The Pullbox

HEROES Volume 3
Chapter 10 – “The Eclipse: Part 1″

Written by: Aron Eli Coleite & Joe Pokaski
Directed by: Greg Beeman

Tonight, we’ll be treated to the newest episode of HEROES; “The Eclipse: Part 2.” But first, lets take a much over-due look back at last week’s episode. There’s a lot of great stuff that happened in this episode and they’re all going to pay off on tonight’s episode. As always, if you haven’t seen the episode yet, don’t read on, as I’m going to spoil the heck out of it.

- SPOILER ALERT -

We’ve been getting the Heroes title sequence in new and different ways for a few weeks now. The change of the title to “Villains” for that particular episode was pretty obvious and in-your-face. On the more subtle side, Chapter 9 “Its Coming” gave us a cool sequence. As Elle fired a huge burst of electricity at Sylar, the eclipse title sequence began and incorporated the electricity into it. The Earth sparked with electric bursts before the eclipse took over the screen. Now, on this episode, as we see the beginning of an eclipse in the actual story, the camera ZOOMED in very quickly to give us the Eclipse Title Sequence in yet another obvious and “in-your-face” way. I’m liking the new ways of getting the title card up. Keep them coming!

We start out the episode with Sylar and Elle working some target practice. Arthur sends Sylar out on assignment to find Claire, and Elle decides to tag along. Meanwhile, at Primatech, Angela’s orchestrating the defense. Sending everyone out on assignment, including Nathan and Peter who go off to find the Haitian, and Claire, who’s assignment is to hide out and not get caught. She gets set up with her dear old dad, Noah. He takes her to the wormhole/black hole/portal guy’s house to hide out, and begins training her to pass the time. Elle and Sylar eventually show up to get Claire.

Hiro and Ando show up at Matt’s house, in hopes that his brain mojo ability can help restore Hiro’s memories. When Matt’s unable to help, Daphne freaks and heads back home to her folks’, where she feels safe. Matt, Hiro and Ando go after her.

Lastly you have Mohinder, who’s trying to figure out what exactly the coming Eclipse will do to abilities. There’s also an INCREDIBLY disgusting autopsy scene, featuring the poor sap that was injected with abilities, only to transform like Mohinder is.

The Eclipse happens, everyone loses their powers, and that’s where everything goes to crap for our heroes. Claire gets shot, Elle and Sylar get their asses handed to them by HRG, Mohinder goes back to normal, but not before a disgusting cocoon scene, Nathan and Peter fall out of the sky to begin what looks like will be their “Meat Locker Episode,” Matt looks like a fool in front of Daphne’s dad, and we discover what Arthur was holding over Daphne all along. Without her powers, Daphne’s a cripple.

I call this (and possibly tonight’s upcoming episode) Nathan and Pete’s “meat locker episode” because they’re finally getting a great deal of screen-timetogether, along, and are able to start talking things out. Peter’s feeling like he has no purpose now that he’s powerless, and he’s going to do whatever he can to be a hero when his brother needs him. They find the Haitian and discover how dangerous his brother is. Nathan even gets captured and now its up to Pete and the Haitian to save him, somehow. It’ll be really interesting to find out how they do that without any abilities. Two of the best part of this episode are when Nathan and Peter take off into the sky, which was as beautiful a flight scene as ever, and also when they fall out of the sky into the jungle. It was just done so well, I really loved both scenes. The bickering between two brothers who love each other enough to fight that much is some of the best we’ve seen from these two. Milo Ventimiglia and Adrian Pasdar are always at their very best when they’re together.

Sylar and Elle’s scenes are my other favorites. They’ve got great chemistry. Their short scene in the Car Rental Shop was really interesting. Elle came off as a vindictive little witch, but she had a point. Everyone’s trying to turn Sylar into something. A Hero, a Villain, a Monster, a Pawn… what is he, really? Deep down, when he’s on his own, who is he? We don’t necessarily get the answer to this, but Sylar was a serial killer for a long time. Newly discovered empath, or not, that’s not easy to just shut off. He’s bound to have relapses and that scene showed us that the old school killer Sylar isn’t gone forever. Thanks for that Elle.

Matt and Daphne, paired up with Hiro and Ando, have the funniest scenes in the episode, for sure. They all play off of each other really well.

-”You have to fix Hiro!”
-Ando hands Matt the comic, written in Japanese.
-”What does it say?”
-”It says ‘YOU HAVE TO FIX HIRO!’”

Then there’s the cornfield scene, when everyone’s lost their powers, and Hiro tries to explain the hero’s journey by throwing corn at Matt. Its all hilarious and I don’t understand anybody who says they’re getting tired of Hiro. I can only hope the terrible rumors about what’ll happen in Volume 4 are not true and the show runners know better. Finally, we wrap up with Hiro and Ando visiting the Local Comic Shop for the latest 9th Wonders comic issue, where they run into Seth Green and Breckin Meyer, who’ll have a much larger role in the next episode.

Another “meat locker episode” situation is Claire and HRG’s scenes. The training evolves into a talk about why Noah is never around. He always leaves on assignments and what-not. The whole thing really helps them begin to repair their relationship. Despite all the funny moments with Hiro and the gang, and the Petrelli brothers duking it out in Haiti, the best scene of the entire episode was definitely when Elle and Sylar show up to get Claire. Everyone’s powerless, and clearly that makes HRG/Noah the strongest bad ass in the room. He kicks the living crap out of them, Jack Bauer style! He even dislocates, possibly even breaks, Sylar arm! Claire steps into the path of the bullet meant for Noah, assuming she had her powers. Whoopsie!

The direction in that sequence made me drool! Figuratively speaking. And literally… a little. The slow motion being used just right. Slow zoom outs and perfect pans. It was beautiful. Then there’s the amazing close to the scene when Noah carries Claire out. Jack Coleman is a giant, and it was fitting in the scene, when he’s meant to look larger than life.

At the close of the episode, Nathan has been captured by the Haitian’s brother, who has impenetrable skin, except not right now because of the eclipse. We also get Matt’s discovery of the crippled Daphne. You really gotta hand it to Brea Grant. She’ pulled off a lot of very interesting sides to this character. Sylar gets his arm relocated by Elle in a scream-fest, and we get confirmation that his understanding ability is gone, which makes him confused but it also takes his hunger for power and understanding away. It didn’t hurt his libido though. He doesn’t waste much time before grabbing Elle up and moving in for a smooch. Last but not least, the “holy crap” moment of the episode, gave us HRG, staring through the scope of a sniper rifle, aiming directly at Elle and Sylar. He promised to find his weakness, and then kill him. Well… he’s weak now.

This was a great episode, and a really cool set up for next week. The cliffhangers were exciting, the effects were perfect, the writing was exciting, and the direction was beautiful. You gotta love Greg Beeman’s eye.

The A-Train’s “The Eclipse Part 1″ Rating: 5 out of 5 Sniper Shots.