Heroes 1.16 - "Company Man"
Original Airdate: February 26th, 2007

When it comes to pure rock ’em, sock ’em, "can I please just scrape my jaw off the floor now?"-type thrills, I don’t think there’s a show out there that touches Heroes. You are pretty much guaranteed at least one Moment - capital "M," worthy of the TiVo rewind, will make you "oooh" out loud - per episode.

And yet, Heroes has never quite resonated with me the way that the most soul-shaking television does - it doesn’t pierce me to the core the way that Buffy and Veronica Mars and Battlestar Galactica do and it doesn’t tend to leave me pondering its various twists and turns for days on end. And so I haven’t been able to put it in the top tier of my very favoritest shows, even though I know I’m getting a solid hour of entertainment every time I tune in.

But that might be changing, thanks to this episode. With this outing -- penned by one of my favorite small screen scribes working today, Bryan Fuller -- Heroes morphes into something fuller, richer and yes, possibly soul-shaking.

Basically, it’s Bennet back story time. The whole family is held hostage by Matt and Radioactive Geico Caveman and this seems as good a time as any to make with the flashbacks. The flashbacks, shown in nifty black and white, reveal that Bennet’s boss is none other than Eric Roberts, an actor who has really gotten way more interesting with age.

Nowadays, he exudes a shady aura of vagueness - the perfect quality for playing haggard villains on police procedurals and mysterious authority figures on serialized shows such as this one. Anyway, we also learn that Bennet was originally partnered with a surprisingly fresh-faced Doctor Who and that he actually didn’t want to adopt Baby Claire. But George Takei - yes, Hiro’s daddy! - made him. And when George Takei tells you to do something, you do it. George also informed Bennet that they would take Claire back if she started to have powers ("They" being the mysterious They People that we still don’t know a whole lot about).

Other flashbacky stuff: at one point, Bennet was ordered to kill Dr. Who, but Dr. Who turned invisible and took off. Also, Claire is the one who selected Bennet’s famous glasses, unwittingly saddling him with a sinister-sounding nickname. And The Haitian has always been silent and creepy and apparently has a necklace that looks a whole lot like a certain tattoo. On a certain character. Named Jessica.

Back in the non-B&W present day, Matt reads everyone’s minds, realizes that RadioGeico is completely crazy, and starts communicating telepathically with Bennet. It’s all pretty cool and much more exciting than any of Counselor Troi’s "I feel pain!" telepathy adventures.

Matt shoots Claire (knowing she’ll heal) and Eric Roberts eventually shows up and then RadioGeico gets mad and starts going all explode-y. Indestructible Claire is the only who can get close enough to him to stick a tranquilizer in his arm and take him down.

I know I said the Peter flying thing was the most exciting thing to happen on this show, but this is SO MUCH BETTER. There’s fire everywhere and Claire’s skin burns off and when she emerges, mostly charred but generally OK, it’s beautifully iconic and gloriously comic book-esque. Just awesome.

The Bennet family shares a tearful embrace and then Eric Roberts demands that Bennet bring Claire in. Instead, he takes her to the same bridge where he tried to shoot Dr. Who and hands her off to The Haitian, in order to keep her safe. He also makes The Haitian shoot him and wipe his memory, so no one will be able to find Claire. It’s heartbreaking and amazing, especially since Claire fiercely acknowledges that he is her dad and she loves him. I’m crying just thinking about it.

This eppy is certainly a break from tradition, focusing squarely on a single plotline. I think it worked in the most excellent way. Bennet’s character is fully fleshed out - there’s no ambiguity left about his allegiances or how he feels, and that is incredibly satisfying. It also amps up Heroes’ already-considerable sense of adventure, sending Claire off into the wilderness.

As the show becomes more interwoven and mythology-heavy, little touches - like seeing Gameboy-playing Hiro in the flashbacks - feel neat and elegant rather than gimmicky and contrived. In going to the very heart of one of the series’ central mysteries - who the frak is Bennet? - and exploring it fully, Heroes takes a sizeable step towards feeling like so much more than rock ’em, sock ’em entertainment. It’s finally turning into something worth obsessing over.

iTunes Links:

Heroes - Series
Heroes - Season 1
This episode - "Company Man"

Vern Seward is a writer who currently lives in Orlando, FL. He’s been a Mac fan since Atari Computers folded, but has worked with computers of nearly every type for 20 years.