Episode Review: Chapter 21, The Hard Part
By Sam | May 9, 2007 (12:02 pm) | More: Heroes Episode Reviews, Heroes Videos Multimedia Downloads
(Review by MathSorcerer) — I’ve seen several comments about Chapter 21, “The Hard Part” that were decidedly negative. “Lame”, “a let-down”, and “just filling space until the season finale” were some of them. Nothing could be further from the truth; these people were simply not watching the episode with a critical eye and an open mind. “The Hard Part” was a character-development episode, during which we get insights into several key personalities; it is the kind of meat-and-potatoes episode that gives us characters worthy of discussing in the first place. After all, it’s characters make the show, not actions or pseudo-science or fake future technology.
“The Hard Part” is where the cast of Heroes find themselves, and is a loose reference to the part of the mythical Hero’s Journey sometimes described as “it’s always darkest before the dawn”. Morpheus tells us in “The Matrix” that “there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path”. Walking the path is “The Hard Part”. Heroes is all about people walking that path, whether they want to or not.
Based on what he saw in the future as shown in Chapter 20, “Five Years Gone”, Hiro is determined to kill Sylar in order to prevent him from exploding, but unfortunately Hiro doesn’t have the personality of a killer. Even after he has stopped time and Sylar is completely vulnerable, Hiro’s emotions stay his hand and lead to a power failure. Sylar even tells Hiro, “Kill me! Do it!” But he simply cannot. Not only does Hiro not have what it takes to kill another human being, but also he doesn’t want to become the bitter anti-hero that his future self becomes.
Many people also seem to find it difficult to believe that Sylar has a mother. Erm … he is a human being, after all. Of course, like many of us, his relationship with her isn’t the best. There seems to be some father-related issues, and I suspect the father left or was abusive to both Sylar and his mother when he was around. Sylar’s mother now dotes on him too much, and is the source of his “I want to be special” mentality. When he demonstrates exactly how special he is to her, her reaction is fear rather than fascination. It is this interchange between Gabriel and his mother that makes Hiro pause — he sees that Gabriel is a human being, not just a bug to swat.
The other reason “The Hard Part” is more pivotal than some folks might think is that it marks a turning point for Sylar. Early in the episode, he is genuinely concerned that his actions might hurt many thousands of “innocent”. This shows that for all his posturing he is still somewhat grounded in reality — killing one person (for whatever rationalization, “natural selection” as he calls it) is one thing, but destroying a greater portion of a city is something else altogether. However, by the end of the episode he realizes that by exploding he will become the most special person for real, and he begins to embrace his destiny, not fear it. Now all he has to do is find Theodore….
Now that I mention it, fulfilling or embracing one’s destiny is also “The Hard Part”. Nathan is beginning to learn this, as he is told that getting into office isn’t necessarily because he deserves it, but because other people want him there. That has to be an emotional letdown — to achieve a measure of greatness only because of someone else.
The Triumvirate seems to have embraced their destiny quite easily, though. Linderman, Mrs. Petrelli, and Mr. Nakamura (Hiro’s father) want the explosion to happen! For a while I thought Mrs. Petrelli opposed the other two, but in a rare twist of fate I was actually wrong. I suspect their goal is to force a struggle between normals and supers, but that isn’t a very original plot, and I would hate to think that about writers who have come so far.
Mohinder finally seems to have fulfilled part of his destiny: he found the cure for Molly Walker’s condition, the same condition his sister had years ago. According to Thompson (portrayed by Eric Roberts), Molly is the only one who can stop Sylar. Exactly how telelocation can stop Sylar is anyone’s guess, but that cannot be her only ability, or there is some unexplained aspect to it.
HRG, Matt, and Theodore, who has put aside his hatred of HRG now, are advancing to stop “the Walker system” that is capable of locating supers. I wonder what they will do when they realize that the System is a little girl? For them, “The Hard Part” will be stopping her.
Combined with last week’s episode, Heroes has matured very quickly. Seriously, one month into the show I was beginning to wonder if it would actually go somewhere and do something other than introduce characters. Fortunately, the writers stepped up to the plate and have developed a very mature product. Character depth, tough situations calling for difficult choices, taking a stand for your beliefs — Heroes has covered the topics that help define a great show.
I have a feeling Peter will become a villain, i don't know why but he will be forced to go ...
I love this serial ..it is the best I ever saw ...lost,prison break.... are nothing against Heroes!! It is like ...
looks awesome, but 133 days is too long... 
I WANTED TO WATCH THE EPISODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!P.S NATHAN DOES NOT HAVE ISSUES! 
Sorry I disagree and so do the people here, that's why 39% voted that it was HRG who shot Nathan. ...
Eben on 9 May 2007:
First of all, the Molly question. The reason why she’s the only one that can stop him is evident since Mohinder tells her that the Bogey Man likes to hide. She can help them stop him by finding Sylar, since they have no idea where he is currently. I also disagree with your comment about Sylars mother reacting with fear instead of fascination. She was fascinated until he lost control, not the other way around. Otherwise a nice review.
Jay on 9 May 2007:
With regard to Molly I think the reason that she’s the only one that can stop Syler is two fold, 1st she can find him, and 2nd, the disease that she has inhibits her power, I think they want to give the disease to Syler.
kori on 9 May 2007:
Telelocation you say? Nice name, I like it, you suspect their is another aspect to this ability like for instance the Hatian having an active aspect (the ability to erase memory selectively) and a passive aspect (the creation of an ability negation field of some sort). Maybe, I wonder if we will ever find out what Shanti’s ability was.
Pip on 10 May 2007:
Hmmm, disagree, nothing wrong with the episode in general, but it WAS a filler. All to do with budgets to be honest, big season finale means scrape some cash from elsewhere, thus the ideas of flashback and “Character Developement” plots were formed…..
See stargate, smallville, Lost , Buffy and nearly any other Sci fi series for examples that were claimed to be “Character Developement” yet opened the way for a big finish.
Not a problem in my opinion, there’s a budget and they have to stick with it. But don’t go making up indepth rubbish as to why its a “slow” episode, the reason is money and nothing else.
At least in the simpsons they had a flashback episode nearly every season, but made a point of telling you that they had run out of cash for celebs and voice actors rather than the usual excuses.
Mojo Joe on 10 May 2007:
This episode was great to me because it gave me a new theory. It seemed to me that Linderman and Mrs Pertrelli sounded eerily similar in what they want Nathan to go through. But after seeing the future we already know that Sylar becomes Nathan through illusion (which may be what he paints in his mother’s blood).
I’m beginning to think that Linderman (and others) want Sylar as the President because he becomes the leader they “need” despite the tragedy that comes before.
Also we’ve learned of Linderman’s ties to HRG’s company. This would explain why Sylar was left to live when he had already been captured.
Mojo Joe on 10 May 2007:
Also in regards to Sylar it’s fair to say that overbearing mothers are the root of all evil.
Rodrigo from Holy Spirit State in Brazil on 10 May 2007:
I agree with JAY said: I think they want to give the disease to Syler. Molly’s disease, because find him isn’t useful if nobody can stop him, maybe Peter. The 20th episode was amazing when we could watch the fight: Syler vs Peter (only the beginning). There are a lof of questions that we must been waiting for answers(2nd, and 3rd Season)
Mathsorcerer on 11 May 2007:
Rodrigo, leaving Molly sick with a disease that will result in her death so that the OWI can infect Sylar with it to kill him is the kind of evil plot that *I* would come up with. *laugh* I don’t know if this is what the OWI had planned (if so, then Mohinder just ruined it), but there are no lengths to which they will not go to attain their goals.
dave_boo on 15 May 2007:
Interesting episode. But does Mr. Linderman turn out to actually be the father of the Pertrelli brothers?
RightHandLeft on 22 May 2007:
My favorite part of this episode was the revelation of Sylar as watch-maker. Mix that with Sylar becoming a nuclear bomb and all I could think was Albert Einstein’s comment, upon seeing the first nuclear explosion: “I should have been a watch-maker.”
Plus, it was beautiful seeing the inner workings of Sylar. After proclaiming that he killed others and took their powers because they were unworthy, due to not making use of their powers and instead denying them, we get to see Sylar, with his mom, honestly wanting to have a simple life. He wants to be JUST LIKE THE PEOPLE HE KILLS. He just wanted to give up, have a normal job and work on his watches.
But his mother’s push that he be “someone special”, and the way Sylar CAVES under the pressure… It just shows how little control he has over his own life, especially in light of his work for The Company before escaping HRG. Then, as he displays his powers to his mother, to prove that he is special, *again* he loses control…
It makes you wonder if Sylar is a psychopathic murderer because he NEEDS that feeling of control…
Dez! on 25 June 2007:
Jay - Great point about keeping a bit of Molly’s blood with a little of the disease with the aim of infecting Sylar!!
D!