Tai Freligh reviews episode 8 of Heroes Reborn, ‘June 13 – Part Two’…
This week’s Heroes Reborn was another very satisfying installment, bringing a lot of answers to questions raised last week, but also to some questions raised since the beginning of the season as well as some “new” old faces to the franchise. I particularly enjoyed this episode and thought it was right on par with last week’s Part 1. Let’s get to the recap and review!
Last week’s episode ended with Future Noah attempting to kill Erica and Past Noah trying to stop him. Apparently smashing butterflies doesn’t concern him, but thankfully Past Noah tackles him and Kravid is only shot in the leg instead of in the heart. Quentin is there and he pulls her into the stairwell threatening to let her die if she doesn’t tell him where his sister is. She manipulates him into saving her and after letting him see his sister, but she has big plans for Quentin. More on that later. Caspar, the two Noahs and Molly Walker all go into a hospital room and fill in Past Noah. They decide to send Future Noah and Molly to find Hiro and Caspar will wipe Past Noah’s memory and leave him in the rubble. Future Noah and Molly depart to find Hiro (she can’t find him, but she can find his power- weird!).
Oh noes! Harris shows up and captures Past Noah after knocking out Caspar AKA Penny Guy. He holds him captive in a supply room until their interrogator shows up. Hello Detective Parkman, or should we say guy who sold out his telepathic powers to Renautas? He can read HRG’s mind and discovers that there are two babies that were born and he tells Harris who now knows there are two kids they need to be looking for. Just as he’s about to get more details out of Noah, a penny rolls in the floor and he steps on it, wiping out his mind. As Parkman and Harris get up to see where it came from, Caspar whacks Harris with his briefcase and knocks him out. In a moment of guilt, Parkman lets HRG and Penny Guy leave. Caspar takes Noah back to the summit and wipes his memory. We last see Noah standing in the rubble with no memory of what happened and then he starts yelling for Claire. Nice completing the time loop back to the premiere.
Future Noah and Angela along with Molly Walker find their way to Tommy’s house and Hiro, who is now older and wiser or at least has more grey hairs. He has raised Tommy along with his mother (the nurse from the hospital), but in this timeline, Tommy is fully aware of his powers and what he needs to do. This answers my question from last week- WHO is his father that raised him with knowledge of EVO powers. It’s Hiro. He knows that HRG is his grandfather. Before this touching family moment can linger, a Harris clone shows up and tries to kill them. Noah and Tommy do teamwork to destroy the clone.
While recovering from her gunshot wound, Erica gets a call from a distressed Hachiro who has seen on the news that Hiro is among those blamed for the attack. He doesn’t understand how this can be since he sent Hiro into the EVERNOW game and imprisoned him. She blows him off and thanks him for his service before hanging up and then telling Harris to “take care of the issue”. He gets suspicious and tries to log into his game and when he sees that he is locked out, he creates a backdoor and Katana Girl as a way to help get Hiro out of the game. When Harris knocks on his door, he knows that his time is up. He has already trained Katana Girl for her mission and let’s her know that she’s a copy of his daughter who died in a car accident. He gets to spend some time with her and get closure before he leaves with Harris, presumably heading towards his death.
Hiro and Angela Petrelli took the twins and transported back in time to 1999, but not to Switzerland, but Odessa. Bummer! Angela has a really swanky pad they can crash at in Geneva, but when Hiro tries to teleport them, it doesn’t work. WTF? Angela has answers…the baby boy is a Petrelli and like his father Nathan in the original Heroes show, he steals powers from people. Ding! This also explains why Claire died during childbirth AND why the two babies must be raised separately and kept apart until the time comes. Nathan/Tommy will absorb Malina’s powers and then it’s game over! Hiro must raise the boy on his own and Angela will raise the girl somewhere far away.
Future Noah and Tommy decide they need to pay Angela a visit, so they go to see her and Tommy spies on Malina from afar. Angela says that the twins cannot see each other or interact because of his powers. Angela has been having visions of the end of the world and the twins are there standing in front of a clock tower while the world burns around them. Soon the twins will need to be reunited, but not yet. She snaps a photo of Tommy (the one we see in Malina’s envelope in an earlier episode) and tells them to go. Time is short. They arrive back at the house, but have no time to settle. More clones are coming and it’s going to be a battle. Erica knows about the twins because of Future Noah’s butterfly stepping from last episode. Tommy sends Noah back to Renautas HQ in the future and then sends himself, his mother and Caspar to the future (the one we see him in when we first meet Tommy). Hiro stays behind to finish the battle he had in the parking lot in the future with the Harris clones.
Tommy, his mother and Caspar teleport to that small town we first saw them in. He wants to go back and help Hiro, but his mother knows he can’t risk upsetting the future. Caspar wipes his memory and then walks away. This explains why when we first see Tommy, he doesn’t know how to use his powers, why they are on the run and why Penny Guy keeps following them around to make sure he’s safe. Meanwhile, back in the future, Future Noah arrives back at Renautas HQ in Colorado and finds Quentin. Noah fills in Quentin on the twins and then conveniently goes to search for his gun, allowing Quentin to drop back and make a call to….Erica Kravid! TRAITOR!! He tells her that Noah will lead them right to the twins. I don’t know if he always was a traitor or if the butterfly effect from HRG shooting Kravid turned him bad.
We also see short appearances from Luke and Joanne and Carlos and Farah in this episode. Joanne discovers her bloodlust for EVOs after killing one that comes to thank Luke for saving him. Joanne is upset that Luke saved an EVO, but not their son. Carlos is seen taking credit for saving his fellow unit members in a Taliban attack, but really it’s his friend Farah who used her invisibility powers to save them, but doesn’t want credit because she’s afraid of what the world might think of her as an EVO. This explains why Carlos is seen drinking and ashamed in the beginning episodes of the season. We also see Farah hook up with Angela Petrelli and be given the task of helping Malina find her brother. Other minor notes- Erica used a shapeshifter to pretend to be Mohinder Suresh to make that incriminating video we see on all the televisions in this episode. Also, that woman paramedic who helps Noah get bandaged up? Yep, the woman that he is engaged to in the pilot, but which we never see again after Quentin shows up and sets him on a wild goose chase. Yet more lines intersecting between these disparate groups of Heroes.
Two excellent episodes in a row, helped by appearances from the original Heroes cast. More questions raised as it appears that most of the timeline from the pilot is back in place, but some things have changed. I hope the rest of the season can keep up the momentum of this two-parter. This episode gets a solid 10 out of 10.
Official Episode Synopsis: HRG, Hiro and Angela hatch a plan to thwart Renautas; Luke and Joanne begin their quest for vengeance. Christine Rose, Masi Oka and Greg Grunberg guest star.
Heroes Reborn airs on Thursday nights at 8pm EST on NBC.
Tai Freligh
(Article originally appeared on Flickering Myth)