If “Heroes” was a proper comic book, we’d be holding a brand new #1 issue in our hands. After a 4-month break, during which time the show’s cast and crew did precious little resting, “Heroes” made its return to the Monday-at-9PM timeslot, and the results were…not bad. Those who’d been waiting all summer for a fix no doubt enjoyed seeing the old gang return, but anyone who’d been psyched to see the introduction of the season’s new characters might’ve left a bit underwhelmed.
So Suresh has been lecturing to less-than-full houses about a virus or plague that’s going after the world’s “heroes,” but he’s apparently been doing so as part of a plan that’s been devised by HRG to bring down his former employers. Don’t know much about the plan, but if it involves bringing Stephen Tobolowsky onto the show, I’m behind it 100%. Tobolowsky plays a guy who offers up an equivalent of the “who watches the watchmen” argument to Suresh when discussing how they chose to take down Sylar, which is interesting…but it’s not as interesting as the fact that Tobolowski’s character seems to have the Midas touch, which has really got to mess with the world’s economy if he’s using it in anything approaching a prolific manner…but, sorry, I’m taking this thing too seriously again. Let’s raise our spirits, then, by pretending that, next summer, Suresh, Matt, and Molly are going to be starring in NBC’s latest sitcom revival, “My Two Dads 2008.” (Seriously, that’s the first thing I thought when I realized that the trio were sharing Suresh’s apartment.)
Speaking of Matt, what the hell happened to that guy over the course of the last four months? Last time we saw him, he was married and his wife was pregnant; now, he’s divorced, there’s no mention of his wife, and he’s living with an Indian scientist and a little girl? (Actually, I was kidding about the whole “My Two Dads” revival, but now that I see it written down, maybe we do have the workings of a pretty good sitcom premise here!) Oh, well, at least he’s back on the police department. Shame about the chick living with him, though; Molly’s clearly got some major issues, and they’re almost certainly the result of the individual whom she referenced at the end of last season as being worse than Sylar.
As far as the new kids, Maya and Alejandro (who, thanks to my 2-year-old daughter’s viewing habits, I will almost certainly end up referring to as Maya and Miguel before the season’s out), here’s all I have to say: why is it that Hiro and Ando can speak in subtitles and score some of the funniest and most clever lines in the series, yet this brother and sister team get saddled with nothing but expository cliches? Not that Maya’s uncontrolled power isn’t intriguing, especially since it clearly cuts a mighty wide swath when the on-switch is clicked, but that’s the only thing even vaguely interesting to have come out of their initial episodic appearance.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Claire went maybe five minutes, tops, before sticking her hand atop an open flame and basically doing exactly what her father told her not to do, i.e. draw attention to herself. Kudos for the restraint on not doing the cheerleading maneuver in front of the students, at least. Oh, and it looks like she’s already got herself a superhero stalker; better yet, he seems to have the same powers as her biological father, so I’m guessing that someone on the “Heroes” writing staff has a psychology degree and isn’t afraid to use it. Of course, the funny thing is that, although they’re not actually related, Claire’s adopted dad – the one and only HRG – clearly has some of the same problems when it comes to keeping off the radar. The whole HRG-working-at-Copy-Kingdom was clearly done solely for laughs, but, hey, they got ’em from me, so no complaints here; those scenes were awesome. By the way, I don’t care if it does look like he’s fighting on the side of right nowadays: that dude still looks shady.
So has Hiro completely changed history, or does he repair it the best he can, then sit down and write up the tales of Takezo Kensai himself to match his own memories? Hey, the dude’s a sci-fi geek; I wouldn’t put it past him. Whatever the case, it was pretty funny to find that Hiro’s hero was actually a white British guy. (For some reason, this made me imagine someone in 2450 watching “The Jazz Singer” and being horrified to discover that Al Jolson wasn’t actually black.) It’s nice to see that Ando and Hiro’s dad have built a bond in Hiro’s absence…though, of course, it’s a shame that the bond broke rather abruptly tonight. Oh, well: somehow, I suspect we’re going to be getting quite a few flashbacks this season which flesh out the whole back story between Hiro’s dad, Nathan and Peter’s mom and dad, and their whole clique from back in the day, which means we surely aren’t done with seeing guest appearances from George Takei.
Did everyone catch Nathan bumping into Ando on the street, by the way? Yeah, I figured, but I just wanted to be sure. So Nathan’s lost his wife and kids, become an alcoholic, and is seeing visions of a horribly scarred and disfigured Peter. Dude’s got problems. But, then, so does Peter. No, he’s not actually scarred and disfigured…but he does have the sort of convenient amnesia you only see on TV. Let’s hope the memories come back pretty quickly; I’ve never been a fan of that plot device.
So there you go: Episode 2.1 in a nutshell. Neither Niki or Sylar pop up, but they’re in the previews for next week, so it looks like those omissions will be quickly remedied. I wouldn’t say this week’s episode had me going, “Wow, thank God ‘Heroes’ is back!” I’m glad, of course, but there wasn’t any one moment which made me go, “Now THIS is why I love this show!” This week, it was just good to have it back…but it would be nice if we could get an “oh, shit” moment next week.
In closing, I’d just like to say that while it was nice of Nissan to present the episode with limited commercial interruption, I could’ve done without all the freakin’ pop-up ads for the rest of NBC’s new series. Yeah, we know: we saw the actual commercials. Now quit bothering us during the show.
