Heores Episode Review: Chapter 12 (1.12) Godsend

After a long Winter Break, the second half of “Heroes” returns with Chapter 12, “Godsend”, which takes place two weeks after the events of Chapter 11, “Fallout”. We find our heroes and villains where we last left them: an incapacitated Sylar stuck in HRG’s secret jail cell; Peter in a coma as Nathan and Simone keeps a watchful vigil; Claire and the Haitian in cahoots; Hiro and Ando in search of Hiro’s mythical sword; Mohinder back in New York; and Niki in jail, hoping to prevent Jessica from doing anymore harm to her family. Familiar faces from past episodes also return, most significantly Ted Sprague, the Radioactive man, who resurfaces in a Nevada desert exploring his powers.

“Godsend” had a lot of threads to catch the audience up with, and it certainly spent most of its time doing that. At this point, Tim Kring is probably wondering why he had created so many characters and such disparate storylines for each one. The character who would seem to have the greatest impact on the bomb-in-New York storyline, Peter, doesn’t even open his eyes until with just five minutes left, after which he runs across the oft-reported Claude, played by former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston. The best part about Claude? Kring and company seems to have re-invented how being invisible works; or at least tapped into a part of invisibility that I hadn’t seen before.

As a jump-start from the long holiday, “Godsend” doesn’t really progress the story very much in the overall scheme of things, and serves mostly as a re-introduction to the cast and their present predicament for fans and newcomers. There are some good developments: Simone and a no-longer drugged out Isaac have a touching reunion, and humorously, Nathan the flying man and Hiro the round face kid who can teleport through space-time renews their acquaintance. Their conversation regarding the “villain” of the piece is worth a couple of chuckles — that is, if you hadn’t already seen the scene ad nauseam, including a couple of actor Masi Oka’s late-night TV appearances. The producers really should have kept that under wraps, being the best moment of the entire episode and all. Also of great importance is Mohinder’s encounter with HRG, who shows up in the former’s apartment with a gun.

After a long break, “Godsend” returns with welcome progression in the storyline (Hiro finally locates that sword, Nathan seems to be more ready to accept his role as a man with extraordinary gifts), and even more questions (the oft-mentioned, but never seen Linderman once again makes his presence known). Fans who have been with “Heroes” from the beginning won’t feel as if they’ve learned anything significant (the introduction of Claude not withstanding), but newcomers should get their curiosity sufficiently pique to tune in for future episodes.