S01E23: 'How To Stop An Exploding Man'

After a constant barrage of fantastic episodes, the eagerly awaited first season finale of Heroes is a surprisingly underwhelming experience.

Despite a promising start with the cracking opening flashback montage sequence and monologue, the episode’s narrative progresses at a meandering pace until the last act. It feels as if so much effort was spent in intricately weaving the plot strands together in advance of the denouement, that once we arrived at the critical point the writers didn’t quite know how to proceed.

The Nikki versus Candice face-off falls surprisingly flat, whilst the return of Charles Devraux with his ‘all you need is love’ message is a bit corny for such an advanced show.

The anticipated Sylar-Hiro confrontation begins well in Isaac’s apartment, with Ando fortunately saved a grizzly ending. But their final meeting is bizarre, as after all that has happened we’d expect Sylar to react a bit quicker when the podgy, bespectacled chap simply runs towards him with the sword and slays him. Sylar stopped Matt’s bullets moments earlier, so where have his powers gone now?

Similarly, Nathan all too conveniently appears on the scene and has flipped into good guy mode again - just like that, as Tommy Cooper would say. This isn’t too pleasing for the viewer at all.

Still, the development of Hiro as a character was nicely commented upon by Ando when he referred to him as a ‘bad ass’. Quite right too! Plus Molly’s talk of another mysterious boogeyman out there, far worse than Sylar, whets the appetite for the next season.

However, much like the anti-climactic closing scene with Hiro and the 17th Century eclipse, this season finale fails to deliver the usual visceral and cerebral pleasures.