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 2
Volume Two: Generations
Chapter One: “Four Months Later…”
Written by: Tim Kring
Directed by: Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
(SERIOUSLY…)

“The sun rises on a new dawn, yet few of us realize the debt we owe to those responsible for this. To those who dwell among us, anonymous, seemingly ordinary, whom destiny brought together to repair, to heal, to save us from ourselves.”

So Season 2’s first salvo opens with a VO by Mo, and a montage of scenes from episodes past and presumably, future. (The final shot with Nathan is a doozy.)
Dang.
There goes my fervent wish that Season 2 would open with a shot of Claire finally doing some actual cheerleading…

As we play catch-up with our gang, Mo is doing a meagerly attended lecture tour, where he discusses the virus that took his sister’s life and almost did away with Molly as well, a disease that sounds like the Legacy Virus which first reared its ugly head in the X-Men comics and was showcased in the sad and sorry X-Men: The Last Stand.
At his Cairo stop, he is approached by the Company, who offer to fund his research. Here, we are introduced to perhaps the most intriguing new character of the episode, Bob, played by Stephen Tobolowsky (seen recently on HBO’s Deadwood), who apparently has the Midas touch.

Meanwhile, Parkman—having survived the four bullets of season 1’s finale—at long last gets his detective’s shield (utilizing his gift to help him pass his final test). He’s divorced now (I’m gonna miss Mrs. P, who should still be pregnant, wherever in the world she is; and as we discovered in “Five Years Gone,” Baby Parkman has some sort of power…) and playing Two Heroes and a Little Lady with Mo and Molly, the trio living in Mo’s apartment.
As all this domestic bliss is going on, Molly is having nightmares of that Sauron baddie she mentioned at the tail end of Season 1. (Said baddie even utters the oh-so-Sauron line, “I can see you…”) She’s drawing creepy kiddie pictures of eyes and that Heroes “godsend” sigil, and Parkman (and Molly’s teacher) are understandably worried.

Meanwhile still, while Daddy Sulu and Ando conduct a vigil at Kirby Plaza, waiting for Hiro to return, someone sends a death threat to Daddy Sulu.
Granny Petrelli also gets a similar death threat, right after she confronts a boozed-up and bearded Nathan—I knew that figure Ando bumped into seemed familiar—who apparently survived the Peter explosion, only to be left by his wife and kids. So he’s drowning away his sorrows, while seeing himself scarred and burned horribly in mirrors. (I guess with Niki in absentia, someone had to do the mirror thing…)
The subplot has a great scene between Daddy Sulu and Granny P atop the Deveaux building, and ends with Daddy Sulu apparently going splat on the sidewalk, without displaying any sort of power at all. (He says if he’s to fight, he would need a sword, which Ando dutifully scurries off to find, only to arrive just as the Mysterious Hooded Figure Known To Daddy Sulu pushes Daddy S off the rooftop. You’d think though that Daddy S would have been better prepared and have some sort of sword near him at all times… Or at the very least procured one on the way from Kirby Plaza to the Deveaux building.)

And meanwhile even more, the Bennets (now the “Butlers”) have moved to Costa Verde, California, where Claire has her first day of swimming in “the shark-infested waters of 11th grade.”
She’s told by Daddy B to keep her head down and to be completely anonymous and ordinary, understandably a very difficult thing, not just because of what she can do, but also because of her age. That sense of wanting to be the individual she so clearly is, but needing to appear mundane and mediocre (a “robot” instead of an “alien”) because the family is still on the run, is conveyed beautifully by Hayden Panettiere, and her scenes with Jack Coleman are some of the best the episode has to offer.
Daddy B is also bored and uppity at Copy Kingdom, where he’s no longer the Boss of himself, though he quickly addresses that concern…
We also get to see Lyle, Mrs. B (yay!), and Mr. Muggles (double yay!), himself also suffering in anonymity; in Costa Verde, no one knows he’s a champion. Poor Mr. Muggles…
As it turns out though, Mo’s lecture tour was designed to attract the Company’s attention, and the plan Mo and Mr. B have to bring down the Company kicks into gear when Mo takes the job offer.
But, unbeknowest to all, West (Nicholas D’Agosto; Election and Rocket Science), Claire’s classmate who seems to have an interest in our favorite Indestructible Cheerleader, can (gasp!) fly! Exactly the power Claire’s currently Boozed-Up BioDad has. Coinkydink? Hmmm…

All that, and we’re also introduced to siblings Maya (Dania Ramirez, from, hmmm, X-Men: The Last Stand) and Alejandro Herrera (Shalim Ortiz), who are apparently wanted for murder in San Cristobal, Honduras. They’re evading the authorities and trying to make their way to the United States, Papa Suresh’s book their only hope to help Maya, whose power seems to be uncontrollable and fatal, leaving corpses that appear to have bled from their eyes.

Oh, there’s also the Hiro subplot, which picks up—unlike the present, which does a four month leap forward—right where Season 1 left our lovable time- and space-bending geek, in feudal Japan, as he comes face-to-face with his hero, Takezo Kensei (Alias’ David Anders).
Sadly though, Kensei turns out not only to be a gaijin, but also a saki-swilling mercenary despised by the swordsmith’s daughter Yaeko (Eriko Tamura) who is supposed to be his One True Love.
Very quickly it becomes apparent that Hiro has to turn this lout into a hero and cause love to flourish between the two, or risk the integrity of future history.
Unfortunately, this subplot is the one that seems the most extraneous of this episode. I suppose that’s because, a) it doesn’t seem explicitly connected to all the other events unfolding, and b) it feels like familiar ground, the time traveler turning the historical figure into the one people will know in the future, as opposed to the fallible, and less-than-heroic schlep he finds.
I’ll give this subplot some leeway though, as a) hopefully, this will all connect with everything else later on, and b) I’m hoping they’re going to turn that familiar riff on its ear.

Of course, all this is going on, and we still haven’t seen hide nor hair of Micah (whom I miss) and Niki and D.L. (whom I don’t). I just hope that when they come on-board, the writers can juggle all of those plot balls without things getting too crowded.

Oh, and the cliffhanger?
It comes as no surprise (given that Milo Ventimiglia’s name was in the opening credits) that Peter—whom everyone thinks is dead—is actually still alive.
Of course, he apparently has amnesia (gasp!), got a haircut (double gasp!!), and lives chained up in an otherwise empty cargo container in Cork, Ireland. He’s also taken to wearing that snazzy Heroes sigil around his neck.
Repeat after me: Hmmmm…

Parting shot: A breakdown of this season’s schedule: the first 11 episodes in a row, then a month long break, the next 7 in a row, a 3-week break, then the final 6 episodes, followed by Heroes: Origins, the 6 episode spin-off which will introduce us to a half-dozen new characters. Origins episodes will be brought to us by such established names as Kevin Smith, Eli Roth, and Michael Dougherty. Boo-yah!
Also, when Origins was first announced, the intent was to do an American Idol, and get viewers to vote for their favorite character, who would then go on to become a Heroes regular in Season 3. I’m not certain that’s still exactly the way they’re gonna go with Origins, but that’s an interesting idea…

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