Heroes Homecoming was set up as a pivotal episode for action deprived devotees of the super-hero epic. Up until now, the show has plodded along at a fairly mellow pace where the action is concerned, focusing instead on the nuance of the absurd; the strange human fabric that weaves between the Heroes, their abilities, and their relationship with the world and the 'normals' around them. If that character development weren't there, I doubt we'd be having this conversation right now. Since it is, the creators of Heroes have brought us something really special. For it to culminate into a showdown where all that angst, hope, and wonder collide with a nondescript evil in a conflict worthy of all the build-up would be genius. Last night was billed as just that night; did Heroes take flight? Or has slow pacing become Heroes' kryptonite?
For starters, a little lesson for those who do not know. The marketing departments rarely, and I mean very rarely, work closely with the show-runners on the big networks. Some of them aren't even working in the same town, if you can imagine that. Furthermore, show runners rarely, super-rarely, have any veto power on marketing - it's just not their thing. Heroes is no different. The promise of the marketing people is not necessarily the promise of the producers. So, that said, NBC marketing did a fantastic job of selling this episode as the culmination of the "Save the Cheerleader, Save the world" motif. However, other things were promised as well: we would learn what this phrase meant. Did we? I think so, but probably in a different sense then you might think. Read on. Heroes Homecoming begins, appropriately enough, with Claire being chosen Homecoming Queen. It's a bit of irony since she has apparently fallen out with the in-crowd after leaving the star quarterback a vegetable. Meanwhile, Nathan and Simone unpack the missing painting from Isaac's "Save the Cheerleader" series. Nathan covers the painting after seeing its contents, a dead Peter on the steps of a clearly identified Texas high-school. Jessica picks up a high powered sniper rifle from a shady looking arms dealer somewhere in the desert, throwing a wink at Niki who is now distressing in mirror land. Jessica has figured out that in order to disarm DL's powers, she has to attack without him knowing she is present. Micah and DL, meanwhile, are still on the lam. Micah is still vocally opposed to the situation but clearly conflicted over his adoration of both parents. This pretty much closes the obligatory character servicing segment of the episode. From here on out the focus is pretty much on Peter and Mohinder. In India, Mohinder searches for the boy who visited him in his dreams, and finds him. He asks the child what his destiny is. Ultimately, it takes another spirit visitation for him to realize that his destiny is back on the road, in search of the specials. He approaches the terminal that has been asking, symbolically, "Do you want to quit" for two weeks now and presses no. As it turns out, the prompt was a test. The decision not to quit brings up a login box. He intuits the name of his sister as the password and discovers that his father was further along than he had imagined as a list of all the specials in the world spills out before him. Mohinder is back in the game. Simone, meanwhile, decides to show Peter a digital print of the painting that Nathan destroyed - concerned that it is at his peril. Peter is in full out launch mode, he calls Ando and tells him where to meet him in Texas. The time has come.