Here's a quick recap of the entire “Fugitives” storyline from last night's Heroes, because honestly, not much happened. We didn't even see Peter (Milo Ventimiglia), Parkman (Greg Grunberg) or Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) until the final thirty seconds, when they were toting a roofied H.R.G. out of the bar. Instead, we got a look at the inside of Nathan's (Adrian Pasdar) hunting operation, where a spineless bureaucrat (Moira Kelly) witnessed one (insanely avoidable) murder and threw away her convictions about justice and civil rights like they were just some of those good ideas that everybody says they believe in, but don't actually practice (like recycling, or flossing). Claire (Hayden Panettiere) rebelled a little more. Sylar's (Zachary Quinto) storyline was engaging enough with all the killing and the banter, but it all boiled down (yeah, that's a LukeWarm joke) into a way for him and Microwave Man to become more badass buddy-buddies.

Oh yeah, and Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson Lee) went to India to stop a wedding. Wait… what?

In the last episode, Matt Parkman drew a picture of Hiro in India, so Hiro rushed off to find “his destiny” and stop the woman in the drawing from marrying the man. First of all, at this point, the drawings seem less like prophetic warnings and more like self-fulfilling instructions. Is it Hiro's destiny to go to India because the drawing showed it… or because the drawing showed it, Hiro went to India? This might be an interesting chicken-and-egg debate if it weren't for the fact of who-gives-a-crap, because the chicken is actually Hiro's childish ego and the egg is his nonsensical concept of “Destiny.” It doesn't matter which came first. The bottom line is that they're both messy and would taste better if not handed to us raw.

By “raw,” I mean that the wedding arc gave us some of the most gratuitously overt and juvenile characterization of Hiro that we've ever seen. Instead of driven and brave, he's whiny and desperate for attention. Are you still a hero if the only reason you're saving somebody is to prove that you're a hero? Survey says no. It only makes it worse that instead of showing us Hiro's desperation through his actions, we actually had to hear him say things like, “No! It was supposed to be me! I'm the hero!” Yikes. C'mon, writers. We used to like that guy.

But even if we understand the need to give Hiro an opportunity for a self-confidence boost, is this really the best way to do it? Hiro and Ando find the woman in question, who fully admits from the beginning that she never wanted to marry the guy, it's just that her grandfather wants her to make babies, and he's scared of her fiancé, who's a powerful guy in the community. This is not a woman who needs to be saved, but who needs to be told to stand up for herself. She then takes Ando's flickering-red super-charger hands as a “sign” that she shouldn't marry her fiancé. She is both unphased by a man with electrical skin, and by the fact that his ability has across-the-board NOTHING to do with her marriage. When the fiancé becomes angry that he got stood up, the woman then introduces Ando as her new “friend,” watches the guy hit Ando over the head with a pot and tote him back to his mansion, and meekly decides to marry the guy again so Ando won't become this scary, powerful, above-the-law man's (read: drug lord) newest mule. This is not self-sacrifice, but stupidity.

Then Hiro comes to the rescue, able to stop the wedding with the power of… HONESTY!

“Stop! This woman is marrying him against her will!” he yells to the audience. Like magic, the bride is spilling her guts to her grandfather, and he's giving the “I just wanted you to be happy (by forcing you to do what I want)” speech. The wedding's off! Ando's safe! Hiro is a hero again for saving people from their own stupid decisions with his supersonic truthfulness brain waves! YATTA!

No. No “YATTA!” should be allowed here. Especially when the whole episode somehow forces Ando to regret ever stepping up, and he scolds himself for trying to show off and interrupt Destiny (as if he could do that, and even if he could, he didn't). And instead of reassuring Ando (the guy he was trying to get into some superhero spandex just a few days ago) that he too is special, and that he too has a right to try to help people, Hiro pats himself on the back for a job barely-done, and has a little Dr. Phil realization that you don't need to be special to be special.

We went all the way to India for this? No, apparently we went all the way to India for a fax from Rebel telling Hiro and Ando to hightail it back to L.A. and save the dude who sent them to India with his future-drawing. “It's a message from Destiny!” Hiro excitely exclaims. Now Destiny sends messages through mid-90s technology, and signs it with other people's names? What's next? Hiro on the plane back to the U.S., hearing the pilot's voice over the loudspeaker and telling Ando that “Destiny” is telling them to comply with the no-smoking sign?

It's hard for me to decide if I hope that something from that whole wedding storyline comes back around. If not, it will go down in Heroes history as the most ridiculous and pointless adventure that Hiro and Ando ever went on. And that includes the episode with the waffles in the bowling alley. But part of me just wants to put it in the past and forget it ever happened. Where's the Haitian when you need him?

Read the 'Heroes' Recap: Episode 3.16 "Building 26" (Page 1/3)

Best In Show:

Best Quotes: “Go on, hero. Save the day.” - Hiro

"You've got a pattern, you pick specific victims, you keep mementos ..." - Luke
"OK, technically I am a serial killer." – Sylar

"I'm sorry you had to see that." - Nathan (Because no, you're not.)

Best Scene: Had to admit, the scenes in the car between Luke and Sylar resonated well, and made me laugh pretty consistently. I'm glad they're having fun with Sylar's character again, and the part with the "psycho killer" song on the radio was a nice touch.

Best User Comment: “When Noah brought home the Indian food he was just trying to CURRY favor with his family!” - danny61. Ba-dum-CHING!




-Meghan Carlson, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Image courtesy of NBC