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Heroes episode 3.01 “The Second Coming“
Airdate: September 22, 2008
And you thought you couldn’t get excited over “Heroes” again, can you? The season 3 premiere proved everyone wrong that the show has lost its luster. Edge-of-the-seat suspense and cliffhangers from start to finish, that’s what we saw this Monday.
Four years into the future, and it’s still a darker world. Despite preventing New York from exploding and the Shanti virus from being released, the world is still on the brink of catastrophe. It may even be worse, as the heroes themselves have changed.
Volume 3 “Villains” opens with Claire Bennet confronting Peter Petrelli and blaming him for everything that has happened to them. What exactly that is, we don’t know yet, but Claire is pissed off enough to want to kill her uncle. Peter thinks he can still save them, he can go back in time and change the course of history. And before Claire’s bullets can hit him Peter went back to the day it all started. He killed the one man he thought started it all, exposing posthumans to the world – his brother Nathan.
Meanwhile back in the present time, Hiro Nakamura is as bored as ever as his father Kaito’s predecessor at the Yamagato Industries. What changed his life was a message from Kaito to be the “sentinel” of a dark secret – the half of a formula. “I don’t want to be a sentinel, I want to be a hero” was Hiro’s innocent reply. Little would he know that this formula would change everything. Unfortunately a speedster named Daphne stole the paper from Hiro. His father warned him the formula could destroy everyone if it falls into the wrong hands. Hiro goes to the future to see for himself what his father warned him about. There he sees his bestfriend killing him over the formula, and Japan explodes right before his eyes. Hiro is now on the quest of his life, as he chases someone who runs faster than the speed of light.
The suspense of the evening happened when Sylar paid Claire a visit. Like Hitchcock all the way, we can’t get our eyes off the screen. You just know what’s gonna happen but you’re still afraid to look. In the end, Claire gets her head open in a classic Sylar fashion. The line of the evening – “Claire, that’s disgusting!” when she asked if Sylar was going to eat her brains. He didn’t, but did something more terrible to our young cheerleader. Like an expert watchmaker, Sylar carefully took what he needed from her brain, and left her alive, devoid of any feelings of pain. Clair found out that her brain is unlike no other. She is “special, different”. She can never die. Now Sylar can’t too.
Mohinder’s discovery of Maya’s abilities lead him away from the gentle scientist on a quest for glory, to a man hungry for power. He discovers the enzymes that allow one’s powers to manifest. The contents of the adrenalin could give powers to anyone, almost instantaneously. Although Maya had warned Mohinder that the content of the syringe is evil, it can’t cure anyone, Mohinder still injects himself with it and he becomes Spider-suresh!
Nathan miraculously recovers from the fatal gunshot wounds and has an epiphany to do God’s bidding as one of his “angels”. Unfortunately, it’s not God who healed him, it’s Linderman. Is the mobster back from the dead? Mama Angela Petrelli confronts future Peter about her beloved son’s whereabouts, and future Peter blames her for all the chaos that the future holds. And yet, somehow, Peter’s intervention has changed the future entirely and something different is now going to happen.
Will there be hope? Maybe. As Kaito Nakamura said, “there is one hope – among you who carries the purity of blood, who carries the “light” to safeguard against the darkness.”
“Heroes” episode 3.02 “Butterfly effect” follows after. For the rest of “Heroes” season 3 episodes, get the scoop here.
Images: NBC/Chris Haston
I am SO glad Claire asked Sylar that question, because we’ve all wondered!! But that scene… I just don’t get it!
Why doesn’t she keep struggling? Why doesn’t she heal when Sylar tries to cut her open, like Peter did when he used Claire’s ability? Why have her abilities changed now? What is it about her ability that is so different?
Arieanna, that’s a good question about Claire not struggling, or healing instantaneously. (Writers? anyone?) Here’s my theory – Claire has always felt pain whenever she’s injured. Having her skull cut open like that would be excruciating so maybe that’s why she’s not struggling anymore, or she might have given up thinking he’ll kill her in the end anyway like he did the others.
Plus, she does take time to heal, like in season 1 when she was cut open at the autopsy table. Also, I’m not sure how much of herself can she actually grow back. I know her toes grew back but can she grow back the topside of her skull (with hair) if Sylar didn’t put her cap back on?
I think Sylar may have taken something from her brain that left her devoid of emotions or pain. Why she can’t grow that part back I’m not sure. Did her abilities to heal change, or did her immortality manifest when he messed her brain? Maybe. Someone (a fan? writer? somewhere…) suggested that with gifts like Claire’s and Adam, the more times they healed the better their bodies were at regeneration, thus become more and more immortal as years went by.