Beautiful
Heroes star Sendhil Ramamurthy popped up at London Film & Comic Con last weekend with a gigantic bristly hedgehog stapled to his neck and chin. From various attendee reports, he apparently made it clear that: a) the hedgehog is strictly for the show, and b) despite the lack of advance word about his plotline, he’s already shot some scenes, thus squashing rumors that Mohinder won’t be around for Volume Five.
(I mean, Mohinder’s probably not going to be around
much, seeing as how he does not appear at all in the just-released teaser trailer for Volume Five. Oh,
Heroes. In an erratic and uncertain universe, at least I can count on you to disappoint me at every turn.)
I haven’t found any official photos of
The Beard, hence my crackerjack Artistic Rendition above. If you’re curious to see
The Beard in all its furry, bristly, hedgehoggy glory, there are some great fan photos floating around online, such as the ones
here and
here and
here.
Since there’s still no word about Mohinder’s Volume Five plotline, we’re left to ponder: why the hedgehog? What possible plot-based reason could be behind the beard? My beard-related conspiracy theories are below:
1. Beard = television shorthand for “soul-searching and spiritual introspection.” The only possible whisper of a fiber of a thread of Mohinder’s possible future plotline introduced last volume was the Big Film Reel of Plot discovered at Coyote Sands (not to be confused with the Big Box of Plot his landlord had stashed in his basement). Provided that, counter to my earlier speculation, the reel does not turn out to contain Chandra Suresh’s homemade fetish porn, this might be the launching point for Mo’s Volume Five plotline. And by “plotline”, I mean “handful of disjointed scenes of Mo wandering around Coyote Sands/Chennai/parts unknown, moping beautifully while doing nothing in particular.” I’m betting this is roughly how it’s going to play out: every three or four episodes, we’ll check in with poor Mo’s progress, and then after about a dozen episodes of this, he’ll either rejoin the rest of the cast in the main plotline, or he’ll just drift away into Heroes obscurity along with Maya and Monica, never to be mentioned again.
2. Beard = television shorthand for “Evil Alternate Future.” Hey! Mohinder had a beard in Volume One’s way-cool Evil Alternate Future episode “Five Years Gone”! And he was working for President Nathan, who was actually Sylar in disguise! And now Nathan really is Sylar in disguise, and now Mohinder has a beard! Coincidence?
Well, yeah, probably. According to LFCC attendee reports, Sendhil mentioned he hasn’t shot any scenes with either Adrian Pasdar or Zachary Quinto yet this volume. So if they’re doing the Five Years Gone universe this volume (which, for the record, would be a great idea), they’re taking their own sweet time getting there.
3. Beard = television shorthand for “crazy loner.” Fed up with the crap science he’s been forced to spew forth over the past three seasons, Mohinder forsakes his worldly goods and holes up in a ramshackle cabin in the Montana backwoods, where he neglects his personal hygiene, wears a lot of plaid, and scribbles cryptic, angry manifestos about how a goddamn solar eclipse can’t appear simultaneously in New York, Las Vegas, and Tokyo, and how a real geneticist would know better than to embark upon a lecture circuit devoted to describing two isolated cases of a mysterious virus, detected thirty years apart, as a “plague”, and how he never understood why anyone ever thought turning himself into an evil cockroach would be a positive, fan-pleasing character development in the first place.
4. Beard = television shorthand for “evil twin.” Scientific fact: Evil twins are far more likely to have wild and sinister facial hair. So maybe this isn’t Mohinder at all: maybe it’s his never-before-mentioned evil twin (a never-before-mentioned evil clone would be just ducky, too), who has imprisoned the real Mohinder in a tower somewhere and has assumed his identity for the sole purpose of causing mass chaos: befuddling Matt, seducing Noah, dropping Peter off of random cliffs. I could throw my support behind such a plot, especially if the evil twin had a totally different accent, a la Sendhil’s tour-de-force dual role in Death, Deceit & Destiny on the Orient Express. (Why, yes, I will be working in a reference to Death, Deceit & Destiny on the Orient Express into every blog post from here on out. Sendhil played twins!) Ordinarily I’d say this nefarious scheme would be unraveled when Mohinder’s friends noticed him acting erratically, but there’s a couple of problems with that:
1) Mohinder has no friends (Peter and Matt, the selfish bastards, couldn’t be bothered to spare a thought for poor captive Mo while they were making their daring plans to rescue Daphne from Building 26).
2) Under normal circumstances, Mohinder tends to behave so erratically (shooting Noah Bennet in the eyeball, stuffing people in cocoons made from his own bodily secretions) that no one would be able to tell the difference.
(I’m sorry. I seem to have a lot of pent-up anger toward Heroes these days. I don’t think this is healthy. I apologize.)
5. Plot-based reason? Hahahahahaha! There’s no plot-based reason! Remember how in Volume Two Mohinder went around with a broken nose and a bruised face for the entire back half of the season? And remember in Volume Three (yes, yes, we’re all trying very hard to forget Volume Three, but humor me for a minute) how Mohinder kept getting covered in disgusting scales and/or disgusting sticky white crap? The beard will serve no purpose other than to further muck up Mohinder’s beautiful face.
If you’ve got your own theories about The Beard, submit ‘em in the comments below. The best theory wins a fabulous prize (really, isn’t “praise and admiration from your peers” the most fabulous prize of all?).
Oh, July, how I hate you. 
