HEROES
Season 3 Episode 1
Volume Three: “Villains”
Chapter One: “The Second Coming”
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Allan Arkush
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So.
If it’s one of the things that would occasionally irk me about Heroes, it would be those scattershot episodes where so much was going on in the 40+ minute running time that the hour would end up featuring a host of headless chickens running about, and would ultimately feel unsatisfyingly choppy.
Well, despite creator Tim Kring being in the writer’s seat for this first half of the Season 3 2-hour opener, this is one of those squawking, stutter-skip chapters.


I’ll give Kring props for the reveal that the gunman who took down Nathan at Volume Two’s close is a scarred Peter from 4 years in the future, who’s about to actually be killed by that future’s Claire, before he ‘ports back and guns Nathan down.
And though that does open up a whole new can of worms, it’s still probably the best idea here…


I guess the hugest letdowns would have to be the Hiro-Mo double header of “how irritatingly stupid can you get?”
Hiro, despite being told by Papa Sulu (via pre-recorded DVD message) not to open a safe containing a secret that could destroy the world (why couldn’t it have been a nice secret?), does exactly that, because he’s bored, only to have that secret—one-half of a formula; could it be the very formula Mo uses to come up with his magic syringe? More on that later—stolen by some speedster (Brea Grant).
The annoyingly impulsive time-traveling idiot—did he not learn anything from Volume Two?—then travels to the future, to see how the formula destroys the world. And there, not only does he witness betrayal at the hands of a powered Ando, but also the apparent destruction of Tokyo.
So he returns to the present, now suspicious of Ando, and sets off on his newfound quest (a quest he’d never had to have gone on in the first place if he’d only listened to Papa Sulu) to retrieve the half-formula.
Idiot.


Mo, meanwhile, apparently having grown tired of the Two Men and a Molly sitcom, shunts Molly off to God knows where (this happens off-screen, and we’re never really told exactly where she was tossed; Maya just claims that the youngster’s unfindable and safe now).
He’s then about to go jetting back to India (gods, does this man have no conviction?) when Maya almost does him in with her bleeding eyes bit, though she calms down before anything permanent happens.
This serves up a “Eureka!” moment for Mo, and he realizes that the key to the powers are in the adrenal glands, and not the blood, as postulated by Papa Suresh.
So he tests his theories, and voila, cobbles up a serum in a syringe that he claims will give a normal human powers! (So much for trying to figure out how to take away Maya’s powers… Couldn’t he have just tweaked one of those Company serums which could take away powers, like the one they used on Nikki last season? Make one that didn’t have that nasty side-effect of a little case of death?)
And after rambling on about breakthroughs and quantum leaps in science and the advancement of the species and “if only I had powers I might have been able to save my father,” Maya realizes that Mo could be getting that Mad Doctor gleam in his eye, and tells him to destroy whatever’s in the syringe.
We see idiot Mo at the docks, torn, about to toss the syringe into the sea (where it could have ended up being washed ashore somewhere and shot up by some poor addled junkie). But of course, we all know he’ll inject himself with it, and he does.
And he’s about to get rolled by some punks, when he displays some superhuman strength (he crushes a punk’s gun), and does an athletic flip to his feet.
So now he’s got powers, despite the wholly irresponsible way in which he got them. (Did this man not see The Fly? Nothing good can come out of self-experimentation. And did he not hear a word of what Maya said?)
Idiot.


There are a number of other bits in here that are also rather annoying.
We learn that Sylar doesn’t eat his victims’ brains, but just seems to study them, looking for a particular part of the brain, and somehow absorbing his victims’ powers that way.
That in itself isn’t annoying.
Rather, it’s how exactly did Sylar find Claire in Costa Verde? Why did Claire think that doing the Halloween bit and hiding in a closet would keep Sylar out? And why the hell didn’t he just TK the damned closet doors open?
And of course, Sylar figures out his next step by rifling through some very important-looking files that Mr. Bennett left behind, which are now in a conveniently-labeled box on the kitchen counter.
Ay, madre de Dios!


At any rate, we find out that Claire is different and special, and that she may very well be immortal, as Sylar apparently now is, as well (having successfully absorbed her powers).
We also find out that Linderman is alive, and is responsible for healing Nathan (yes, Nathan doesn’t die here, just as he didn’t die as a result of Volume One’s cliffhanger).
We also find out that someone who looks exactly like Nikki/Jessica (yes, Ali Larter is still in the building), yet named Tracy, is showing interest in the revived Nathan (who’s now spouting some blather about divine intervention and being God’s angel). Naturally, we first see this Tracy person wearing some sexy bedroom thingie.
Sigh.


And we have the scarred Peter-from-the-future somehow shunting the real Peter’s consciousness into some powered goon who’s incarcerated in Primatech’s Level 5.
At least, I think that’s what happened.
But if so, where’s the real Peter’s body?
And why is Mr. B in a cell? I was led to believe that at the end of Volume Two, he returned to the Company’s fold, in his previous capacity of operative.
What gives?


I was happy to see Cristine Rose though, and Mama P reveals that her power was indeed the dream bits, which Peter inherited.
Confronting the scarred Peter-from-the-future (who gunned down Nathan because supposedly, that moment when the world was told about the existence of powered individuals, was the moment his future went to sh!t), Mama P claims that now, this is a different timeline, all thanks to scarred Peter-from-the-future’s shooting of Nathan.
Hrrmmm.

I was also happy to see Ashley Crow, though that was for the briefest of moments, as she enters with Lyle to find a bloodied Claire…
Hopefully we see more of her in the second hour.

Oh, and Parkman gets ‘ported off (by scarred Peter-from-the-future) to some out-of-the-way wilderness with an apparently new Heroes–related symbol, which appears to be a globe that’s cracking, or breaking, with stuff gushing out of it.
We also see that symbol as graffiti in the Mo-gets-powers scene.


I dunno. There’s a lot in this hour that doesn’t feel right somehow.
Part of it is the sheer number of characters battling it out for screen time, yes, but I think part of it is the writing too.
I can’t recall a single moment here that can come close to many of the truly excellent and moving bits in the Heroes pilot. The Tim Kring that wrote that chapter doesn’t seem to be the same Tim Kring who wrote this one.
And, overused as it is, I love Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” but here, it just seems like the easy, lazy way out.
Why couldn’t we have just had one of Mo’s poignant voice-overs instead? (I am aware there are some critics of those bits, though I’m generally not one of them.)

At any rate, I’m looking forward to the second half of the season opener, if only because I’m hoping things pick up considerably, and the show gets back on track…

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com, ew.com, latimes.com, and gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Eleven: “Powerless”
Written by Jeph Loeb
Directed by Allan Arkush
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So this is a far more effective volume ender than last season’s Kirby Plaza showdown, but that’s getting ahead of myself…

Let’s kick off with Peter and Hiro’s face off, as they argue back and forth about whether Kensei/Adam is a goodie or a baddie, till Peter zaps Hiro unconscious.
K/A then takes his sword back…

But first…
Micah finally gets home to Niki but needs to rush back out again to save Monica. Of course, Niki being virused and all, doesn’t have her super strength at the moment, so Micah ropes her in to drive. (Though can’t he just “tell” a car to drive him wherever he wants to go?)
Using his cell phone to locate Monica’s cell, Micah and Niki track Monica down to the shop that the hoods who’ve taken her have been hired to torch. (Thus, St. Joan is about to be burned at the stake in New Orleans…)
They get there just in time for Niki to pistol whip the fleeing hood, and rush into the burning store to save Monica.
But Niki’s powerless at the moment, and though Monica gets out, the shop explodes, apparently taking Niki with it…

Back at the Company, Bob is ticked off with Elle and blames her for Claire’s decision to go whistle blower on their a$$. Bob suspends her from any more field duty, so Little Miss Sociopath turns to Mr. B in his cell.
I was never really a Veronica Mars fan, but the scene between Kristen Bell and Jack Coleman, particularly the beginning of it, with Bell’s fidgety eyes following the ball, is great.
Elle asks Mr. B to tell her what Bob did to her when she was just a little girl, and he begins to, but Bob arrives and tells Mr. B that the Company will have to do something to stop Claire from going public…

… which she’s busy preparing for, putting together all the files Mr. B amassed regarding the dastardly deeds of Bob et al.
Mrs. B tries to convince her otherwise, but Claire has her mind set. Even West tries to tell her he prefers his secrets rather than this going public deal. So Claire gives Flyboy his file, and the break up is official.
It looks like Claire’s got something new to cry about, when who should walk through the door but… Mr. B!
With the Bennets alternately relieved and confused, Mr. B drops the bomb. Claire’s plan to expose the Company’s misdeeds is “unacceptable.”
Instead, he’s made a deal: his family gets to live a quiet, normal life (the only thing he’s ever really wanted for them), and he comes back into the Company’s arms.
Mr. B doesn’t stick around for any discussion. He steps out the door, and tells Bob, “It’s done.”

And even as Mr. B leaves home, the man who shot him dead, Mo, arrives home, to find Maya cooking breakfast and Sylar powerless.
(So I’m wearing the dunce cap this time out, as I really thought Sylar was temporarily powerless due to the trauma his body underwent from the Kirby Plaza wounds. I should have suspected that the Company had actually injected him with the virus. With that turn of events though, why didn’t they just kill him when they had the chance, given how dangerous he’s proven to be… I mean, if he’s gonna die from the virus anyway, right? And actually, while on that train of thought, they should have just killed Kensei/Adam too. Just taken his blood and killed him a long time ago…)
Okay, sorry for the cold blooded digression. I should just take Bob’s job and be done with it.

Back in Mo’s apartment, it becomes all too clear to Maya that Sylar is not the Gabriel she fell for. And, having seen Mo’s data on his laptop, Sylar sees that the cure for the Shanti virus lies in Claire’s blood, and that in theory, this should give him back his powers.
So it’s off to the lab!
At the lab (which of course used to be Isaac’s loft, where Sylar ate poor Isaac’s brain), Mo discovers that Sylar’s been injected with the strain that’s killing poor Niki, and Molly helps Maya “find” Alejandro, only to realize that he’s no longer anywhere to be found, and that Sylar killed poor Alejandro.
So Maya’s about to get all black teary-eyed when Sylar shoots her. Then, before he gets injected himself, Sylar wants to see the vaccine in action, so he has Mo inject Maya first, and Claire’s blood heals her and brings her back to life, just as it did Mr. B.
Sylar takes that as his cue to scamper off with the other vial, even as Elle arrives and starts zapping.
(Elle, by the way, was snooping around Bob’s office, to find the files on her… gone. She then checks the surveillance monitors, to see Sylar terrorizing Mo. So off she goes to make Daddy proud.)
Sadly—and how many times must this happen?—Sylar escapes. With the vial meant for Niki.
Sigh.

Meanwhile, Parkman reports to Granny P and Nathan that Victoria Pratt is dead. (So that’s where Parkman was, while Molly was left alone to be used as a bargaining chip by Sylar… Bad Parkman!)
Nathan tells Granny P that Peter’s still alive, and that he’s apparently in cahoots with Kensei/Adam, as their fingerprints were all over the crime scene. Granny P tells them that they’re after the virus and that it’s in Odessa.
She also says that she actually helped K/A once (did she sleep with him too?), but stopped before it was too late, when she realized that K/A was mad, mad, mad. (And she wasn’t for wanting to blow New York up. Hmmm…)
Before they go, Granny P shoots off a thought in Parkman’s direction: if you can’t stop Peter, you may have to kill him. Bullet in the head. Only way to be sure. (Go, Granny P!!!)

Amusingly, we see the tail end of Nathan and Parkman’s flight to Odessa, as they land, and vow never to talk about what went on, ever again. Parkman also tells Nathan what Granny P “thought” him earlier, about just maybe needing to off Peter if he should prove a stubborn handful. Nathan says, “… nothing good ever came from listening to my mother,” and “… leave my brother to me.”
Conveniently, they touch down at Primatech just in time to be met at the door by Hiro. The three then rush in to find Peter having already TK’d the vault door open. Hiro tries to stop K/A, but Peter TK’s him, slams him to the wall, and looks about to telekinetically throttle him, when Parkman arrives and does the Jedi mind trick: K/A is using you, go deal with him.
But Peter fights back with his mind, and is quite literally sweeping the floor with Parkman’s a$$ when Nathan arrives and the brothers stand face to face. Nathan (bless his soul) talks reason to Peter, asking him, “Can you really trust K/A?”

While all that psychodrama’s going on, Hiro steals into the vault and has his own face to face with K/A. Heartfelt and bitter words are exchanged, and Hiro ‘ports them both away.* But even as he does so, K/A drops the vial containing the virus (which he was holding behind his back).
Luckily, Peter arrives in time to telekinetically catch it before it hits the floor. He then incinerates it between his palms, using Ted’s nuclear power.
Standing in a vault containing a whole lot of other mysterious items, the current generation realizes they’ve had enough of cleaning up their parents’ messes. Nathan decisively announces that he’s going public, about everything (ironically, what he once argued with Simone would be the wrong thing to do). He even tells Parkman to make sure people listen to what he has to say.
Of course, a hidden surveillance camera catches this pivotal announcement…

… and at the press conference, I get the sense of what’s about to happen as Nathan gets into a weepy speech, accompanied by shots of episodes past.
Just as he’s about to say, “I can fly,” he’s shot.
In the panic, we see someone walk away, though said someone is too far away to identify. (Parkman though should have been able to catch the killer’s thoughts, right?)

Granny P then gets a call on her cell, and she replies, “It was inevitable.”
She then says, “You do realize you’ve opened Pandora’s box, don’t you?”
End of Volume Two.

We then get a tease for Volume Three, entitled “Villains.”
Sylar injects himself in some back alley, like a heroin junkie.
First, his wounds heal, then, he uses his TK to pull an empty tin of spinach across the alley into his hand.
The big, bad brain eater’s back…

* We see later on that Hiro actually ‘ported Kensei/Adam into a coffin, buried in the same cemetery Papa Sulu’s grave is found. Once again, these people leave a dangerous fellow alive…
Will they ever learn?

Parting shot: So that’s it for this volume, and as fallout courtesy of the WGA strike, that’s it for the season too; Volume Three will be with us in the fall.
I’ll be back soon with the first installment of something I’ve decided to call In-Between Seasons, where I’ll give my assessment of a TV show’s recently completed season (including my thoughts on the finale), and give my two cents on where we should go from here…

(Behind the scenes images courtesy of gregbeeman.blogspot.com.)

HEROES
Season 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter Two: “Lizards”
Written by: Michael Green
Directed by: Allan Arkush
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
(SERIOUSLY…)

Okay. Let’s backtrack.
When the whole Takezo Kensei thing was introduced in Season 1, with Hiro being a time traveler, my first instinctive theory was that Hiro would wind up back in time and actually be Kensei, thus inspiring himself to be the man—and hero—he grows up to be. That sort of circular symmetry fascinates me to no end.
Then, I tweaked that theory when I began to suspect that Daddy Sulu’s power could have been immortality of some sort, and that he was incredibly old, and that he had actually been Kensei, and he was really telling Hiro stories of himself.
Well, as it turns out, my first theory was right. Sort of.
Back in feudal Japan, Hiro is forced to wear Kensei’s armour to rescue Yaeko, and in an interesting play on the conventions of masked heroes, refuses to take off his mask when Yaeko requests to lay eyes upon his countenance.
Hiro’s efforts though, are enough for Yaeko to be smitten with Kensei, and when she expects Kensei (the real one) to help her rescue her father, Kensei agrees to go along with the harebrained scheme hatched by Hiro (aka “The Carp”), a scheme which will turn him into the hero history purports him to be.
But in feudal Japan’s version of a drive-by shooting, Kensei is plugged with arrows and apparently dies. For a few seconds, I thought, that’s it? That’s Anders’ role in all this?! So Hiro really does get to be Kensei?
But Hiro pulls out one of the arrows, and, lo and behold, the wound closes up! Hmmm. One must keep in mind, this Volume is entitled “Generations.” (Though Heroes writers Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite seem to imply that identical powers do not necessarily equate to an actual filial connection.)

Meanwhile, back in the present, Parkman’s first case as a detective winds up being Daddy Sulu’s murder. And since Granny P’s fingerprint was lifted off the photo fragment found on Daddy S, Angela’s brought in. Granny P, canny little minx, not only twigs onto the fact that Parkman is reading her mind, but also reveals that (gasp!) she slept with Daddy S a long, long time ago*. (Man, somewhere during this Volume, we really better see a flashback episode with the young Petrellis, Linderman, and Nakamura… Lots’a hanky panky there…)
Even as Nathan arrives at the police station however, she is attacked in the interrogation room, by an apparently invisible presence. She’s saved though, and the mystery of who is targeting the previous generation of Heroes quickly takes center stage. (I have a preliminary pet theory of who might be the killer, but it’s too early to spring it, and I’m still trying to reconcile what we see of Daddy S’ death, and the attack on Angela.)
Also, Daddy S’ messy date with NY pavement was apparently one of eight paintings by Isaac that have yet to come to fruition, and that painting is the only one of the eight that HRG’s seen.

In other present day subplots, amidst a sea of questionable accents, the amnesiac Peter escapes his Irish captors, only to have to save Caitlin (Katie Carr, Hayden Panettiere's co-star in Raising Helen, where she incidentally also played a character named "Caitlin") from some dastardly goons. This complicates the problem that began when Peter was found in the shipping container that was supposed to have a whole caboodle of iPods in it. So Caitlin’s brother, Ricky (Holt McCallany, from David Fincher’s Fight Club and CSI: Miami), makes a deal with Peter: help us with this one small job to pay off these goons and get them off our backs, and I’ll give you this box that contains everything we found on you, “Peter.”

And while that’s going down in Ireland, Maya and Alejandro are coming ever closer to America. Here, we find out they’re twins, and that Alejandro seems to be immune to Maya’s power, and that he can somehow cancel its effects—“Wonder Twin powers, activate!”—thereby preventing the death of whoever is struck down by it. (The question that arises here is, does Alejandro’s power work on Maya because they’re twins, or can his power affect others as well?)

In yet another subplot, Mo’s first day on the job brings him to Port-Au-Prince, where a third superpowered someone contracts the virus. And who should it be but the Haitian himself! He seems ready to face the judgment God is meting out to his sinner’s a$$ and is initially unwilling to receive Mo’s help. He gets it anyway, and when he finds out that Mo is working for the Company, he steals Mo’s memories (or so they make it seem).
When Mo contacts HRG though, who steps into Copy Kingdom but the Haitian. Yahoo! Partners reunited! Part of their agenda: find the other seven Isaac paintings-yet-to-take-place. (Could they be paintings of the other murders-about-to-happen? Jeez, I hope they don’t bump off Granny P… You all know how much I love Cristine Rose.)

In other Butler/Bennet news, Mr. Muggles does indeed miss his time in the spotlight, in that other far away life in Odessa, as he indulges in some masochism by watching a dog show on TV. Poor Mr. Muggles.
Oh, and Claire’s new ride is stolen.
She’s also chafing under the “keep your head down” edict (with a great line with a lot of resonance and honesty: “I can’t not be who I am, whatever that is”; it sounds awkward, I know, but Panettiere pulls it off brilliantly) and is curious about her powers’ limitations and mechanics. This subplot leads to a scene that so outdoes the autopsy scene from Season 1, it‘s not even funny.
It’s a great, audacious bit that segues neatly into the chapter’s cliffhanger, as West witnesses Claire’s regeneration in action.
And when Claire rushes out into the driveway, West is gone, baby, gone. But Mr. Muggles is barking, up, at the sky.
Look up, Claire! Look! Up!

So this episode seems more cohesive that the season opener, or maybe it’s because I’m acclimating to each subplot and how it works in the overall scheme of things. (I’m also finding the groove of the feudal Japan subplot, which is the one I had the most trouble with in the previous episode.)
Of course, now I’m wary of the other subplots that have yet to kick in and how they’ll ultimately fit in with everything else that’s going on: there’s the still unseen Niki-Micah-D.L. trio, as well as Sylar, and the yet-to-be-introduced Kristen Bell. (Another Trek alum, Nichelle Nichols, is also still waiting in the wings.)
Again, I hope the writers juggle those balls well…

* They better not spring some sort of “Oh, by the way, the end result of my little dalliance with Daddy Sulu is Hiro,” ‘cause that would make Hiro half-brothers with Peter and Nathan, and a half-uncle to Claire, and things would get preposterously incestuous…

Parting shot: This totally escaped me before: the necklace amnesiac Peter was wearing—I’d completely forgotten that that was the Haitian’s!
Hmmm, something owned by the Haitian, on an amnesiac’s person…

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)

HEROES Season 1 Episode 17 (WARNING: SPOILERS)
“Company Man”

Though I’ll probably be accused of bias, I’m going on the record as saying “Company Man” is one of the best episodes of Heroes since the pilot landed us all firmly in the middle of this brave new chapter of serialized television.
Ted and a hesitant Matt taking the Bennets hostage sets the stage for us to witness HRG’s past, and an explosive past it is.
It’s fifteen years ago and HRG gets a partner, one of “them,” and look! If it isn’t our roguish invisible man.
HRG then gets to adopt a baby girl, thanks to… Gasp! Sulu is evil! And there! That little geeky Japanese boy! And that rooftop looks awfully familiar!!! Is everyone in this world evil?!?
As it turns out though, it appears HRG may be one of the least evil of the bunch. Eric Roberts (yes, Julia’s brother) appears as Thompson, HRG’s immediate superior, and a slimy superior he is (and we all know E.R. can do slimy with the best of them).
There’s more in the flashback, pivotal moments in HRG’s life, and even as we’re privy to that, there’s the whole tense hostage situation at the Bennet home taking place, a stand-off which results in the spectacular destruction of said home from Ted’s minor meltdown (the best protracted fx sequence of the show thus far).
And when Thompson sees evidence of Claire’s powers, all I could think was, “The f*cker saw! The f*cker saw! Now Sulu’s gonna take Claire away!!!”
Man, this episode wrung me out…
Written by Bryan Fuller (co-creator of the sadly short-lived and sorely missed Wonderfalls) and directed by Allan Arkush, this is one of those brilliant hours of television where everything just falls into place. Even the final step HRG takes to ensure Claire’s safety has a nice poetic irony to it.
Fuller and Arkush make it all look so effortless, and my proverbial hat is off to them. The tension is palpable, the performances are top-notch, the episode looks great, and the script is emotionally potent, firmly establishing relationships and conflict, giving characters we’ve already come to know even more depth and complexity. (Mrs. B is an eye-opener.)
Here’s hoping we see more of the Fuller-Arkush tag team in episodes to come.
Given how “Company Man” ends though, I hope HRG’s journey back towards humanity hasn’t been brutally truncated. I also hope this doesn’t mean Claire disappears off the board for awhile. Then again, we do have to get back to the other subplots, particularly Jessica off gunning for Nathan. (It has been two episodes since we’ve seen Jessica. And yes, I know I’m not her biggest fan—shhh, don’t let her hear that—but that particular dangling subplot is distracting.)
And soon… the mysterious Mr. Linderman…

(Originally posted 022807)