"Heroes": The Sun Rises on a New Dawn

Published: September 25, 2007 at 08:04 PM GMT
Last Updated: October 16, 2007 at 08:04 PM GMT

By Lisa LaValle

Wow. After a summer filled with shows about karaoke and fraternity parties, the season premiere of Heroes reassured me of something I'm always glad to remember each fall: TV can be awesome. Come on now - subtitles from not one but two foreign languages, samurai swords, bleeding eyeballs, someone locked in a storage facility in Ireland for who knows how long... All of that on one show on network television? You betcha. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to season two of Heroes.

I don't know where to start, so let's begin at the beginning: A Mohinder voiceover! Oh, how I've missed them! As usual, I'm not sure if he made any sense whatsoever, but he's in Egypt giving a speech about the virus that killed his sister and was in the process of killing little Molly Walker last season. After his speech, he's confronted by a nerdy-looking stranger who offers him a job. Mohinder first decides to shove him against a wall but then agrees to have a drink with him. Turns out he's part of "The Company" - which we remember from season one as the alliance of all the older heroes like Mrs. Petrelli and Mr. Nakamura - and our friendly stranger just wants to help Mohinder "protect" people with special abilities. Mo agrees to let the Company fund his research because he wants to protect Molly and oh yeah - the stranger can turn things into gold, so there's plenty of money to go around.

Speaking of Molly, she's back and cuter than ever. Mohinder and Matt Parkman (yay! He's alive!) are raising her together, My Two Dads-style, in New York City. Parkman, a newly minted NYPD detective, picks Molly up at school and her teacher tells him she's been having nightmares (Molly, not the teacher) and shows him some creepy pictures she drew (again, Molly, not the teacher). Like any modern co-parent, Parkman is concerned and tries to ask Molly about her nightmares, which must be about the bad guy she mentioned last season who can "see" her, but she blows him off with an awesome 9-year-old tantrum. Just as I was thinking, "Hey, why doesn't he just read her thoughts?" Parkman does just that while she's having a nightmare later that night. He doesn't get much except Molly's struggling noises and a creepy voice saying, "I can see you." It was enough to give me the shivers, though.

Everyone's favorite regenerating cheerleader has moved to California with her dad, everyone's favorite paper salesman. Except now she's Claire Butler and she's completely ordinary in every way, and he works at a copy center for a class-A douche bag. Claire tries to lay low on her first day at her new high school but of course that doesn't pan out. She's got a weirdo showing up in her classes asking her if she's a robot or an alien, which is some high school cliché I've never heard of, and judging her whenever she follows the crowd. Come on man, following the crowd is what high school's all about! Claire tries to stand up for a nerdy girl named Martha (aren't they always named Martha?) but chickens out at the last minute from doing a back tuck flip thing so as not to stand out. What happened to her bad-ass-ness? Did she leave it in Texas? Apparently not - she does the flip after hours when the mats aren't there and her leg makes a bad crunchy sound but she fixes it up in no time. And whaddya know, weirdo kid walks in right as she straightens out her leg.

Mr. B (even though now we know his name is Noah, he'll always be Mr. B to me) is taking things easy at the Copy Kingdom - a little too easily according to his boss, who gets on his case for taking a long break. Mr. B doesn't mess around - he twists the guy's finger and tells him never to speak to him again. Since when is Mr. B so strong? And is that a scar going across the boss's forehead? If that's Sylar pretending to be Mr. Bennet, I will find you, Tim Kring, wherever you are, and yell at you because that's just mean.

Hiro is right where we left him, in the middle of a samurai battle in 1671 Japan during a solar eclipse. He stops time and some arrows to save himself and his hero Kensei by teleporting the heck out of there. Turns out that wasn't the best move - not only is Kensei really a white British dude who made money by protecting poor people, but Hiro has effed with history by not letting him save a village. He tries to set things right by talking Kensei into following a swordsmith's daughter (in the legend, that's how Kensei got the sword that Hiro would later covet), but Kensei knocks him out and he's left with a goat licking his face. Hard to believe, but we know he's been in worse situations and he'll figure it out.

The elder Nakamura is in New York City with Ando proclaiming that he will wait for Hiro to return from wherever he is. Mr. Nakamura might not have time because he finds a picture of himself with the symbol drawn over his face in red, meaning he will be dead in 24 hours. Nathan Petrelli and his mother are in Peter's apartment when she finds a similar picture of herself just outside the door. I should also mention that Nathan has a beard, a drinking problem, and one less wife than he did four months ago, and Mrs. P is saying Peter is dead but Nathan disagrees.

Now that we've caught up with our old friends (for the most part), let's meet some new ones, shall we? Maya and Alejandro may look like a Latino version of Peter and Claire, but they are a brother and sister on the run in Honduras trying to get to the US. We know one of them is special because Maya is reading Chandra Shuresh's book, and there is a big emphasis on Alejandro staying with Maya at all times. I'm thinking they're like the Wonder Twins and need each other to activate their powers, but that's not quite the case. After accepting a ride towards the border from an extremely sketchy truck driver and a dispute over the cost of said ride, the siblings are separated. Alejandro chases after the truck and eventually finds it… with the driver, his buddy, and all the passengers in the back dead with blood trickling from their eyes. Maya is crying on the side of the truck, but Alejandro makes her get in so they can make their way to the States. So what's her power? Making people's eyes bleed? And why is she so unstable when her brother's not around?

And now, a new feature of my Heroes columns I'd like to call The Last Five Minutes. We all know that's where a lot of important action happens, so I'll sum it up each week.

Mr. Nakamura and Ando are on the top of the Deveaux building. Mr. Nakamura tells Ando to go get him a sword as Mrs. Petrelli approaches with the matching half of his picture. Mrs. Petrelli says that since Charles Deveaux, Linderman, and her husband are dead, there are nine of them left (who is "them"? Good members of the Company or bad ones?). Mr. Nakamura says he has redeemed himself by helping Hiro, so how did Mrs. Petrelli help her son? By slapping Mr. Nakamura in the face, that's how. Soon enough, a hooded figure arrives and Mr. Nakamura says, "I never thought it would be you." They both go over the edge of the building just as Ando arrives, but he only sees Mr. Nakamura's body on the ground.

During a boring dinner at the Bennet house (with what appears to be a different actor playing Lyle, but I could be wrong), Mr. B gets a call from his old pal Mohinder. Turns out they planned on Mohinder luring in someone from the Company at one of his lectures, and Mr. B tells him to keep him close because "you and I will bring this whole Company down." I love it.

Nathan is alone in a bar when Claire calls him. He barely says anything to her then hangs up and looks in the mirror... and sees a grotesque, melty face that more resembles Peter's than his own, mostly because of those pesky emo bangs. I'd know them anywhere. It took me until 9:52 to realize that we hadn't seen Peter yet, so at this point, I was worried, even though I knew Milo Ventimiglia's contract was renewed. Also noteworthy: weirdo kid from Claire's school was spying on her through her bedroom window, and he can fly. Maybe they're related!

My worry about Peter's fate didn't last long. We're taken to Ireland where some thugs are skulking around a storage facility looking to bust into a certain unit. They find the right one, but it appears to be empty. Except for that superhero chained up in the back. It's Peter! And he cut his bangs! He seems out of it, but manages to do my favorite move - the throw-the-guy-against-the-wall-with-his-mind move - to one of the thugs. When the thug leader asks him what his name is, all he can say is, "I don't know… I don't know."

There you have it. The questions: Who did that to Peter and why did they do it? Is Sylar masquerading as any one of our heroes right now? Who killed Mr. Nakamura? Where are Niki, DL, and Micah (it seems like we'll see them next week)? What happened when Nathan and Peter flew into outer space? When do we get a peek at the new bad guy? Plenty to think about for the next seven days. In the meantime, I think I'm going to go out and buy a Nissan Rogue. I'm not sure why, but I really want one.

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