Episode Report Card DeAnn Welker: C- | 205 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT "I Can't Bring Nathan Back, Peter. But I Can Sure as Hell Swing a Sledgehammer."
By DeAnn Welker | Season 4 | Episode 18 | Aired on 2010.02.01
So, Peter wakes up outside the brick wall, which Parkman apparently really did actually finish and then leave. So dumb. He stands up and we can hear bricks breaking, then the wall comes flying forward. Sylar stumbles out, his hair all a mess, and they walk toward each other. Really, it's so gay. Sylar asks how long it's really been, and Peter checks his watch and says "a half a day." Sylar says it feels like it was years, and asks if it makes it any less real. Peter smiles at him, and says, "Let's go save Emma." But Replicator Eli's on the stairs as they try to leave the basement (WHERE IS PARKMAN? AND JANICE? OR EVEN BABY STOP AND GO?). He says, "Sorry to break up the love fest, but I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen." Uh, dude, the love fest cannot be broken up now that it's finally on. Replicator Eli surrounds them, but this is freaking Sylar and Peter. They win by default.
Meanwhile, cameras take us through the dirt at the now-gone Carnival, to where Claire and HRG are in the trailer. They turn on her phone as a light, until they find a lantern. They're both okay, but realize they're buried pretty deep. He thinks it felt like forty or fifty. They scream for help. But the screaming and the lantern burning are probably two quick ways to burn up all the oxygen that HRG, at least, needs to survive down there.
Okay, so the flashback stuff really ruined this episode. I didn't hate most of the Sylar and Peter stuff (other than that I think making Sylar a good guy is retarded; I mean that literally: It's like making Sylar mentally disabled, because he's not himself somehow). But (and it's a big but), if they're going to do it, and have him team up with Peter, it had to be for something big, like Peter thinking -- correctly or not -- that he needed Sylar to save the world, or Emma, or anyone who matters. And then they also needed enough time to elapse for them to build trust and friendship, and the only way to do that was the way they did it. It's weird, but actually the best part of the episode by a lot. The flashbacks and the Carnival stuff were all just filler, but the weird two-person dreamscape actually moved the story forward. And that's what we haven't had nearly enough of this season. Too bad it was a small part of this sucky episode, and that it ended by spreading everyone out, instead of bringing them together. I would have liked for the entire finale to have our core heroes together, fighting the good fight. But it looks like it's going to take at least half of the episode to even get them all where they need to be. How will Claire and Bennet get there in time (I'm assuming Lauren and Tracy will assist in their rescue? Maybe Hiro?)? I don't think it will take the Ambiguously Gay Duo long to take out Replicator Eli, if Sylar still has his powers.