (out of five stars)?
****1/2. Not quite up to last week’s absolute tour de force, but then again, that would be hard to pull off. All told, an excellent way to go into reruns, and with enough jeopardy to choke any number of whatever you might need to choke a large number of.

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Furiously Winging Toward You!!
The Batman 3.x * Batman Beyond 3.x * Bosom Buddies 1.x * The 4400 3.x * Jason of Star Command: The Complete Series * Justice League Unlimited 2.x * Kidnapped: The Complete Series * Kyle XY 1.x * The Larry Sanders Show: Not Just the Best Of * The Lost Room: The Complete Miniseries * Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Vol. 1 * McLeod's Daughters 2.x * Michael Palin: Around The World In 80 Days * Mission: Impossible 2.x * Moral Orel: Vol. 1 * MXC: Most Extreme Elimination Challenge 2.x * NewsRadio 5.x * The OC 4.x * The Odd Couple 1.x * One Day At A Time 1.x * The Rockford Files 4.x * Roots: 30th Anniversary Edition * Scrubs 5.x * Shadow Warriors 1.x * The Shield 5.x * The Streets of San Francisco 1.x Vol. 1 * Teen Titans 3.x * Twin Peaks 2.x * The Untouchables 1.x Vol. 1 * The Venture Bros. 2.x * Voltron Vol. 3 * Welcome Back Kotter 1.x * The Wild Wild West 2.x * WKRP in Cincinnati 1.x