“Four Months Later”
TV! You’re back! Like sweet manna from the Heavens, I have new things to look forward to (and perhaps deride) each week. Heroes has led the vanguard, and I was fully willing to write it off … until a miracle happened.
Ned: Mohinder? Mohinder Suresh? Mohinder Suresh, I thought that was you!
Mohinder: Hi, thanks for watching.
Ned: Hey now, don’t you tell me you don’t remember me ’cause I sure as heckfire remember you.
Mohinder: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned… Ryerson. “Needlenose Ned”? “Ned the Head”? C’mon, buddy. The Company. I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing. Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Shanti a couple of times until she died of that degenerative disease you were lecturing on? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson, I can turn forks into gold? Well?
Mohinder: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: BING!
Mohinder: Bing.
Yes. Heroes Season 2 is amazing.
Spoilers Ahoy!
Four months have passed since Sylar somehow got away because everyone who fought him was an idiot. He gets one line in the opening character montage: “She’s a shiny new toy, and she’s all mine.” I’ve got no idea what that’s in regard to, though.
This summary is pieced together from my notes, but I don’t think I’ll miss anything too important. Mohinder is lecturing in Cairo to a disinterested room about having to fix the genes of those with powers. At the end, he’s collared by Ned Ryerson (Ned Ryerson?) and they go off for a little chat.
Meanwhile, Claire and Noah “Butler” are starting Claire off at a new school in California, where she’s almost hit by a wigger straight off. Also she’s given a new car, because the Bennets must somehow still be rich or something.
Hiro, on the other hand, hasn’t progressed four months. I suppose that parallel timelines don’t matter that much if he’s in the 1600s, anyway. He “saves” Kensei from the bandits who attacked him at the end of the last series.
Then we cut to Matt, who shoots everyone in sight in a very stereotypical “ghetto apartment” training ground. He uses his mind reading to tell who to shoot, and his exercise earns him a shiny new badge.
In Claire’s new class, where she’s been told to draw no attention to herself, she’s very busily running her hand over a lit bunsen burner. She’s a clever girl. The wigger from earlier, Wes, sits by her and asks if she’s a robot or an alien, blah blah, further lame “high school hierarchy” business. Turns out the class is a mixed biology and chemistry class, and that none of the idiot highschoolers know who Charles Darwin is. Claire does, but she chooses not to say anything because answering questions draws attention to oneself (seriously, is knowledge enough to get you hated in US schools? That’s messed up).
Then we’re introduced to the new characters of the series, from the most terrifying place on Earth – Mexico! Alejandro and Maya are aspiring illegal immigrants, which makes them the coolest things ever. Seriously, if you watch American TV long enough, you’ll see that Mexico is pure evil. Maya and Alejandro want to see Mohinder for some sort of miracle cure, so they hop on the illegal immigrant express. This is, of course, run by “we want to rape your sister” banditos. Hooray for Mexico!
In New York, Matt is Molly Walker’s caregiver. Naturally her teacher tells Matt that his single parenting style sucks and that he shouldn’t be looking after Molly – after all, a divorcée has no right to children! Poor Molly has been having nightmares which involve her drawing the “Godsend” symbol on her school work.
At the same time, Mr. Nakamura hangs around the Kirby Plaza waiting for Hiro to return, saying that his disappointment in his son was misfounded. When Ando brings him the paper, it has the black spot the Godsend symbol on a picture of Mr. Nakamura in it! He is doomed to die!
Cut to Peter’s apartment, bedecked with a bearded Nathan Petrelli, drunk off his face, but sober enough to tell Mamma Petrelli “You’re evil, ma,” after she blames him for ruining her plans. Joke’s on her: she’s been Godsent too!
Back in ancient Japan, Hiro finds out that Kensei is white and checks his glasses.
In California, Bennet (I can’t call him Noah, honestly) works in yet another paper store. Except his manager is a total dick. You can tell that he’s going to snap. But not just yet.
Ned Ryerson then tells Mohinder about the greater good that The Company works towards, and how murder is okay when people are dangerous powerers! Mohinder frets, and says that his research would take a lot of money. Ned of course takes this opportunity to turn a fork into gold. He’s a full metal alchemist, all tricked out and ready to fund some genetics.
It is then revealed that Mohinder and Matt live in the same apartment, raising Molly. This of course gave me echoes of slash. Molly argues with Matt that his mindreading to win a police badge, then yells at Matt that he has no right to know of her nightmares.
Cut to highschool, the house of pain for TV and movies! Some cheerleaders are bullying Claire’s PE partner, and challenge Claire to backflip off a standing thing. She says she’ll do it, then she doesn’t do it because she doesn’t want to stand out … so of course she looks like some punk bitch who’ll get called out by the cheerleaders. Of course, they would also hate her if she made the jump, so what’s the difference? Honestly.
Later, by herself, Claire does the flip without the protective mats, and breaks her legs. Wes chooses to enter just as she’s healing, and blah blah high school.
Then Bennet beats up his boss by turning the boss’s entire body by grabbing only two of his fingers. Bennet runs this ship, man, and he don’t take nothin’ from nobody.
Hiro calls Kensei a “gaijin” (yeah, they didn’t translate that. People who never watch any sort of sci-fi or foreign thing watch Heroes, so what do they make of that), and realises that he is a pretty lame drunkard dishonorable bastid at that. Hiro’s childhood is “raped”, as it were, except Kensei isn’t Michael Bay. Although that would be a great twist.
At the Deveaux building, Mr. Nakamura asks Ando to fetch him a sword. Then he meets Mamma Petrelli, who says “now there are nine”. Take that, Coalition of Old People! One of the nine is the killer, though. Mr. Nakamura apparently figures out who it is, but … well, he gets killed.
After a moment, Kensei starts, mercifully, speaking English. The blackguard. Hiro realises “oh no, I broke history” – that Kensei hasn’t saved one of his legendary cities and that he’s lost the love of the swordsmith’s daughter because of Hiro’s meddling.
We’re then confronted with a horribly awkward Bennet scene, where Mrs. Bennet loses anything that she had going for her (hey, remember how inconsistently written she was with the whole memory thing last season? That was … great?), and the only possible relief we get is that Mohinder and Bennet are actually a team, and that Mohinder was baiting Ned Ryerson so he could break The Company from the inside.
In Mexico, the Banditos try to rape Maya, but we learn that she is cursed with some sort of power that makes people die by bleeding out of their eyes. Do you really want such Mexicans in your country, America? Watch out! They bring fear and pestilence!
Then Claire calls Nathan, who has mysteriously seen a half radiated Peter Petrelli in the mirror of a bar, and we, the audience, are made party to the fact that Wes is watching Claire through the window. Then he flies away. I can’t really explain this, but Wes flies really gay.
Somewhere before all this we’re treated to Matt listening to Molly’s nightmares, and being told that the nightmare villain is far worse than Sylar. Maybe this villain has a father complex!
Finally, in Ireland we’re treated to the revelation of … Amnesia Petrelli!
The beauty of this summary is that you can pretty much see what I think. Matt Parkman is an idiot, Claire is a whiner, Ando is like Cher (in that he has only one name), and that we’re mercifully denied all Jessica activity.
I’ve actually got into trouble in the past for complaining about US high school in TV and movies, and that it’s presented accurately. I don’t want to see that kind of stuff, because it makes no sense! “Outsider in high school” in context of Heroes is just pointless when it’s next to a bigger story because I simply don’t care. Claire should have a rich external life and screw the rest.
My theories don’t run very far yet, but I’ll tell you this for nothing: Hiro is going to have to “become” the Kensei of legend. You know, self-fulfilling history. He hasn’t broken history, he’s actually arrived there to make it as it always was. You know, time paradoxes and all that. I’m not going to put high hopes into the series, and I think that Amnesia Petrelli is going to be stupid even if he never remembers who he is (actually, this is perfect because he can say “I think I can fly!” again and for the first time), but maybe I can let myself enjoy it. I vote Jack Nicholson for older villain of the season! Let’s work the whole Kubrick catalogue, Tim Kring!
