Tai Freligh reviews the tenth episode of Heroes Reborn, ‘11:53 to Odessa’…
So this week’s episode of Heroes Reborn was the mid-season finale. It felt a little uneven and not nearly as epic as a finale should feel, but it was decent. There are a few reveals along with new questions which will be sure to frustrate us as we wait until January for the last three episodes. Let’s get to the recap and review!
We pick up with Noah and Malina leaving the ice cream parlor and running into Luke. Luke has had a change of heart and wants to continue to help Malina find Tommy, but HRG is having none of it and rejects his help. He takes off with Malina and is followed by Luke, who approaches them again when they stop at a gas station and makes his pitch again. And again, he is rejected. Luke is really starting to creep me out at this point. Lay off, stalker dude! Noah and Malina get back on the road again until they hit a traffic blockage. There is a giant crazy storm that is throwing cars around and freaking people out.
Malina gets up on a truck and uses her powers to stop the storm. Yay! People should be grateful, right? Nope. They are pissed and think that she caused the storm. So much so that some of them pull out weapons and threaten to harm her. Luke shows up just in the nick of time with his fire hands to stop them, but they need to run. Major stalker syndrome here, dude! Malina tries to find HRG first and is told that a car crashed right where he was. She looks around the car and can’t find him…only his smashed glasses and resigns herself to leaving with Luke. Meanwhile, we had previously seen a dark suit-coated arm reach out and teleport Noah right before the car landed on him. Is that Hiro? Or is it Tommy? We don’t know who it is or where they took Noah, but he’s safe as far as we know. If it is Hiro, then he’s alive and somehow has his powers back? Last we saw of him, he was preparing to fight the Harris clones at Tommy’s house.
Tommy wakes up at Erica Kravid’s house with no memory of the creepy Psycho dinner they had. He has stitches in his neck and cant’ teleport away. Erica has Phoebe at the house to keep him there. She gives him the evil villain speech about how his parent’s never told him he was adopted, how he’s supposed to find his sister and save the world. She also drops the news about the end of the world and how he’s the only one who can re-open the bridge between now and the future where she has been building a colony to send people to to survive. He doesn’t believe her, so she has him teleport them to the future along with Phoebe and Quentin to show him the colony. They tour the facilities and he points out that this won’t be big enough to house 70 billion people, but she brushes it off saying it’s one of many that she will be building. Are you really that wet behind the ears Tommy?? He says he’s on board and she trusts him enough to have him send Phoebe and Quentin to the present time while they remain in the future.
At the end of last week’s episode we saw that Miko was in the future. She breaks into the facility, kicking major guard ass until she makes it to a room where she sees herself strapped to a table. Her father is there and he explains to her that Renautas has kept her alive. He says he has a new mission for digital Miko and that it is to save the new master of time and space once again. He sends her off once more. Somehow Miko finds the room where Erica and Tommy are and eavesdrops on their conversation. Once she sees Tommy teleport the Evil Twins, she knows she has to save him. She leaps over the balcony and says she’s here to save him. He grabs he and teleports away, leaving Kravid stuck in the future! Yay!!
Back in the present, Ren is seeing ghosts…or more accurately, shogun warriors. He follows the giant warrior across town to a dojo where students are practicing. The warrior reveals himself to be…a construct of Hachiro Otomo who tells him he needs to find a way to get to the future to help Miko save the world. He conveniently sees a bus with the Renautas Gateway on it and hops on it.
The Hero Truthers arrive outside Sunstone Manor with Taylor. They devise a plan to have the shapeshifter pretend to be Erica and get inside the compound to try and find Mica. Meanwhile, Matt Parkman is interrogating Farah and brings out the big guns with Carlos, who he now knows loves her. He threatens to kill Carlos and so she finally agrees to talk. Parkman has her put in a room and prepped with drugs that keep her unconscious. Back in his holding room, Carlos has grown a set of balls and gets his courage back. He overpowers a guard and makes it to the room where Farah is and frees her. She won’t wake up with slaps, so he kisses her. Ewww!! Seems like it’s a Sleeping Beauty moment, but it comes off as creepy. She says the slap worked, so ouch. They run out of the room and down the hallway.
Taylor and the shapeshifter meet Parkman in his office, but he quickly sees through their scheme. Lucky for them, Taylor has a taser and knocks Parkman out. She leaves the shapeshifter there and goes off to try and find Mica. Afterwards, Harris shows up in Parkman’s office and seeing two Parkmans immediately shoots one of them. Lucky for Matt, it’s the right one, but he’s freaked out. “How did you know that wasn’t me?”. “I didn’t” replies Harris. Parkman is starting to get an inkling that Kravid really doesn’t need him and it’s further confirmed when he “hears” the Harris clone thinking about how expendable he is. He leaves and goes to a room with a giant cube in the middle and….a grownup Mica who is drugged and out of it! Parkman wants to know if he’s on the list of people going to the future. He wakes up Mica and has him confirm his name is on the list. Doubts are creeping in for him, but he is relieved to see his name on the list. As an aside, grownup Mica is the same actor who played him as a child in the original Heroes. Too cool!
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Taylor runs into Carlos and Farah and quickly convinces them that she’s a good guy. They head outside and meet up with Rene and the other Truthers. They need to come up with a plan to get Mica out, but before they can….we see a LOT of Harris clones circling in with nowhere for them to go. The episode leaves us with them splitting up and running away.
So, the end of the episode leaves us with a bit of a cliffhanger. Who has Noah? How will Taylor and the Hero Truthers overcome the Harris clones? Where did Miko and Tommy go? Where are Luke and Malina headed? Will Ren meet up with Miko? Where did Joanne go with Harris at the end of last week’s episode? This episode was pretty solid- uneven in parts, but just never seemed to reach the level of epicness that a mid-season finale needs to have. This episode gets an 8 out of 10.
Official Episode Synopsis: HRG, Malina and Luke race to find Tommy before Erica can exploit him for her master plan. Ren’s quest to reunite with Miko reveals a surprising secret.
Heroes Reborn usually airs on Thursday nights at 8pm EST on NBC, but is on hiatus until January 7th.
Tai Freligh
(Article originally appeared on Flickering Myth)