Spoiler Warning: If you have “Heroes” sitting on your TiVo, watch it first.
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Last night’s “Heroes” did something I wish more shows would try: they trusted their audience to fill in missing scenes.
If you’ll recall, near the start of the episode, bad guy Sylar escaped, locking Claire’s Faux-Daddy in his cell. Sylar then went to Claire’s house, to chit-chat with Mom and await Claire’s return — presumably so he could eat her brain. Growing bored, The Man of Endless Eyebrows eventually revealed his menace and got all telekinevil.
Something had to happen, or Mrs. Bennett would certainly end up dead. But the options were few. Claire was off visiting Trailer Park Mom in Kermit, Faux-Daddy was locked in the cell, and Hiro was trapped in a thunderously dull subplot about his father.
So it was a genuine surprise when Faux-Daddy showed up, guns blazing. A few steps behind him, we saw the not-really-mute Haitian Guy who works for him, and realized, “Aha!”
Simply by putting Haitian Guy in the room, the writers were able to omit the seemingly obligatory scene in which Haitian Guy finds Faux Daddy, frees Faux Daddy, and nods silently as Faux Daddy shouts that, “We have to get to my house, now!” As television viewers, we’re sophisticated enough to figure out what we missed — and therefore, not really miss it. But too rarely do shows really trust us to make these logic leaps.
My kudos to the hard-working writing staff for not writing that scene. (Or, if they did, kudos to the editors for omitting it.) I almost guarantee they got a network note saying it was unclear how Faux Daddy got out, but one benefit of being the hottest new show on television is the ability to ignore notes.