(S02E06) "There's a storm coming Dr. Suresh." --Bob
Is Bob heralding the return of season one's magic? Save the cheerleader. Save the world. Claire is a cheerleader again. New York is burning, destroyed, evacuated (or whatever) again. Now all we need is Sylar to get his powers back. I can only hope that the overarching plotline will take us in this direction. It's not that I want to see a repeat of season one. I just long for the overlapping stories. I like seeing the characters all together, supers cooperating to save the world. It gives me the warm and fuzzies.
Peter Petrelli
Early on in this episode, Peter decides to go to location in Montreal, which he future-painted in the last episode. He takes his Irish girlfriend with him and by the magic of television they get from Ireland to Montreal in only one episode.
In Montreal, Peter finds the location from the painting and, inside, finds a mirror with a note addressed to him. The note is from Adam (probably Adam Monroe, the same name on the file Bob had during his conversation with Suresh). I am excited for another new character because I think this character will help Peter get back to his former self. I don't like Peter not having his memory; it doesn't work for me anymore. He had all this self-discovery stuff last season.
Claire Bennet & West
Nothing really all that interesting happened with Claire in this episode. Sometimes I feel like the writers keep her in to satiate the younger audience who appreciate her teen turmoil. Hayden Panettiere is very popular (a kind of nicer, more sober version of Lindsay Lohan). The puppy love with Claire and West plays well too. I know some people think it's dumb but I think it's high time that the only teenager on the show had a love interest.
Back to what happened with Claire. She didn't make cheerleading at the real try-outs so she fanagled her way onto the team by setting up Debbie Marshall (head cheerleader and terrorizer of lesser teens). Claire and West scared Debbie into thinking that a flying man killed Claire then tried to attack her. When Debbie told the police about the crazy turn of events, her stories were not well-received and chalked up to underage drinking.
I did like how Claire and West used their powers to exact their revenge on Debbie. However, they should be careful of such uses of their respective abilities. Being irresponsible with such extraordinary talents may land them in a heap of trouble...probably with Claire's dad. Isn't she supposed to be staying under the radar?
Monica Dawson & Mohinder Suresh
Mohinder Suresh brings Monica Dawson to Hartsdale, NY for testing at company headquarters. Just a quick side note: X-Men's headquarters is also in Westchester, NY. Do all supers come to train in Westchester? I lived in Westchester for a few years and I can attest that I have never seen a mutant or superhero there (even though the powers that be in TV and movie land would have you believe it so.)
Back to Suresh. When he is approached by Bob with a vial that will take away Monica's powers, he refuses to administer the shot because he 1. thinks it's wrong to take away her powers 2. is worried the shot could possibly kill her 3. has moral issues about using her as a lab rat.
While I was not surprised by Suresh's adamant refusal to give Monica the shot, I was a little surprised by Noah Bennet's telling Suresh to man up and do it. Maybe that phone conversation was just a little added suspense for everyone--Will he do it or will Suresh listen to his conscience? In the end, not only does Suresh NOT give Monica the shot, he throws a chair at the fridge which holds the rest of the shots (a very uncharacteristic violent outburst from the professor, I think).
And here's the most incongruous part of tonight's episode: After Suresh "quits" the company (note the bunny ears), Bob apologizes to Suresh, says that he has done things he himself regrets, and says he wants Suresh to stay with the company (not only because Mohinder is a knowledgeable professor who carries the cure for the superpowers in his bloodstream, but also as a sort of moral advisor.) Uhh, Bob is lying. But, since Suresh is not good with important decisions, he stays. Bonus: he now has that psycho Niki as his partner. But she's "cured." (note the bunny ears again).
Back to Monica Dawson for a brief moment. Bob takes her home and gives her an alibi, a dossier full of important contacts, and a video ipod. I am looking forward to next week when Monica knows how to do...well, everything.
Hiro, Kensei, & Yaeko (via Ando)
"First you show me that I can be harmed by no weapon and then you cut me deeper than any blade possibly could." --Kensei
Things finally came to a head with Hiro, Yaeko, and Kensei. Hiro helps save Yaeko's father but in his attempt to finish fixing history he listens to his heart and messes it all up again. After watching Hiro and Yaeko share a kiss, an enraged and heartbroken Kensei turns them over to White Beard.
I wonder if Kensei will forgive Hiro and together they will fight White Beard or if Hiro will have to fight both Kensei and White Beard in the coming episodes. Does anyone else think that Hiro will ultimately become Kensei ( not become the actual person obviously but take Kensei's place in the legendary samurai stories)? Hiro has already led Kensei through so many of his legendary battles. If it wasn't for Hiro, Kensei would be drunk and arm wrestling for money.
Sylar, Maya Herrera, & Alejandro Herrera
The annoying twins are back. I was so happy to have them gone last week. Tweedle Dee can kill people and Tweedle Dum can bring them back to life by holding hands with Tweedle Dee. I still don't understand where all that bad energy goes when he takes it in and saves her from destroying people with the black tears.
Probably the most important development with these twins is that Sylar convinces Maya to use her powers intentionally. If you'll remember, Maya has major moral issues with her powers. In fact, she thinks her power is a curse and is going to see Dr. Suresh (Senior) to fix herself. Also, do I detect a little romance blooming between Maya and Sylar, I mean, Gabriel?
After the dangerous trio cross the border, Alejandro gets into a fist fight with Sylar. Big mistake, dude. Didn't you watch season one? Oh wait, I forgot, you don't speak English. Speaking of speaking English, I bet he wishes that he knew what the heck Sylar was saying to him. Sylar's plans are to get his powers back then take Maya's. If he can't get his powers back, Maya is still a nice consolation prize.
Noah Bennet & The Haitian
This week we found out what trouble Noah and memory-stealing Haitian are up to in Russia. He visited the home of Ivan (a former employee of the company) to find out where Isaac Mendez's paintings are hidden. After threatening to take Ivan's memories of his deceased daughter, Ivan finally gave up the location of the paintings. Then Noah killed him.
Yep, that just happened. I thought we were going to see a softer side of Noah this season. The murder seemed so cold-blooded. Also interesting was Noah's piqued interest in Ivan's offer to rejoin the Company. Didn't he seem all too interested in the idea of not having to hide his family anymore? I thought he had sworn off the Company though.
The Paintings
After many rewinds and pauses with my DVR, here's what I got. Feel free to leave comments about what you think the paintings are of.
"What does it mean?" --Noah
--A painting of Hiro and Kensei fighting each other.
--A painting of Claire sprawled out on the high school stairs.
--A painting of a white hand with a vial (maybe Bob handing the shot to Mohinder?)
--A painting of a blonde girl banging on a window (Niki?)
--A painting of Peter looking in a mirror that says BioHazard on it.
--A painting of a guy with a broken nose and a gun. (Peter? Adam?)
--A painting of Noah on the floor with glasses broken and dead. A blonde girl being held or kissed by someone in the background. (Claire and West?)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-30-2007 @ 8:04AM
tiff said...
don't forget about Peter teleporting to June 15,2008 and New York looks destroyed again.... how many times can he save New York?
It was an okay episode, I can feel them ramping up towards action, but every time they went back to feudal Japan I found myself changing the channel.
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10-30-2007 @ 7:53AM
LC said...
I think the one with the bandaged nose and gun is West. Maybe he finds Noah and shoots him for what was done to him.
I am guessing that future NY was contaminated by Maya's power. Whether it was caused by her or a re-powered Sylar, I don't know.
I'll go out on a limb and say that not only can Kensei heal himself, but he probably can't age or ages real slowly and that he is the man behind the company, hence the Kensei symbols everywhere.
The scene with West flying after the cheerleader looked real creepy. I loved that scene.
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10-30-2007 @ 8:03AM
LadyOracle said...
I loved this episode, and am really looking forward to the next one.
From the previews, its obvious that the world is going to end by the heroes virus which has skipped over into the general population and became airborne. Chalk another one up for the Company ending the world. Ten bucks says Nikki is the carrier.
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10-30-2007 @ 8:05AM
tiff said...
Oh, and I guess the 93% has something to do with Linderman's .07 theory?
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10-30-2007 @ 9:04AM
Ivan said...
If memory serves me right, last week Noah and the Haitian were in Moscow (The Red Square), but events in this week's episode take place in Odessa (Ukraine).
I feel this programme would be ten times better if they got rid of all the unnecessary characters that only detract from the storyline, and focused on the few central ones. Personally, I'd be happy if we only had Noah as the unscrupulous guy who does what needs to be done, Peter as the holier than Jesus good guy, Sylar as the likable bad guy and a shady organisation that they all end up fighting in the end. That, plus Hiro for some light fun, would make Heroes the best mainstream show this season. But with all the characters I don't really care about it gets boring to watch every episode.
Of course, in the real world the producers would be crazy to give up the crowds that ex-Star Trek actors draw in, and especially Hayden Pentierre, with her newly acquired tabloid fame -- just the other day I saw pictures of her shopping for underwear, and apparently enough people will pay to look at them in a pulp magazine.
And I really don't know how American high schools work (from a social standpoint that is), but I find it hard to believe it's really as banal, trivial and downright ugly as some movies and series would like us to believe.
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10-30-2007 @ 9:25AM
tcc3 said...
Ivan, it is apparent that you did not attend high school in the US. =)
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10-30-2007 @ 9:32AM
Gill Garcia said...
I think the virus that Bob and Mohinder were talking about gets released into the general public. Mohinder eluded to that when he was in the heated debate with Bob about manipulating the virus. Since the office/lab is in New York, if I am not mistaken, hence New York gets hit with yet another tragedy that the heroes may be forced to get the city out of as LadyOracle had mentioned.
Now as to how the writers will get everyone to New York it would seem that the Wonder Twins and Sylar are getting there via the Mohinder thread. Monica/Copy Cat will most likely be there with all the testing/training stuff that's been going on and the rest of the gang, save Hiro will get there eventually whether it is through time travel as Peter and his Irish lass has done or they are already there. Hiro's part to save New York I don't see as he is dicking around the space time continuum. The painting with Hiro and Kensei having a duel, that's probably what occurs after Hiro wakes up and goes after Kensei for his betrayal of the Princess, her father and himself to White Beard.
How Hiro dispatches Kensei, that remains to be seen though we could be in store for a good "Highlander" ending with Hiro chopping off Kensei's head. Sure he can survive battles by being stabbed, but what happens if you cut off his head? Surely he won't grow another one back like that alien in "Men in Black"?
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10-30-2007 @ 9:39AM
Highlar said...
Does anyone else think that Claire took a step back and saw an uglier side of West than she has before? When she confronts him, and says that she can't believe that she went along with that cruel stunt they pulled. She felt sorry for the other girl not just being publicly humliated...but having it done in such a way that everyone thinks she was just nuts as well...seemed to really throw Claire off to me. And then she sees how West actually seemed to LIKE what they did to the other girl, to me, made Claire look at him in a slightly more twisted light than the golden halo she has placed on him so far.
As for the rest of the episode, great with developing the story. I don't think Sylar/Gabrielle is really falling for Maya, but putting the moves on her to use her until he can take her and her brother's powers. With them, I think it works the way it does because the power was SPLIT between them, being twins. The killing power and the healing part of it SHOULD have been in one person, but got split between the two of them instead, and only by the physical contact is the power complete and can be reversed....until Sylar gets them both.
I DO think they have a bit TOO much going on, though. Too many smaller threads unresolved while introducing new ones. Matt/Nathen vs the Nightmare Man went nowhere in this episode. Mohinder just seems to be a bit TOO naive still after all this time around the company/villians/heroes. Peter's "I'm so lost within myself" needs to get cleared up real fast, as like above says, his character has already GONE through that.
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10-30-2007 @ 9:55AM
etownmeg said...
I agree that Hiro is going to become the Kensei of legend or however this time travel thing works, but I don't think that Kensei is going to redeem himself. My theory is that Kensei is immortal and I'm betting that he is the Adam Monroe that Bob is worried about in the present. I also think that Peter, Adam, and Elle might have been together during the four month gap and it might have lead to his loss of memory.
The whole Claire/West cheerleader set-up thing was so lame. All I wanted to do was cringe; last year Claire was diving off of towers, standing up to Jackie in public, taking a stand against HRG, and, you know, went to NYC to help save the world, and this year she sets up a cheerleader just so she can keep seeing West on the sly? I think that Claire was at her best when she was with the other heroes (Nathan, Peter, Ted, even Sylar) and without them, she just seems whiny. And is just me or is it weird that, other than the pilot, Claire and HRG never mention the Petrellis?
Bob's trying to make Monica an operative for the Company; why else would he give her the iPod? I also think that the "cure" Niki got really only turned her into Jessica full-time. What better babysitter for Mohinder than the female Hulk?
Where is Matt and Nathan? When last we left them, they were doing something somewhat interesting in Philly. Go back to them!
The Sylar/Maya/Alejandro thing is slowly becoming interesting if only for the evilness that is Sylar. I swear, if it wasn't for Zachary Quinto, I would mute those scenes because they're painful in their boringness.
As for Peter...go back to New York and start remembering.
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10-30-2007 @ 9:58AM
justelise said...
@Ivan: Yes American High Schools are littered with their own versions of the classic bully (ala William Zabka who played the bad guy in Karate Kid and a plethora of other 80's movies), the ladder climbing shallow cheerleader type (who doesn't have to be a cheerleader, but shallow, money, and image obsessed chicks should feel free to apply for this role), the people who follow the bullies/cheerleaders, the people who aren't good enough to follow them, and the people who oppose them. Even though all of the kids in American High Schools don't clearly belong in one category or another, you can tell that these archetypes are caricatures of real people. Even in specialized (magnet) schools for academics these roles play out. There is something broken in our culture, and there are people who actively encourage their kids to act in these ways. Sad.
As far as your comments about getting rid of all of the characters that are non-essential... that makes absolutely no sense. How can our main characters grow if they are in a bubble and only interact with each other? How can new characters be introduced and old ones be retired/killed if they aren't interacting with people other than the main cast? If you limit the character's exposure to other new characters (even if it is fleeting), you will hinder character growth. The last thing we need is a bunch of people with such enormous power to be emotionally crippled and developmentally stunted. We've got enough of that on Gray's Anatomy. It'd just be messy with super powers, and plot advancement would take FOREVER.
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10-30-2007 @ 10:09AM
vacelts said...
I thought the painting of the guy with the guy could be Nathan. But only time will tell.
Not a bad episode in my opinion. It kept the storyline moving and gave us a few new things to ponder -- who is Adam Monroe, what was in the paintings and what's happening to New York in June 2008.
http://redlightnaps.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/heroes-the-line/
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10-30-2007 @ 10:18AM
Chris said...
Quick question about Sylar and the Tweedle Dees, How come there in a brand new Nissan and there sweating like it doesn't have AC. I understand its the desert but that makes no sense for them to be looking so greasy.
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10-30-2007 @ 10:43AM
lauch said...
So when New York goes, the world is in perile? Can't they use Chicago or LA or Seattle as the starting point? I understand that this whole thing started in New York, but there are other major cities in the world. Maybe they just like to save the budget by re-using the New York set. I'm happy I live in Ohio....no viruses here.
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10-30-2007 @ 10:43AM
khamel said...
heroes is quickly becoming unwatchable. there are a few good parts in a each episode but the first 7 minutes of this episode were some of the worst tv i've EVER seen. "extra-ordinary"? please. terrible writing.
this show needs a purge of all the annoying/boring characters and focus on the bennetts, bring back the girl who could change the world around her and maybe parkman's dad. the rest of the characters are crap.
if this show is still up against 24 i'm not going to fret about missing heroes anymore.
sorry fanboys, this is the sophomore slump.
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10-30-2007 @ 10:49AM
Ellory said...
This is the first episode of Heroes this season that seemed (to me) to be a real episode of Heroes. For the first time this year I wasn't looking at my watch or doing homework or something else. I was watching the show. Anyway, now at least we have our major event. Which is the virus, crossing over into the gen. pop. and devastating New York City. Anyone else see the St. Joan billboard in Times Square behind them?
Anyway playing Pontificate on the Paintings.... I'm having a hard time with the stairs painting... I mean thats definitely what it looks like but if it was of Claire and West's prank why didn't they just show it, that would be a gimme to the audience. It could have been a mistake but they purposefully skipped the stairs and went right to the vial.
I think whatever that glass building Peter is in front of with the BioHazard (as much as Lost would have us believe it, you don't put Biohazard or Quarantine signs on the inside) on it is a holding area for the infected. He has the "I'm about to go nuclear" look on his face too.
I think Nicky is pounding on the same building and that Micah is inside. So if Nicky breaks Micah free... there's your massive infection.
The vial is pretty much either the moment Bob offers the virus to Suresh or later when someone more deserving of having their abilities stolen from them is going to be "cured".
I think 7/8 may be Mohinder with a broken nose shooting HRG in 8/8.
6/8 is obviously Kensei and Hiro... following this I believe that it's going to be some kind of wacky nutty time travel device but Hiro is his own Great Great Great..... Grandfather. Kensei is the Assassin and maybe one of the original founders of the Company.
It may also mean that in some weird way Kensei is a link in Claire's lineage. Since we see that parents can pass their power directly down or at least in a generational gap type issue. Does that mean that Claire is crushing on her own Half-Brother since West flies like Nathan? Now I'm getting all kinds of weirded out because who knows? who knows what is going on?
But for the first time this season I can truly say...I don't know what's going on but something is definitely happening on this show.
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10-30-2007 @ 11:09AM
Dozus said...
Anyone else notice that HRG started in Odessa, TX, and is now in Odessa, Ukraine? It probably doesn't mean anything, but it was a curious detail.
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10-30-2007 @ 12:03PM
Jason said...
Unfortunately, I think the majority of you that are happy with this episode are forgetting something. The first 53 minutes of that 1 hour slot were TERRIBLE. Yeah the last 7 minutes was a return to season 1 form, but to say the stuff that came prior was good is insanity.
Take Claire and Peter Pan. This feels like the same exact story from last season, Claire conflicts with the head cheerleader and sulks with her outcast boyfriend. And then it just unravels to utter lunacy when they pull that very bad looking prank on the head cheerleader. That was just bad tv, there is no other way to put it.
Peter and the Irish chick. I have a love/hate relationship with this story. I really think this is 1 of 3 good angles going for the show right now, but wow if I don't hate the Irish chick.
Hiro/Kensei.....Kind of picking up steam but really? A kiss? And oh Kensei just happened to see! What a curvelball (I say that with 150% sarcasm).
Then we have Suresh. He acts all badass for a second, saying he's leaving, and then in the next scene he's the company slave again.
I don't think I need to even talk about the wonder twins. Yes, Heroes may start actually picking up steam with that ending, but this episode had more eye rolls then any episode this season yet.
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10-30-2007 @ 12:07PM
Jason said...
@ellory
"(as much as Lost would have us believe it, you don't put Biohazard or Quarantine signs on the inside)"
If you don't want the people adventuring outside you do.
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10-30-2007 @ 12:26PM
Odessa said...
I thought that we were starting to see some pay off from having to watch all those set up episodes. But at the same time there seems to be too many things going on at once. I mean what happened to Peter and Nathan's mother shouldn't she be dead by now or shouldn't someone else who is on the hitman's list? I mean one dead in the first episode and that's it??? It will be interesting to see if they ultimately tie this all together somehow. I liked this episode better, but I don't really want to watch an exact repeat of last season! Also I want to be suprised, not to have what happens figured out ahead of time.
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10-30-2007 @ 12:30PM
Cody said...
Last season we were led to believe that we were looking for a bomb, when actually it was one of Ted Sprague / Sylar / Peter. This season we're being led to believe that we are looking for a virus, which means it'll probably end up being the Wonder Twins.
Also, I just want to see some St. Joan ass-kicking, why they gotta play games with me like this week after week.
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