Sylar of ‘Heroes’ Sympathetic? Uhmmm, I Don’t Think So
At Least Not in My Corner of Reality at the Present Time
To listen to all of the spoiler chatter going on prior to last night’s antepenultimate episode of Heroes‘ first season, “The Hard Part,” you’d think that brain-loving, deranged serial killer Sylar (Zachary Quinto) was going to come off like the poster child for the dangers of unchecked parental abuse or something. Not hardly. Human? Sure, I’ll give him that, insomuch as an individual whose favorite pastime is slicing off the top of fully conscious people’s heads to get to their brain matter can be.
Unadulterated Spoilers Proliferate Ahead—Don’t Say I Didn’t Tell You So
The word was that after viewing the Sylar-centric scenes that abound in the installment, the audience would get a close-up look at why the watch repairer became so obsessed with obtaining the powers of other people with special abilities. That’s not what I got at all. I saw a weird man visit his clearly equally wacky mother in Queens, where we learn about her fixation with snow globes—she wants to have one from each part of the continent—and her tendency to make people food even when they’ve already informed her that they’re not hungry. Okay, I’ll cut Mommie Sylar some slack for the last affront since her insistence is a common hospitality thing with many a host(ess), making it not all *that* odd.
Nevertheless, after encountering so much speculation about how “different” Sylar would seem when viewed through the distorted lens of his twisted past, I kept expecting his mother to French Kiss him when she stroked his hair after he first arrived, or to start talking to her imaginary friends when she sat in her room upset after the soon-to-be-infamous, Sylar-powered, live Attacking Snow Globe Show in her living room, complete with fresh frozen snow courtesy of her ultra bizarre offspring. Yet, nothing of the sort happened, although I waited patiently and played along like a very good viewer.
In fact, all that I really took from the episode is that Sylar is just as self-preoccupied, socially inept, and—yes—crazy as I always believed him to be. So, his dear mommie isn’t happy that he’s content to be an average watch repairer because she thinks he’s capable of achieving much more. Get over it already—that’s called being a parent and wanting only the best for your child. If a grown man with the awesome power to actually steal metaphysical capabilities from other people can’t grasp such a simple fact of life, there’s no way I’m going to feel sympathy for him. A spade is a spade, and pure evil is still pure evil when it comes to poor little Gabriel Gray (Sylar’s birth name).
Now here’s hoping Hiro gets the sword skills and the chutzpah he needs from his own no-nonsense daddy—as shown in the preview for the final two episodes at the end of the installment—and finally succeeds in giving Sylar what he’s had coming all season long: a good sticking to with a big, sharp, shiny, pointy, legendary sword. Anything less will be a travesty.
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Heroes currently airs Mondays on NBC at 9pm EST
Sylar/Zachary Quinto photo courtesy of NBC
