Five-Legged Iguana

HEROES Season 1 Episode 14 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Distractions”

An excellent episode which happens to focus on parental bonds: Claire’s meeting with her biological mother; Hiro’s audience with his stern and disapproving father (George Takei on scowl mode); and the whiz-bang revelation of who exactly is Claire’s biological father (Nathan is such a bad boy!). Putting Mrs. Bennet in jeopardy (I just love this scatterbrained woman!) and Mr. Bennet in hot pursuit of an escaped Sylar, and the parental thread through the ironically-titled “Distractions” continues.

And, while Isaac tries to find Peter through his paintings, Peter receives his tough love training courtesy of “Claude,” who is, not so surprisingly, a known commodity to Mr. Bennet. (In the process, Peter discovers his DNA retains the powers he’s absorbed, as he takes one step closer to Sylar-dom.)

One of the better-paced episodes (due in part to the excision of the subplot involving Matt; don’t get me wrong, I love Greg Grunberg’s telepathic cop, but there are times when there are just too many headless chickens running around on-screen, so clearing the air once in a while is a good thing), this one is directed by Jeannot Szwarc, who helmed Somewhere in Time way back when and has been directing a lot of TV recently.
And the talent isn’t just behind the camera. Gilsig is great as Claire’s bio-mom, and Eccleston continues to impress as “Claude.” Here’s hoping we see more of them in episodes to come.

Going back to the headless chickens though, I’ll ‘fess up and say I’ve never been too overly fond of the whole Nikki/Jessica subplot. So when the psychiatrist scene came up, and Ali Larter was actually having a moment, I thought, “Hmmm. This could go somewhere.”
But Jessica pops up, and presto, one tasered shrink needs medical attention. Poof go my expectations. Then Mr. Linderman orchestrates Nikki’s release and I’m thinking, “Oh, no. Back to status quo.”
But surprise, Jessica’s in charge now, and apparently able to act sweetly enough to fool even Micah. (But that Micah’s a sharp kid. He should be able to figure it out, eventually.)
And you have to know that something’s in it for Linderman, why else would he have had the charges dropped?
So all this activity on the Nikki front has succeeded in landing her subplot on my probation list. Let’s see where this takes me, and I hope the ride is fun getting there.

And before we leave it for the week, I just gotta say: poor Ando. First, Nikki blows him out of the water, and then it looks like Kimiko isn’t gonna get into his groove any time soon, either.
Maybe next time, dude.

(Originally posted 020707)