Heroes - "The Line"

Everything's coming to a head in Heroes now. Tonight's episode was all about most of the characters coming up against their the line in the sand and deciding if they're going to cross it. In the coming episodes, those choices are going to come back to haunt them for sure. And on to the spoilers: The episode opened with the perfect image: crime scene tape stretched across the title. Do not cross the line, it says. Definitely a warning against what's to come. Mohinder's line is pretty predictable. After he ran Monica through a series of tests to map out her powers, Bob tells him to inject her with a mutated version of the Shanti virus. I knew they were experimenting with it, and I'm still sure they injected Sylar with it as well to take away his powers. Mohinder, of course, raises all the normal objections, that it's wrong without her consent, that it's incredibly dangerous to toy with the virus itself, and so forth. Yet he comes extremely close to crossing that line to protect the plan to destroy the Company. But Mohinder, being who he is, naturally can't do it in the end, and does his best to destroy the supply of the mutated virus. What's interesting here is Alchemical Bob's response. He actually apologized for trying to get Mohinder to cross that line. Is he sincere, or manipulating the good doctor yet again. His 180 degree turnaround with respect to Monica, giving her support and training materials, seems to indicate he has plans for her, a backup plan to use her abilities. And, of course, putting Niki in place as Mohinder's parter and watchdog means he needs more extreme measures to control his pet doctor. Bennet, quite the opposite of Mohinder, lives on the far side of the line. His storyline is much more about showing that than having him cross a line. He did that a long time ago, back when Ivan was training him and Claude. Now he did what he had to do to get the information out of his old mentor, and then shot him in cold blood simply to cover his tracks. The Haitian, of course, remains impassive through it all, but Bennet admits he knows his course of action will only lead him down a dark path. He knows he can never cross back over, that he has to fight the evil of the Company with more evil. Claire crossed her line in a more benign fashion, but one that could have dangerous repercussions if the wrong people hear what happened. She and West concocted a nice plan to humiliate the head cheerleader, and wound up getting her busted for being drunk. She immediately wonders if she's done the right thing, but West now seems to be in the show to be her bad influence and all but tells her that the ends justify the means. No one believes the head cheerleader, of course, but if the Company hears of it, they'll investigate hard. Sylar, of course, has no line to cross, since he's already decidedly evil. His plot has him pulling Maya across her line into actually using her power deliberately to kill. Sylar revels in her corruption, and looks forward to taking both her power and her brother's as soon as he's well. I thought juxtaposing Maya crossing the line with them crossing the US border was well done as well. Everything has a double meaning in this show. Hiro crossed his line when he kissed Yaeko, and his transgression has the worst consequences of all. Kensei saw it all, and feels horribly betrayed by the both of them, so he turns them over to Whitebeard. Hiro had mentioned the kiss that fractured history, and that got me thinking. Is the reason he hasn't returned to the future because he actually split off a new timeline with the kiss? Up to that point, all his efforts to repair history were working perfectly, but then things went off the rails and the notes to Ando stopped. Will he have to somehow undo the damage he did there to be able to get home? The whole episode was framed with Peter's storyline. He and Caitlin decided to go to Montreal to track down her brother's killer and find the building in Peter's painting. There, they discovered they were expected and read a note from someone named Adam telling them that the world is in danger and the Company must be stopped. This pretty much has to be the same Adam Monroe Bob mentioned as being the big threat he needs to be able to face, a threat bigger than Sylar. As the episode ended, we got our new apocalyptic vision of the future, a deserted New York City with evacuation orders, dated June 14, 2008. My guess is the hazard this time is biological, something stemming from research on the Shanti virus. Perhaps, as Mohinder warned, it even jumped species and attacked unevolved humans. I look forward to seeing what the future brings us. They're going to start building momentum not toward a huge cliffhanger before going on hiatus this winter. Edit: It has been pointed out to me that the date on the evacuation notice is, according to Wikipedia, the 70th anniversary of Action Comics issuing the first Superman comic.  Nice nod to the industry.