Heroes Season Premiere: Like Father, Like Daughter and Things Aren’t Always What They Seem
Last season left us with Peter and Nathan flying into outer space and exploding (or so we thought) and Hiro racing back into the past to understand what he will be in the future. Will they answer our burning questions we hovered over all summer? Hold on “Heroes” fans, you won’t be disappointed by the season premiere but I can’t guarantee any answers, only a great “Chapter 1″.
It is four months later and Mohinder Suresh is in Egypt giving a lecture regarding the evolution of humans and their endangerment. We can see that there are a smattering of people listening and one strange bald man with glasses catching the tail end of the lecture. Soliciting him for an autograph afterward, Suresh sniffs him out and demands to know who he is. Bald headed glasses man wants to offer him a job. Over some piping hot tea the guy with glasses reveals he knows Suresh and Matt Parkman are protecting Molly ( the little girl who can find anyone). I love how this guy calls him Dr. SurASH, not SurESH. The camera angles are brilliant in this scene as he offers Mohinder the opportunity to work on research which in Mohinder’s mind will cost way too much money. Well, now we know the bald guy with glasses is a regular King Midas and can turn what he touches into gold. That’s a pretty awesome power.
There was bound to be a new hero or two and we aren’t disappointed. As brother and sister (Alejandro and Maya) are racing through the streets of Honduras being chased in hot pursuit they make a quick get-away. We see on a building behind them that there is a wanted poster with them on it. This duo is wanted for homicide. We know their goal is to get to America. One of them or both of them must have powers. They pay to hitch a ride closer to the United States border with some seriously creepy guys who want Maya to sit up front with them and her brother in the back with the other illegal immigrants. Not good. I see a bad future for these men who are wanting to take advantage of Maya. After all, we know that one of them has homicidal tendencies whether they are on purpose or merely accidental. Standing firm they both end up in the back of the truck reading Mohinder’s dad’s book (which I think is in English so I hope they can at least read it since they’ve spoken Spanish the whole time) and see it as their only hope. This is where we find out she is the one with the “gift”. She must morph into a monster of some sort because she is terrified of her “gift”. The truck suddenly stops and the bad creepy men who are giving them a ride kick her brother out and demand more money. He refused to pay and they drag Maya off down the road. Alejandro runs after the truck and after a time lapse of who knows how long he catches up to a now stopped vehicle. This of course is not a good sign. All is silent in jungleville. What did she do? What is her power? Both creepy guys are dead and bleeding from the eyes. All of them are dead and bleeding from the eyes, even the innocent people in the back. Maya, what the heck?? She must send out a signal that kills them all with some super strong brain waves. They have to get to New York before she wipes out more innocent and not innocent people. She obviously cannot control her power.
Meanwhile, Claire is at her new school in Costa Verde, California. Daddy gives her a new car so that helps her ostracized condition. Oh! Shameless “Nissan” plug as Claire gets a brand new “Rogue”!! They are almost getting as shameless as Ford Focus was with Alias, but not quite. How will super healing Claire fit in? According to daddy, she needs to not stand out. That’s a big burden daddy Bennet. He instructs her to not raise her hand in class and she cannot try out for cheerleading. Claire will rebel eventually. She’s a teenager for goodness sakes! So Claire tried to act normal as she held her hand over a Bunsen burner and got caught by the guy who almost ran her over in the school parking lot. He wants to know if she is a robot or an alien. Plus we can already tell she’s going to have some serious run-in’s with the head cheerleader who also happens to be a blonde. Will she have the same fate as last years rival?
While Claire is at school we find out that “Copy Kingdom” is where her dad works, another paper company. This is sounding vaguely familiar… He has a jerk for a boss. However, he is the perfect dork boss ever and is on the hugest power trip. My husband and I both agree that he is Chet come back from the 80’s from the ever loved “Weird Science”.
Back to Claire. In gym class she can’t help but stick up for a girl the captain of the cheerleading squad is picking on. Claire is a little too much like her adoptive dad. Eventually she’s going to take care of business. She agrees to do a cheerleading stunt to help the girl that was getting picked on but then remembers what her dad said and backs down so as not to stand out (which she ends up doing because everyone stops to watch her, especially the new guy). Is he on to Claire? I think he may be. I’m not sure this guy is good news. We don’t even know his name. So after everyone leaves, Claire does the cheerleading stunt and breaks her leg, then heals just in time before the guy returns to find her in the gym on the floor all healed and perfect. Phew, that was a close one! He almost saw her super powers!
Shifting back to Copy Kingdom we fall in love with Mr. Bennet’s lame job and lame supervisor even more. His “Copy Kingdom” manager is such a power trip loser!!! Mr. Bennet has enough and grabs him in a finger hold and tells him how it is. Go Claire’s dad. See, Claire is just like him. Neither of them can keep it under wraps for long and this is just her first day of school!
Leaving off where the season finale ended a few short months ago we see Hiro fall flat into a field between two warring parties and in the middle of a solar eclipse just outside Kyoto, Japan in 1671. In the middle of the crossfire he stops time and keeps arrows from impaling him. Noticing his great hero Takezo Kensei almost getting killed he of course has to screw up history and stop the arrows from obliterating his beloved idol by transporting Kensei out of the battle. As they make it safely to another field Hiro finds out it was a decoy and before Hiro knows what is happening he is confronted by the real Kensei. As he takes off his mask we see it is SARK!!!!!!! My beloved SARK!!!!!!! He is Takezo Kensei. He’s not japanese! He’s english! Okay, so his real name isn’t Sark but Sark is who he played on Alias and he was by far the best, wussiest, hottest, sneakiest, and rattiest bad guy on the show. This has made my night! As Kensei gets talking he reminds me of the Dread Pirate Roberts from “The Princess Bride”. A man hiding behind a name. Not all is as it seems and he informs Hiro that it’s all about the money. He hides in the bushes and picks them off from behind as his hired bandits do a raid. He’s a dirty fighter and pretty much is out for just him. Hiro tries to tell him he is a great hero who does much good and that he loves the sword smith’s daughter and saves the village of Otsu. Unfortunately, the village of Otsu is burning as he speaks and Hiro may have altered the past which he fears may altar the future forever. We find out from the sword smith’s daughter that her father was taken hostage and Kensei was supposed to protect them. She rips the sword from Kensei that her father forged (Hiro’s sword he stole from the museum) to go get her father back. How is Hiro going to patch up history now? He tries to get Kensei to go back and fulfill his duties. However he ends up punched out by Kensei lying flat on his back with a goat licking his neck. So much for a great Japanese Hero. Kensei is a LOSER, just like the Copy Kingdom manager.
Policeman Matt Parkman is in a simulated hostage crisis and uses his nifty mind reading powers to pick out who really is the hostage and in doing so he gets his beloved badge back. Somehow he is Molly’s guardian. As he picks up Molly from school her teacher informs him that she is falling asleep in class. Well, we find out he’s divorced (wasn’t his wife expecting?) and Molly is big time struggling by the pictures she drew in class. Pictures of mean and ugly eyes and the infamous black mark. That dreaded sign. She doesn’t want to talk about her dreams so Parkman reads her mind as she sleeps and hears that someone in her dream can see her. She knows who it is but she won’t tell Parkman who. She is afraid Parkman will get killed.
Meanwhile in Manhattan Hiro’s dad, Kaito Nakamura is sitting in front of the building where Peter almost blew up. You know, the place with the red sculpture art? Ando unknowingly bumps into a bearded and disheveled looking Nathan Petrelli as he makes his way to Mr. Nakamura who is waiting for the return of Hiro. Opening his newspaper (which by the way says “Senate Approves Revised Highway Funding Bill”) a picture of him falls out with the dreaded mark painted on his face. The picture is torn and to his right is the shoulder of another man. Who is that man? He tells Ando that in twenty-four hours he will be dead.
It isn’t long before we see Nathan and his mom, Angela Petrelli having a volatile conversation in Peter’s old apartment. She wants him to move on. Nathan looks AWFUL. He’s a drunk and according to his mom he drove away his wife and kids. She madly tries to pack up Peter’s things and he tells her she is evil and kicks her out and cannot believe he almost listened to her (regarding letting the city blow up). Peter can’t be dead. No way! I won’t have it! As she leaves Peter’s apartment she sees stuck to the wall in the hall her picture with the dreaded mark (it too was torn). That means she will be dead in twenty-four hours along with Mr. Nakamura.
As she contemplates her own demise Mr. Nakamura is on the infamous rooftop and sends Ando to find a sword (probably to divert him so he doesn’t get killed too). Mrs. Petrelli shows up to talk to Mr. Nakamura about the picture. She wants to know who is out to get them. Mr. Nakamura informs us that now there are only nine left? That means there were originally twelve of them so why do they all need to die? And if he and Angela are two of them then who are the other seven? Who is behind the offing of the mysterious older generation? They think it is one of them but who? Mrs. Petrelli leaves and later a mysterious man in a hoodie shows up. It’s not who Mr. Nakamura thinks it will be but we’ll have to wait until next week to find out who he took over the edge as he plunged to his death below.
In conclusion, Claire’s mother re-introduces Mr. Muggles at the dinner table. I was hoping that dog would make an appearance! Claire’s first day of school was uneventful. She skated by unnoticed like she wasn’t even there…yeah right! A young guy seems to be onto her; she challenged the head cheerleader and then backed out in front of pretty much the whole school. Mr. Bennet made a calendar at work and ate donuts? Both he and Claire are so full of it. Doesn’t he remember bending Chet’s fingers back in the break room as he calmly sipped his coffee? Maybe the real truth is that Mr. Muggles has a super power? Mr. Bennet takes a call from “work” and we find out that Dr. Suresh and Mr. Bennet are working together. Nice. They baited the bald headed glasses guy to get “in” to bring the whole company down.
After dinner Claire calls her birth dad Nathan and he’s mad she called him. She tries to talk to him but he isn’t interested in being that person she needs to talk to. Outside her window as she chats on the phone is the new guy from school hovering and watching her. Yes hovering. I can’t tell if he is good or bad. He’s kind of ominous the way he looks at her and then he just flies away. He’s got powers but will he use them for good or for bad?
Finally we end up in Cork, Ireland with a bunch of thugs looking for storage shed 9109 where a guy with a bad Irish accent leads the way? Nothing is in 9109, it appears to be empty and they are all mad. But wait! It is Peter Patrelli handcuffed to the wall. Those blokes want to know where the I-Pods (which I guess were supposed to be there) are? I want to know where Peter has been these past 4 months!! As they lunge toward him Peter shoots lightning out of his hands and blows a guy backwards. Hey, that’s a handy new power. I love his new haircut too. A nice grown up clean shaven Peter. He also has a necklace with the dreaded sign around his neck. Peter looks bewildered and he doesn’t know who he is! Is it a ruse or the truth? Does Peter Petrelli have memory loss? From snippets for future shows it appears that he does have memory loss and will do anything to get his identity back.
Until next time fellow ”Heroes” fans where we can be delighted by more of Mr. Bennet’s loser manager, Claire’s kiss from the new guy, Kensei’s discovery of his super powers, Maya’s and Alejandro’s journey to America, and Peter’s lost time.
© Copyright 2007 Blindigo Magazine | Article written by Niki Tschirgi
