"A broken vessel, an empty shell, what is a man without mind, without memory? A ghost? A body in search of a soul? With no compass to guide us, how can we know if our destiny is to seek the good, or obey the demons that whisper in our ears? The blank slate hungers to be written upon. The body thrives when the heart has a mission."
- Samuel Sullivan
After two seasons of disappointment the viewership of the show declined drastically and the creators knew that they need to return to the roots in order to save the show.Many were skeptical when the title of the 5th volume "Redemption" was announced and many thought that it may be a risky move to "throw" everything away and redeem the series and even if it wasn't what all people expected(I personally enjoyed this season much more then the previous two) things played out pretty well.The characters evolved into the better(with the exception of Claire who from Season 1 onwards became much more like a crying barbie)and perhaps Zacarhy Quinto who played Sylar had the most interesting storylne not because he was in every episode but because he had dual roles.He had to play the brainwashed Sylar who was a someone with no memories and the Sylar who was inside Matt Parkman's head.The show's quality evolved also maybe because unlike in other seasons, each episode focused on only a few characters and not all of them.They had more space and time to set for each character where to go.So overall while there were no big changes or WTF cliffhangers at the end of the episodes I darely say that this season indeed was an improvement.
Even with the premiere episode the character improvement could be seen as the theme wasn't "let's save the world again" but they had to deal with some more personal stuff and thing.For example Peter Petrelli hoped to find redemption by saving people as a paramedic(using the ability he got from Mohinder) but knew that with a few saves the past won't be ereased.Noah Bennet who formed a new Company with Angela Petrelli , weren't looking for redemption, okay Noah was but Angela only had interest in keeping "Nathan" himself after Matt Parkman tricked Sylar into believing that he was Nathan.Matt Parkman had his issue as well and in order to find redemption he gave up using his powers but the ghosts of the past don't just go away like that, he had Sylar in his mind sometime taking over his body and doing nasty things.Hiro and Ando founded a "Dial a Hero" company in order to "save" people but the bussiness didn't go quite well.Hiro also had his own problems on a whole different level, he had brain tumor for using his powers and was dying , Claire went to University as a freshman, Tracy gone rogue and wanted to murder all of the former Company men who hurt her and while there was no word on where is Mohinder Suresh , it was a freshing idea for the show because they kept the audience guessing and maintained the suspence.
The villains of the season were the people from the Sullivan Bros. Carnival who for change weren't a threat that would cause the end of the world, really were entertaining and not just because they were played by well known actors/actress.The main baddie, Samuel Sullivan(played by Robert Knepper from Prison Break,Transporter 3) "lost" his brother and in order to get revenge decided to lure in many of our heroes to his carnival and take care of those who mean them harm.His right hand man, Edgar(Ray Park from Star Wars I, X-Men,G.I. Joe) althou started out as a sympathic villain later had a change of heart and became an anti-hero. Another interetic concept was the introduction of Lydia aka the Tattoo Lady(Dawn Olivieri from The Devil's Den, True Blood) who with her tattoos could show anything.
The worst part of the season were the lacks of some elements and twisted but ultimately unnecessary plots for example the true reason why Samuel Sullivan had such power.We were tricked into believing that he can control only earth later it was revealed that the true source of his powers were those who have abilities so in order not to become powerless he had to have people with abilities surround him.This was twisted but not bad , the real reason for saying "worst" was that we were lead to belive that the true reason why Samuel want's havoc is to avange the death of his brother(whom he killed for betraying him) but then appeared the little blondie and for several episodes we thought that all was for him to impress her but then again after she rejected him everything was still blur.So all in all the real reason for Samuel's bloodlust remained unrevealed.
While as I said the season was enjoyable a major fall could've been observed.The premiere and the first half of the season contained strong episodes and set up some major plots and character development but as it rushed into it's second half after a month break the story even after like 6-7 episodes stood still,we didn't get the answers to Samuel's plan,we didn't see Hiro was going to live of die and even Suresh after reappearing had gone into smoke after a few episodes as well as Angela too.Claire's college life was all about whinning while Tracy was good and bad and bad again and good again and was gone during the second half, just disappeared only to show up in the last minute.Some of these storylines just felt stretched and unnecessary.
But being an improvement in the series didn't come all by itself.The writers had a great taste into giving some characters some interesting plot.The dual plot of Sylar as the body and soul.Body was tricked into believing it's Nathan while the soul was inside Matt Parkman haunting him.Mohinder being dead for weeks was an interesting plot as how he ended up dead as well as Hiro's personal dilemma to right the wrongs of his life before he dies and bringing back former members of the show was also a good point for example the return of Charlie,Kaito Nakamura and even Adam Monroe.
In some sort of way volume 5 of Heroes did find Redemption and for that even that the series ended in a "brave new world" was an interesting and overall enjoyable concept and even that the show was cancelled in May I can say it had a decent ending.
I'll give this season a 8 out of possible 10.
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