Who's Her Daddy?

If you saw this week's Heroes, and you managed to see the last few seconds - always a dicey proposition where today's shows and PVRs are concerned - then you know the answer to that question, regarding Claire the super-cute cheerleader. I won't spoil it here, but let's just say it's someone we've seen before.

That sort of thing always reminds me of Charles Dickens, and especially Great Expectations. When I read that book for the first time in high school, I remember it bugged me how Dickens tended to have so many of his characters end up somehow related to one another, through complicated and - it seemed to me at the time - contrived means. My youthful willingness to suspend disbelief was being tested, I guess you'd say. Over the next few years, though, I found that sort of thing bothered me less and less, as I came to realize it was simply a writer's tool in pursuit of telling an engaging story. It could be done very poorly, of course, but Dickens actually did it quite masterfully, in hindsight. He provided the most subtle of clues, usually, and therefore played fair.

I think the same holds true in the case of Claire, and her father, in Heroes. I can think of at least one small clue that makes the revelation ring true, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were others. Which probably means the writers have been planning this all along, quite unlike the vibe I'm getting off this season of 24 so far, for example, where Jack's family seems to have been grafted onto at least one character who was never intended for that role. Doing it well makes all the difference, it seems!