Here’s a comic-book-movie analogy for you: if last week’s “Heroes” season premiere was “Spider-Man,” where we got all the back story and set up out of the way, then this week’s episode was “Spider-Man 2.” Or, in other words, it dispensed with all the boring crap and just set straight to kicking ass and taking names.
Note to self: if I ever get amnesia and end up tied up in the back of a bar in Dublin, remind me to answer all of my captor’s questions so I don’t get a fierce arse beating. Still, Peter managed a nice comeback right around the half-hour mark of the episode. And, y’know, it was right around then that I noticed something else: did Peter reform himself after he exploded and give himself a better build, or did Milo Ventimiglia just spend the summer working out? Either way, dude looked downright musclebound when he swaggered out of the back room. The whole “Peter’s identity in a box” thing seems odd, but I’m willing to wait and see how it plays out.
For one shining moment during this episode, you could almost believe that the Bennet family was normal…well, until Claire drove off to school, anyway. It was back to business when HRG and the missus started chatting about the death of Hiro’s dad. Looks like the search for the seven remaining Isaac Mendez originals is going to be an ongoing plot thread throughout this season. By the way, I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Bennett actually got a funnhis season that didn’t involve her being eccentric; I grinned when, after Claire reached into the boiling water to retrieve the wedding ring, she said, “We do have a colander, dear. No need to be flashy.”
It seems so weird that Ando and Matt have never before, given that we’ve watched a year’s worth of “Heroes” episodes involving both of them, but it looked like we weren’t going to get much in the way of development on the whole “who killed Mr. Nakamura?” storyline this week…but, then, there was the great scene when Mama Petrelli realized that Matt was reading her mind and promptly “yelled” at him, which was followed by our first official “oh, shit” moment of Season 2, courtesy of the unexpected attack on Mama Petrelli. The sudden cuts back and forth between the attack and Matt and Nathan running to try and stop it made for a highly disconcerting effect.
I wasn’t sure how the Hiro-in-14th-century-Japan storyline was going to work out, but it’s offered a nice mixture of laughs, romance, and drama. My two favorite lines from Hiro this week were “Have you seen a scary white man?” and “You could write about this in your history books! The Battle of Twelve Swords, that’s a good name!” I wasn’t surprised that Hiro took on his hero’s identity, but I was shocked both by Takezo taking the two arrows to the chest, then dying, then being brought back to life.
Claire’s clearly decided to come out of the closet as a member of the intelligencia. Too bad she lost most of her new credibility by getting her car stolen. D’oh! Although she’s coming across as really naive this season – given everything she saw and experienced last year, could she be at least vaguely subtle and not, say, loudly yell questions about her superhuman abilities in the back room of a copy store? – I have to say that I like the idea of her being interested in the scientific aspects of her gifts. (The toe scene was Season 2’s second “oh, shit” moment, by the way…and, no, I’m not planning to keep a running count for the rest of the year.) I’m not nearly as enamored, however, of the rapid development of the storyline with her teenage Hero stalker, but maybe it’ll grow on me.
The storyline with Mohinder, Stephen Tobolowsky, Molly, and the virus is actually probably the least interesting of the new season…well, except for Mohinder’s little jaunt to Haiti this week. At first, I thought, “Wow, another Haitian Hero? Are we getting ready to meet Cousin Voodoo…?” But, no, it was the same ol’ memory-wiping Haitian we’d come to know and love last year, who’d apparently gone home to Port-au-Prince after all the nasty events of last season. His sad smile when he said, “There’s always a company,” was a particularly nice, subtle moment…but it couldn’t match HRG’s grin when he shook Brother Voodoo’s hand and said, “Welcome to Copy Kingdom.”
Someone over at NBC needs a good ass-whipping for faking us out with the suggestion in last week’s preview that we’d be seeing Sylar and Niki this week, so we’re taking it with a grain of salt, but, again, it looks like we’ll be seeing them next week.
