I Am Become Death

When I first read the title, I got a sudden urge to visit I Can Has Cheezburger. Come to find out, “I am become Death” is a quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, a.k.a. the father of the atomic bomb. So if you watched the episode, you can see how it fits.

It was definitely a big episode, with the obligatory flash four years into the future to see what Peter has to prevent today. There was some good stuff to talk about here…a world full of people with abilities, Parkman and Daphne have a baby, Sylar Gabriel is also now a daddy (to Claire’s baby? hmmmm…) and Nathan is, again, President. I do kind of appreciate the inevitability of the future…it seems that some things are going to happen regardless of what the present heroes do.

The scene in Costa Verde was amazing, I thought. I was shocked that they not only killed little-boy Noah, but that they actually showed his dead body…that’s not something that you really see on prime-time television. To see Gabriel lose it and go nuclear a la Peter and Ted in Season One…fantastically emotional scene.

Also, really interesting, we have the apparent role reversal of Peter and Sylar. Pete’s got the hunger, so now the brothers Gabriel and Peter have something to bond over as they head down the roads of redemption and damnation, respectively.

However, as rich as all of this material is, it’s, forgive the ridiculously political buzzword, lipstick on a pig. The formula is getting really stale, really fast. No matter how sweet the variables that you add to the equation are, it’s still the same old “Peter goes to the future, Peter sees bad things in the future, Peter has to fix future bad things in the present”. Now, I do like the Darth Vader-ish play with the dark side that Peter is embarking on…the idea of ends justifying the means is a fascinating dilemma, and very relevant for our world today, I think.

But there have to be worthwhile stories to tell in the present. If Heroes doesn’t start mixing it up more, it’s going to lose even more viewers.