Tai Freligh reviews episode three of Heroes Reborn, ‘Under the Mask’…
It looks like we’ll be seeing all the story lines presented in the season premiere touched on in at least some manner in each episode. Whether they ALL tie together by the end remains to be seen. I like that they are using HRG as the lynchpin to drive the overall story, while drawing the other stories closer together over each installment.
We finally see Molly Walker reunited with Noah Bennett in Midian, CO, but she refuses to let him rescue her. Something must have happened during that time frame where he is suffering memory loss. While at a hospital to get Quentin’s gunshot wound treated, HRG is chased by security guards for something else he did in that black hole of his memory. After reviewing security footage, he discovers that he talked to Molly Walker at the hospital AND seemed to be teleported in time (Hiro!). The plot thickens.
After kicking a dozen guards asses, Miko is easily subdued by Harris, part of the security team for Erica Kravid, CEO of Renautus Group, who takes away her sword and locks her in a room to torture her. Ren arrives on scene to see her captured and also conveniently overhears where Harris, Kravid and the sword are going- Midian. After Ren rushes into the room where Miko is being held by Harris, she uses the distraction to cut off Harris’s arm and escape. They decide to head to Colorado to retrieve the sword. Meanwhile, back in the room we see that Harris can clone himself. Gross! This guy is bad news.
Joanne and Luke continue their journey to kill EVOs, tho Luke is having second throughts…LOTS of second thoughts, but Joanne remains cold as ever. Surprise! Luke has powers! Everybody secretly is an EVO! He can’t tell Joanne, so what will he do? I despise this story line, but will hold judgement until I see where they are going with it.
Carlos is tracking down the dirty cop and taking on the mantle of El Vengador. He warns the underground group that they are being tracked before getting in a fight with the cop, who, surprise, has powers! Carlos barely escapes with his life. What ARE his powers anyways? He didn’t seem to have anything useful to prevent his beatdown by the super strong dirty cop.
Tommy is having typical boy issues- he wants to be popular, he wants to hang out with the cool guys, he just wants to be normal. His mother doesn’t want him leaving the house, but he uses his powers to anyways and becomes the life of the party by stealing beer for the jocks. Emily is not impressed. Hey- there’s weird penny guy watching him from across the street. Mom shows up and puts a gun to his head. They know each other and he says he’s protecting Tommy and that he will be needed soon. She doesn’t care and grabs Tommy and they take off in her car, on the run again it seems…just when they seemed to be fitting in. They run a red light and somebody crashes into them…most likely on purpose. Yikes!
Meanwhile, back at Renautas HQ, Erica Kravid announces the launch of EPIC, an EVO tracking system to identify hostiles and subdue them. EPIC is powered by the processor, which it turns out, is Molly Walker strapped to a table. HRG is there and vows to save her. Out in the Arctic, the mystery girl continues to use her powers to try and hold something back from happening in the sky and now she has a companion with her- an invisible woman telling her to hurry. She’s not kidding- Kravid has a team out in the Arctic who now have EPIC glasses and can start tracking her because the “processor” is online. Nobody has a problem with Renautas deciding what the definition of a “hostile EVO” is? No one is concerned about them tracking every single EVO in the world? I hope they explore the ramifications of this announcement over the course of the season.
Once again, Heroes Reborn tackles multiple story lines in a single episode and makes small plot advances for some of them and major reveals for others. If they can’t wrap all these plots up in a nice bow by the season finale, they are going to have some seriously upset fans, especially fans of the original show who never got closure from the unceremonious way the original show ended and are looking to Heroes Reborn to give it to them. I give this episode a score of 8 out of 10, an improvement over last week, but still needing work.
Official Episode Synopsis: HRG and Quentin unearth clues from Primatech’s past, while Luke and Joanne continue their deadly vendetta and Miko fights a formidable foe.
Heroes Reborn airs on Thursday nights at 8pm EST on NBC.
Tai Freligh
(Article originally appeared on Flickering Myth)