Do The Wrong Thing: The Racialicious Review for ‘Heroes’ 4.4

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

Finally, Fuller, not filler.

Could you tell it was Bryan Fuller writing “Acceptance”? What was your first tip-off? The lack of boredom or the narratives that actually moved people along in recognizable characterization? It’s too soon to call this a turning point, but at least we got to jump into this season’s Big Reveals in satisfactory fashion, with nearly everybody getting the wrong end of the stick for the right reasons.

The biggie, of course, is the apparent undoing of SyNate, the victim of his own goodwill after ‘fessing up to his mother’s role in covering up the accidental death of former girlfriend Kelly. An admirable move, usually, but not when Kelly’s the daughter of Angela’s best frenemy, Millie. Faster than you can say “Break yourself,” “Nate” gets jacked out of his car and shot and left for dead.

He wasn’t the only one trying to fix past mistakes; as we rejoined Hiro, he kept getting delayed from starting his Bucket List by Dial-A-Hero’s newest customer, Tadashi, a poor schmuck recently laid off from Yamagato Industries. What could have degenerated into Groundhog Day-style histrionics instead turned into a wake-up call for both men – and a potential sign of worse times for Hiro, who vanishes just after telling Kimiko the truth about his condition.

While Hiro and Nate took a turn for the worse, Noah and Tracy got closer to each other to fine, even if Noah needing a pep talk from Claire, of all people, probably just scared him straight more than anything else. Whatever the reason, Noah’s subsequent heart-to-heart with Chilly Jilly (along with the influence of Micah, perhaps?) steers her away from reclaiming her *ahem* “politics”-as-usual gig with Governor Malden. As an unfortunate aside: it appears Roundtable reader Tamara’s theory was shot down, and Tracy is not related to The Mysterious Lydia. But Tamara, thumbs up for suggesting a twist that might’ve been interesting.

Which brings us to the episode’s final image: the honest-to-Spock Sylar emerging from the ground following his assault. It’s tough not to interpret the scene as symbolizing any number of things: the triumph of a man’s true personality against forced conditioning; the unfortunate but irrefutable resilience of evil; or, perhaps most hopefully, Sylar crawling head-first out of the dirt stands in for certain other creative parties digging their heads out of … you know.

The Racialicious Scorecard:
Hiro, Ando, Kimiko & Tadashi: Yet again, the Nakamuras and friends deliver the most genuine emotion in an episode. Like I said earlier, this could’ve turned into a really bad series of caricatures, but thank goodness it turned out differently. Also, take note: Akihiro Kitamura, who played Tadashi is a writer and director in his own right – and he’s on MySpace. Cruise on by and give him props, won’t you?

Images and character bios courtesy of HeroesWiki
Previously: Racialicious Heroes Archive