Heroes Review - Episode 4x17 "The Art of Deception" Posted by BrendanGrace at Friday, February 05, 2010 View Comments Labels: Heroes, Recaps

Throughout the episode "the art of deception" wasn't just the title it described what was happening. The two storylines that were given during the episode involved Sylar visiting Matt to see if his problem could be solved and Samuel making sure that his family is safe.

The pairing of Sylar and Matt isn't a new one, actually it has already happened once this season and that turned out in an interesting way for the both of them. This time the meeting is wanted by Sylar but not Matt. Sylar comes to Matt to ask him to purge every power that Sylar has ever had, because he feels like it is the only way that he could have a normal life. Matt thinks that this can't happen but because Sylar wants it so bad he does try. Matt doesn't try to hard during these first couple of attempts and Sylar knows it so he pins Janice the wall and gives Matt some motivation, "Purge me of these powers Parkman, or I will use them, I will use them all." This is a threat that Matt takes seriously and he agrees to help Sylar but what he does is far more interesting than that. Matt traps Sylar in his own mind alone and with no clear path to get out. Matt then places Sylar's body behind a brick wall in his basement, but Peter comes in and wants to get Sylar out of there and it seems like he has every intention of doing so at any cost to him.

Another angle of deception that occured in this episode was through Samuel Sullivan and the carnival. Throughout the season Samuel has constantly deceived almost everyone and it has been an interesting experience seeing his role and what he will do for personal gain. In this episode Samuel's goal was to bring his family back to his side and rally them behind a common cause. This plan involved making Noah the scape goat, by making everyone in the Carnival believe that Noah wanted to kill Samuel. Noah did want to kill Samuel but he didn't go through of it because of Claire. It seems that in these past couple of episodes Claire has turned a new leaf over and she is acting like a different character. Claire decided that to keep everyone safe she would try and appeal to Samuel to turn himself peacefully without anyone getting hurt. This event however is where chaos begins and the rest of the season changes course.

Noah is ready to fire upon Samuel but he is beaten to it by a phantom shooter, the shooter strikes Samuel, Claire, Lydia and throughout the Carnival. Noah scans the grounds to look for the real shooter and it turns out to be Eli. Eli was the one who fired upon his leader and ultimately is the one to kill Lydia, who dies in the arms of Samuel. Lydia also learns the truth behind the event as the last thing she sees. It was a moving end to see her learn the truth as she died at the hands of her rival.

As the event continues Eli brings Noah down to the Carnival and blames him for everything that happens. As Noah is dragged along the ground he sees Claire and tells her he didn't fire. She believes him and tries to get her message heard but Samuel immediately drowns it out in a very smart decision. Samuel is great at getting the members of the Carnival to feel whatever he wants them to at the correct time and it is also a tribute to how good of an actor Robert Knepper is.

Overall this episode did a pretty good job at setting the story forward. The Carnival is still by far the most interesting story and it should be interesting to see where it ends up. Lydia dying in the manner in which she did shows how truly psychotic he is. In order to kill a family member just so that everyone else will fear him is scary. The Sylar story line is definitely turning, the once serial killer now turned hopeful good guy wants to get as far away from his former life and we'll see if this is his true intentions or he is doing it to get what he wants.
Next week's episode is entitled "The Wall" and is directed by Allan Arkush, who left at the end of last season because his position was eliminated. It will be good to see what Arkush can bring to this revived style of season 4. The stories will focus on Peter and Sylar trying to break through their problems and Samuel trying to convince Claire to come to his side. We'll see how it goes because it is the second to last episode before the finale.